The Canaanite Gate and Roman Basilica

 

The partially reconstructed Canaanite Gate you are viewing was built in the Middle Bronze Age, in around 1,850 BCE, and was once considered the oldest arched gate in the world. Note the past tense. An ancient gate in Tel Arani near Kiryat Gat has recently been dated to the Early Bronze Age, 5,500 years ago. The gate here is about 100 years older than a similar Canaanite gate at Tel Dan. The gate was in use for some 250 years before it was buried under an earthen rampart and a new city gate built elsewhere. The Canaanite tel was the second largest tel in the country after Hatzor in the north, indicating its importance of this city.

 

The fortified gate was part of the city’s massive fortifications. It was constructed of calcareous sandstone blocks and mud bricks and had a vaulted archway through which you can pass.

 

Around the city was a 15-meter-high wall made of predominantly mud bricks, just over 2 km in circumference. A wall of mud brick was more stable than one made of stone, in that the bricks could not be easily dislodged by a battering ram. The wall was built on top of a massive glacis, underneath which was a moat. A glacis is a paved sloping rampart that made it extremely difficult for attackers to scale the wall, and even to approach it without being fired upon. Approaching the gate, the glacis you see on your left is from the Crusader period on a Fatimah base, while that on the right is Canaanite. On a ledge low down on this glacis was found a bronze calf with silver legs (now in the Israel Museum), and this area could have allowed visitors to worship before entering the city.

 

Ashkelon was captured by the Egyptians in 1,550 BCE and remained under Egyptian rule for the next four centuries. It became one of the five Philistine city-states during the Israelite period, although smaller in size then than the Canaanite city. Ashkelon participated in the unsuccessful revolt of Hezekiah against the Assyrians. The city was eventually conquered and destroyed by the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar in 604-603 BCE.

 

Note the imposing Roman basilica adjacent to the parking lot. Ashkelon reached its heyday in the Roman period in the 3rd century CE as a regional commercial center. The basilica took the form of a courtyard surrounded by rows of high columns supporting a roof. The walls and floor were made of marble. This building would have been the administrative center for the city and attests to the importance of Ashkelon for trade, including the export of wine and olive oil, and as a port. There was no constructed port here and ships would have anchored several hundred meters from the shore and goods ferried to the shore by smaller boats.  

 

The city was inhabited during the Byzantine period and there was also a Jewish community here, as there was prior to the Great Revolt. The majority of the wells in the park are from this period and were used for agriculture.

 

The Muslims occupied Ashkelon during the 7th century CE and it was fought over by the Crusaders. The Mamluke sultan Baibars destroyed the city in 1270 and it was not rebuilt.

 

There was a large Arab town here until 1948 called al-Majdal, and the area of the town was incorporated into the modern city of Ashkelon.

 

An interesting trivia. An onion famously grown in ancient Ashkelon was the scallion or green onion. This, along with the shallot, derives its name from the city. These onions were celebrated for their delicate flavor and thrived in the region's sandy soil.