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==History== ===Early Bronze Age=== The first settlement excavated in Tel Hazor is dated to the Early Bronze Age II and III periods, existing at around the 28th and 24th centuries BCE. It was part of a system of settlements around the [[Hula Valley]], including [[Abel-beth-maachah|Abel Beth Maachah]], [[Dan (ancient city)|Dan]] and [[Kedesh]]. The settlement was exposed in limited areas where a few houses were discovered. Based on these finds, Early Bronze Age Hazor was not a significant settlement. With that said, it seems that a large monumental structure dated to the following Middle Bronze Age period was already erected in the Early Bronze Age, sometime after the 27th century BCE. If this is true it implies that already in its beginnings, Hazor was a well-planned settlement that served as an urban center. It also shows one of the earliest examples of [[basalt]] slabs used as foundations to walls ([[orthostates]]) in the [[Southern Levant]], only preceded by a temple from [[Tel Megiddo]]. The transition to the Early Bronze Age III period is characterized by the movement of people from rural areas within the valley to major urban sites such as Hazor, Dan and Abel Beth Maachah. Thus the establishment of a possible palace in Hazor, as well as in Dan, attest to this phenomenon.<ref name=":0" /> A large part of Hazor's pottery from that time belongs to the [[Khirbet Kerak]] type. A [[Petrography|petrographic]] study of these vessels has shown that they were made with local clays and that Hazor played a key role in distributing them across the country. The study also showed that other types of pottery were made of a different source of local clay. This use of two different local clays for two different families of vessels might indicate a technical decision or otherwise the presence of two or more workshops. One theory suggests that the manufacturers of the Khirbet Kerak tools, which were introduced to the settlement, chose or were forced to use a different source of clay, not controlled by the other workshops. Noteworthy is the discovery of 15 [[cylinder seal]] impressions on pottery from this period, added to another found some 2 kilometers south. This assemblage is one of the largest in the southern Levant and the fact it was found in such a small excavation area further supports the reconstruction of Hazor as an important city during this period.<ref name=":0">Sharon Zuckerman (June 2013), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.76.2.0068#metadata_info_tab_contents Hazor in the Early Bronze Age], [[Near Eastern Archaeology (journal)|''Near Eastern Archaeology'']], Vol 76, No. 2, pp. 68–73</ref> ===Intermediate Bronze Age=== Compared to the rest of Canaan, Hazor and Megiddo did not show signs of urban decline in the Intermediate Bronze Age. In Hazor, there was evidence of human settlements and a thriving economy, based on copper ingots and pottery from the Megiddo Ware family.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shlomit Bechar |title=Tel Hazor: A Key Site of the Intermediate Bronze Age |journal=[[Near Eastern Archaeology (journal)|Near Eastern Archaeology]] |date=June 2013 |volume=76 |issue=2 |pages=73–75 |jstor=10.5615/neareastarch.76.2.0073 |doi=10.5615/neareastarch.76.2.0073 |s2cid=164990790}}</ref> In 2021, archaeologists discovered that Intermediate Bronze Age (ca. 2300–2200 BC) Hazor was preceded by years of abandonment, which started in the Early Bronze Age III (ca. 2500 BC). The latter was left in ruins but the new city built on top followed similar architectural patterns.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Lev |first1=Ron |last2=Bechar |first2=Shlomit |last3=Boaretto |first3=Elisabetta |date=2021 |title=Hazor Eb III City Abandonment and Iba People Return: Radiocarbon Chronology and ITS Implications |journal=Radiocarbon |volume=63 |issue=5 |page=1453 |doi=10.1017/RDC.2021.76 |bibcode=2021Radcb..63.1453L |doi-access=free }}</ref> ===Middle Bronze Age=== During the Middle Bronze II (1820–1550 BC), Hazor was a vassal of [[Ishi-Addu]] of [[Qatna]] and his son [[Amut-piʾel II|Amutpiel II]]. Qatna was at the time a rival of the Great Kingdom of Yamhad centered on Aleppo, which also included Ebla and Hamath. Qatna controlled territory towards the Akkar Plain and the Beqa Valley to Hazor. However, Qatna also faced rebellions in the south, often instigated by Yamhad. In any case, Hazor was under strong Syrian influence from the north. ====King Ibni-Addu==== A king Ibni-Addu of Hazor (c. 1770–1765 BC) is known.