to us, and the character of their defensive works has been disclosed by Palestinian excavation in recent years.
the area was small — in the case of Gezer about a quarter of a mile square, Lachish 15 acres, Megiddo and Taanach 12 to 13 acres. A sufficient water supply within easy reach was an essential feature. Speaking of Gezer, Professor Macalister says: “Water, the first necessity of life, was in
abundance. The three primitive modes of livelihood — hunting, pasturing, and agriculture — could be practiced here better than in many places.
Further, for defense — another prime necessity in early days — the hill is admirably fitted. It is steep and not easy to climb; and being fairly high it commands a wide prospect, so that the approach of enemies can be seen and prepared for” (Bible Side-Lights from Gezer, 25,26).
3. Primitive Character:
Their history goes back in most cases to a very remote antiquity. “It cannot have been much later than 3000 BC,” says Professor Macalister regarding Gezer, “when a primitive race of men first realized that the bare rocky hill (as it then was) would be a suitable dwelling-place. This tribe was a cave- dwelling race” (as above; and PEFS, 1904, 311 ff). The primitive race had occupied the hill perhaps five hundred years when the Canaanites drove them out, as they in turn were driven out by the Israelites. But the nature of their original habitations, the earliest relics of their social life, and what can be gathered of their religious rites all bear witness to a remote
antiquity. From the mound of Tell el-Hesy, now almost certainly identified with the site of Lachish, eleven cities, one above the other have been disinterred, the eleventh or highest having nine cities between itself and the first Amorite buildings reared upon the original bluff. This lowest city is believed to go back some 2000 years BC, Professor Flinders Petrie having dated the successive cities by means of the pottery found in the strata of the mound. One of the eleven cities, possibly the fourth from the bottom, was that of Lachish, which fell a prey to Joshua (<061032>Joshua 10:32), the walls of which, built of crude brick and 10-12 ft. in thickness, are a witness to its character as a fenced city (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities, chapter iv).
4. Walls:
While the site of the Canaanite city was chosen for its natural strength, the first settlers soon felt the need of some fortification. At Sinjerli the
excavators have been able to trace the general growth of the site from a group of shepherds’ huts into a walled town. The earliest fortification
attempted was a rampart of earth following the natural contour of the hill (PEFS, 1903, 113). Within some such enclosing wall, houses were built and the inhabitants lived and pursued their avocations safely. The primitive earthbank in the case of Gezer was in course of time replaced first by an inner and then by an outer wall in succession. The outer wall when it was added to strengthen the inner was the chel, rendered in the English version
“bulwark” (<232601>Isaiah 26:1) or “rampart” (<340308>Nahum 3:8, where the waters of the Nile served the same purpose). Professor Macalister estimates that the inner wall of Gezer had fallen into disuse and ruin by about 1450 BC and that it was the outer that saw the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites.
“Even in its present ruined form,” says Professor Macalister, “the outer city wall is an imposing structure. In places it still stands to a height of from 10 to 14 ft., and these can hardly be regarded as being much more than the underground foundations. The outer face of the city wall, towering above the hill on which the city was built, may well have seemed impregnable to the messengers of Moses” (Bible Side-Lights, 142). The walls of a later time, as we learn from Assyrian representations, were provided with battlements, very often crenellated, and “thy pinnacles of rubies” (<235412>Isaiah 54:12, the Revised Version (British and American), the Revised Version, margin “windows”) may refer to them. For the purpose of strengthening the walls, especially at the least defensible points, revetments or facings of stone or kiln-burnt bricks were sometimes added. Even these again would be rendered less assailable by a trench (chel) serving to cut off a fortress from adjacent level or sloping ground, as may still be seen outside the North wall of Jerusalem, and many parts ofthe walls of Constantinople.
5. Towers:
Towers were sometimes built at the corners or at points on the wall where attack was to be apprehended (<360116>Zephaniah 1:16; <141407>2 Chronicles 14:7).
Such towers have been disclosed on the crest of the hill at Tell Zakariyah.
At Gezer 30 towers were found round the outer wall. On the walls of Sinjerli there rose no fewer than 800 towers (Garstang, Land of the
Hittites, 273). On the evidence of the excavations at this ancient Hittite site we gather that the cities about the time of the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan “were already surrounded by masoned walls, supported by
numerous external towers, and entered through gateways barred by a pair of double doors and guarded by wing towers on either hand” (Land of the Hittites, 367). For illustrations, see CITY.
