ASHKELON, ISRAEL—Haaretz reports that archaeologists have excavated a 3,000-year-old Philistine cemetery at the site of Ashekelon in southern Israel. The first such necropolis to be discovered, it consists of more than 150 burials, some of which follow Aegean funerary practices, rather than Near Eastern ones. That supports the idea that the Philistines originated in the Aegean and were not indigenous to the Levant. “This forms a baseline for what 'Philistine' is," says Wheaton College archaeologist Daniel M. Master, who is the dig's co-director. "We can already say that the cultural practices we see here are substantially different from the Canaanites and the highlanders in the east." Small ceramic perfume vials were found near the skulls of many of the skeletons, and a pottery sherd inscribed with Crypto-Minoan writing dating to the eleventh century B.C. was also discovered. To read more about the Philistines, go to “Temple of the Storm God.”