<ref name="Sasson">Sasson, Jack M. "Introduction". ''From the Mari Archives: An Anthology of Old Babylonian Letters'', University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2015, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781575063768-002</ref> There are trade routes connecting Hazor with Zimri-Lim of Mari and Yarim-Lim of Yamhad. Tin trade was important used together with copper to make the alloy bronze. For a brief period, Mari received tin from Elam before their friendship collapsed. ARMT 23 556 (dating to year 9–10 of Zimri-Lim) mentions this tin trade and Ibni-Addu of Hazor.<ref name="Sasson" /> At Hazor, a letter fragment addressed to king Ibni-Addu of Hazor is known.<ref>Israel Antiquities Authority, IAA 1997-3304; https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/393323-0</ref><ref name="Goren">Goren, Y. (2000). "Provenance Study of the Cuneiform Texts from Hazor." ''Israel Exploration Journal'', 50(1/2), 29–42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27926915</ref> ====Execration texts==== In Egypt, Hazor is mentioned in the [[execration texts]]. ====Mari Archive==== At [[Mari, Syria|Mari]] (Syria), on the Euphrates River, letters mention Hazor during the reigns of [[Yasmah-Adad]] and [[Zimri-Lim]] (1775–1761 BC).<ref>Abraham Malamat, "Silver, Gold, and Precious Stones from Hazor" in a New Mari Document, ''The Biblical Archaeologist'', vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 169–174, (Summer, 1983)</ref> Hazor is part of a trade route Hazor-Qatna-Mari. A tablet fragment was also found at Hazor which listed an expected trade path from Hazor to Mari and then on to Ekallatum.<ref>Horowitz, Wayne, and Nathan Wasserman. "An Old Babylonian Letter from Hazor with Mention of Mari and Ekallātum." ''Israel Exploration Journal'', vol. 50, no. 3/4, 2000, pp. 169–74</ref> The Mari Letter (IAA 1997-3305) is a list of commodities from Mari to Hazor.<ref name="Goren" /> [[File:Hatzor-IsraeliteBastion.jpg|thumb|250px|Archaeological remains at Hazor]] ===Late Bronze Age=== {{hiero|ḥwḏꜣr<ref name=Gauthier24>{{cite book |last1=Gauthier |first1=Henri |title=Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 4 |date=1927 |page=24 |url=https://archive.org/details/Gauthier1927/page/n15}}</ref><ref name=Budge1021>{{cite book |last1=Wallis Budge |first1=E. A. |title=An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. Vol II |date=1920 |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft/page/1021 1021] |url=https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft}}</ref>|<hiero>F18:Y1-U28-G1-D21:Z1:N25</hiero>|era=nk|align=left}} At the beginning of the early [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]], [[Ahmose I]] started military campaigns into the southern Levant to evict the Hyksos. Several cities were attacked and more military campaigns came with [[Thutmose I]] and later [[Thutmose III]]. Under Thutmose III [[Canaan]] was an Egyptian [[vassal state]]. In the Amarna Period (c. 14th century BCE), the king of Hazor (Hasura) saw its petty king [[Abdi-Tirshi]], as swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh. In Amarna Tablet EA 148, [[Abimilki|Abi-Milku]], the king of [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]], accused to pharaoh that the land of Hazor is taken by [[ʿApiru|Habiru]] and the king of Hazor aligned with [[ʿApiru|Habiru]], and in EA 228, the king of Hazor requests the pharaoh to remember the harm that is done (by [[ʿApiru|Habiru/ʿApiru]] or neighboring cities) against his city.<ref>Moran, William L. (1992). [https://archive.org/details/amarnaletters0000unse_c3q4 The Amarna Letters]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-4251-4.</ref> [[File:Amarna letter. A letter from Abdi-Tirshi (King of Hazor) to the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III or his son Akhenaten. 14th century BCE. From Tell el-Amarna, Egypt. The British Museum.jpg|thumb|Amarna letter. A letter from Abdi-Tirshi (King of Hazor) to the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III or his son Akhenaten. 14th century BCE. From Tell el-Amarna, Egypt. The British Museum]] According to the [[Book of Joshua]], Hazor was the seat of [[Jabin]], a powerful Canaanite king who led a Canaanite confederation against [[Joshua]], an Israelite military commander. However, Joshua and his soldiers defeated the Canaanites and burnt Hazor to the ground.<ref>Joshua 11:1–5, 11:10–13</ref> According to the [[Book of Judges]], Hazor was the seat of Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose commander, [[Sisera]], led a Canaanite army against [[Barak]], but was ultimately defeated.