Tel Halif
Archaeological site in Israel
Tel H̱alif, formerly Tel H̱alifa (Hebrew: תל חליף, Arabic name: Tel el-Khuweilifeh) is an archaeological site, a mound (tell) in northern Negev area, west from kibbutz Lahav, Israel.
01Identification
Albrecht Alt suggested that it is the location of the biblical town of Ziklag. Other evidence suggests Rimmon. Nadav Na'aman has suggested identifying this as the site of biblical Hormah.
02History
Iron Age
Iron I
Tel Halif was a small town inhabited by Israelites during the Iron Age I.
Iron II
It had a casemate wall and typical pillar-courtyard houses in the 9th-8th centuries BCE. William G. Dever estimates that the town's population was 200 in the 10th century and about 300 in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. Rock-cut bench tombs were found nearby, and they represent burial practices typical to the 8th century BCE.
Archaeological evidence uncovered a house destroyed during the 701 BCE Assyrian invasion, and the town saw brief reoccupation in the early 7th century before being abandoned under Persian rule.
03Excavations
Excavcations around Tel Halif was among the research activities of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology as part of the Lahav Research Project arranged by Joe Seger in 1974.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Tel Halif”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- TEL EL KHUWEILFE - view from south.jpg by Danny Gershoni, CC BY-SA 4.0
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