6. Acropolis or Castle:
Every one of these ancient cities had an inner fortress which would be an internal means of protection, and the last refuge of the defenders in extremity. At Tell Zakariyah the acropolis wall has been traced, and its shape has been found to be conditioned by the contours of the hill on which it stood. In an old Hittite settlement a fortress has been found
rectangular in shape and supported by an outer and lower wall at a distance of 12 to 30 yds. (Land of the Hittites, 162). There is evidence that the mound or bluff originally occupied remained the fortress or acropolis of the city when it spread out over a larger area, and this seems to have been the case for some time at least with the Jebusite fort taken by David and made the capital of the kingdom. At Sinjerli, while there was a wall surrounding the whole township, there was an outer as well as an inner defensive wall to the citadel. Upon this citadel were found palaces from which the Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser I, copied the plan of a Hittite palace, called in Assyrian Hilani.
7. Masonry:
The excavations enable us to see the progress of the art of fortification from very primitive beginnings. Crude brick and rough stone-work were the materials of the earliest walls. They are usually found of uncoursed masonry in which the large stones are undressed field boulders. The facings of stone and the joints in walls were often packed with pebbles or with limestone chippings, the stones themselves being more or less roughly trimmed and dressed to shape by a hammer. Corner-stones are found in the towers showing marks of the chisel, but it is not till well on in the Hebrew period that stones are found with bosses and marginal drafting. At
Zakariyah the walls of the acropolis were of rubble laid in mud, mixed with straw without lime, and they contained some well-worked stones,
irregularly intermingled with field stones of various sizes. At a later time mortar was used to cover the walls and give greater strength and support.
But the clay used for the purpose was apt to crack unless it was given consistency by treading with the feet and mixing with water. Thus we read of a wall daubed with untempered mortar (<261310>Ezekiel 13:10-16; 22:28;
compare <340314>Nahum 3:14). In the masonry of the Hittite fortress (see (6) above) the masonry of the inner wall is rough, dry stonewalling, while the outer is built of stones roughly pentagonal in shape, irregular in size, fitted
to one another and laid without mortar, somewhat like the Cyclopean walls of the earliest periods of Greek history.
See GEZER.
8. Gates:
The gates of the fenced cities of Canaan may not have had the social importance which the city gate came to possess in later times, but they were an important element in the defensive works of a city. They were as few as possible, so as to give only the necessary ingress and egress. The gate of Jericho was shut and secured at nightfall (<060205>Joshua 2:5). The gate of Gaza had two leaves which were not hinged to the two gate-posts, but turned on pins moving in sockets in the sill and lintel, the bar stretching between the two posts and let into them to secure the gate (<071603>Judges 16:3, with Moore’s notes). The hundred gates of Babylon, according to Herodotus, were all of brass (i.179); and Yahweh promises to Cyrus to break in pieces the doors of brass and to cut in sunder the bars of iron
(<234502>Isaiah 45:2). That the bars were sometimes of wood is clear from what
is said of the bars of Nineveh (Nab 3:13). To protect the gate it was supplied with towers. Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate and at the valley gate, and fortilled them (<142609>2 Chronicles 26:9). In the inner wall of Gezer, to which reference has been made, a gate of very remarkable structure has been found. The wall is of stone, but the gateway consists of a passage between two solid towers of brick. The passage is 9 ft. wide and 42 ft. long, roughly paved with stones. Stone slabs on each side of the passageway bear traces of fire, and the absence of any wooden barrier may be due to a conflagration at the capture of the city. The towers remain standing and rise to a total height of about 16 ft. In later times watchmen were set on the tower over the gate to descry the approach of friend or foe or messenger (<101824>2 Samuel 18:24 ff), and the tower had chambers in it which might be occupied by visitors or by a guard. For the more general purposes see GATE.
9. Water Supply:
One of the essential requisites of the primitive Canaanite fortress was a supply of water. At Gezer a copious spring within easy reach was available.
Tell el-Hesy commands the only springs in that region (A Mound of Many Cities, 16). It is a strong point in favor of the modern theory of the ridge of Ophel being the site of Zion or David’s town that the Virgin’s Fountain,
the only perennial spring in the whole circuit of Jerusalem, was close to it, and would have been an inducement to the Jebusites to build their fortress there. In the sites that have been excavated, cisterns, sometimes vaulted over and with steps down into them, have been constantly found. Traces have also been observed of concealed passages or tunnels by which access has been obtained to the nearest spring. Some such explanation has been given of the “gutter” (<100508>2 Samuel 5:8 the King James Version,
“watercourse” the Revised Version (British and American)), by which Joab obtained access to the fortress of Jebus and enabled David to capture it
(<131106>1 Chronicles 11:6; compare Vincent, Canaan d’apres l’exploration
recente, 26). During an investment of a fortified city by an enemy, it was a point in strategy for the inhabitants to secure the fountain and to divert or conceal the stream flowing from it so that the besiegers might be left without a water supply (<120301>2 Kings 3:19,25; <143203>2 Chronicles 32:3;
compare also <101226>2 Samuel 12:26,27, Century Bible, Kennedy’s note).