<ref>Judges 4</ref> [[Textual criticism|Textual scholars]] believe that the prose account of Barak, which differs from the [[poem|poetic]] account in the [[Song of Deborah]], is a conflation of accounts of two separate events, one concerning Barak and Sisera like the poetic account, the other concerning Jabin's confederation and defeat.<ref name=Peakes>''[[Peake's commentary on the Bible]]''</ref> [[File:Tel hatzor.JPG|thumb|left|250px|Aerial photo of Tel Hazor. Remains of Iron and Bronze Age cities are seen in the upper tell, and the lower tell stretches to the right and beyond the frame of this photo.]] Amnon Ben-Tor of the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]] believes that recently unearthed evidence of violent destruction by burning verifies the Biblical account.<ref>Ben-tor, Amnon (2013). [https://www.academia.edu/35948616/Who_Destroyed_Canaanite_Hazor «Who Destroyed Canaanite Hazor?»]. BAR.</ref> In 2012, a team led Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman discovered a scorched palace from the 13th century BCE in whose storerooms they found ewers holding burned crops; Sharon Zuckerman did not agree with Ben-Tor's theory, and claimed that the burning was the result of the city's numerous factions opposing each other with excessive force.<ref>[http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/a-3-400-year-old-mystery-who-burned-the-palace-of-canaanite-hatzor-1.453095 A 3,400-year-old mystery: Who burned the palace of Canaanite Hatzor], [[Haaretz]]</ref> [[Israel Finkelstein]] claims that the Israelites emerged as a subculture within Canaanite society and rejects the biblical account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan.<ref name=Finkelstein>[[Israel Finkelstein]], ''[[The Bible Unearthed]]''</ref> In this view, the Book of Joshua conflates several independent battles between disparate groups over the centuries, and artificially attributes them to a single leader, Joshua.<ref name=Peakes /> One archaeological [[stratum]] dating from around 1200 BCE (13th century BCE) shows signs of catastrophic fire, and cuneiform tablets found at the site refer to monarchs named ''Ibni Addi'', where ''Ibni'' may be the [[etymology|etymological]] origin of ''Yavin'' (''Jabin'').<ref>https://embassies.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/history/Pages/Hatzor%20-%20The%20Head%20of%20all%20those%20Kingdoms.aspx {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref> The city also show signs of having been a magnificent Canaanite city prior to its destruction, with great temples and opulent palaces, split into an upper [[acropolis]], and lower city; the town evidently had been a major Canaanite city. He theorized that the destruction of Hazor was the result of civil strife, attacks by the [[Sea Peoples]], and/or a result of the [[Bronze Age collapse|general collapse]] of civilization across the whole [[Eastern Mediterranean]] in the Late Bronze Age.<ref name=Finkelstein /> More recently, Shlomit Bechar holds that a complex of cultic standing stones (''matzebot'') from the Iron I and Iron IIa Israelite strata at Hazor was built to commemorate the Israelite conquest of the city. She writes that, whether the Israelites did destroy Hazor or not, this complex shows that the conquest tradition probably emerged at an early date.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Take a Stone and Set It Up as a "Maṣṣẹ̄bā": The Tradition of Standing Stones at Hazor |journal=Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26602398 |last=Bechar |first=Shlomit |issue=1 |volume=134 |pages=28–45 |year=2018 |jstor=26602398 |issn=0012-1169}}</ref> Some scholars argue the Book of Judges and Book of Joshua may be parallel accounts referring to the same events, rather than describing different time periods,<ref name=Peakes/><ref>''Jewish Encyclopedia'', Book of Joshua, Book of Judges</ref> and thus they may refer to the same Jabin, a powerful king based in Hazor, whose Canaanite confederation was defeated by an Israelite army.<ref>''Jewish Encyclopedia'', ''Jabin''</ref> Some Christian polemicists report that the [[Allah as a lunar deity|lunar origins of Allah]] can be found in Hazor, which has been criticized by archaeologists.<ref>[http://mquran.org/content/view/9276/16/ Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look At The Archaeological Evidence], in ''mquran.org'', 22 November 2006</ref> ===Israelite Hazor=== [[File:Hatzor-SolomonicGate.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The six-chambered gate from the Israelite period, view from the north-west. Similar gates have also been found at Hazor, Megiddo, and Lachish.<ref name= madain>{{cite web |title=Tel Hazor Israelite City Gate |url=https://madainproject.com/tel_hazor_israelite_gate |website=Madain Project |access-date=10 May 2020}}</ref>]] The archaeological remains suggest that after its destruction, the city of Hazor was rebuilt as a minor village within "the territory of Naphtali" ([[Book of Joshua|Joshua]] 19:36).<ref>"Negev," Avraham/Gibson, Shimon, ''Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land'', New York/London 2001, p.220, {{ISBN|978-0-8264-1316-1}} (English)</ref> According to the [[Books of Kings]], the town, along with [[Tel Megiddo|Megiddo]], and [[Gezer]], was substantially fortified and expanded by [[Solomon]].<ref>1 Kings 9:15</ref> Like Megiddo and Gezer, the remains at Hazor show that during the Early Iron Age the town gained a highly distinctive ''six-chambered'' [[gate]], as well as a characteristic style to its administration buildings; archaeologists determined that these constructions at Hazor were built by the same leadership as those at Megiddo and Gezer.<ref name=Finkelstein /> Many archaeologists conclude that they were constructed in the tenth century by King Solomon;<ref>William G. Dever, [https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC&pg=PA43 What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and when Did They Know It?] 2002 p.43</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Hazor in the Tenth Century B.C.E. |journal=Near Eastern Archaeology |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5615/neareastarch.76.2.0105 |last=Ben-Tor |first=Amnon |issue=2 |volume=76 |pages=105–109 |doi=10.5615/neareastarch.76.2.0105 |year=2013 |s2cid=164757762 |issn=1094-2076|url-access=subscription }}</ref> others date these structures to the early 9th century BCE, during the reign of the [[Omrides]].<ref name=Finkelstein /> [[Yigael Yadin]], one of the earliest archaeologists to work on the site, saw certain features as clearly being Omride; Megiddo, Gezer, and Hazor, all feature deep rock cut pits, from the base of which were rock cut tunnels leading to a well that reached the [[water table]], as water-supply systems, which Yadin attributed to the rule of [[Ahab]]; Yadin also attributed to Ahab a citadel, measuring 25 × 21 m, with two-meter thick walls, which was erected in the western part of Hazor. It has been claimed that Yadin's dating was based on the assumption that the layer connected with the gates and administration buildings were built by Solomon.<ref name=Finkelstein /> Archaeologist [[William G. Dever]] estimates the city's population to have been between 500 and 1,000 people during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE.<ref name=":022">{{Cite book |last=Dever |first=William G. |title=Beyond the Texts: an archaeological portrait of ancient Israel and Judah |date=2017 |publisher=SBL Press |isbn=978-0-88414-218-8 |location=Atlanta |pages=392}}</ref> Archaeological remains indicate that towards the later half of the 9th century BCE, when the king of Israel was [[Jehu]], Hazor fell into the control of [[Aram Damascus]]. Some archaeologists suspect that subsequent to this conquest Hazor was rebuilt by Aram, probably as an Aramaean city. When the [[Assyria]]ns later defeated the Aramaeans, Hazor seemingly returned to Israelite control; Assyrian records indicate that [[Jehoash of Israel|Joash]], king of Israel at the time, had paid tribute to Assyria and Israel had become an Assyrian vassal state.<ref name="Finkelstein" /> Subsequently, the town, along with the remainder of the kingdom of Israel, entered a period of great prosperity, particularly during the rule of [[Jeroboam II]]. Some archaeologists attribute the later large scale constructions at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, including the rock cut water supply systems, to this era. Israel's attempted rebellion against Assyrian domination resulted in an invasion by the forces of the Assyrian ruler, [[Tiglath-Pileser III]]; the evidence on the ground suggests that hasty attempts were made to reinforce the defenses of Hazor.<ref name=Finkelstein /> Despite the defences, in 732 BCE Hazor was captured, its population deported,<ref name=Finkelstein /><ref>2 Kings 15:29</ref> and the city was burnt to the ground.<ref name=Finkelstein />
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