Tel Abel Beth Maacah: A "City and a Mother" in the Hula Valley

Tell Abil el-Qameh, located on the modern border between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, has been securely identified with the Biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah (I Kings 15:20, II Kings 15:29, 2 Samuel 20). Its strategic border location lends it great potential to shed light on interactions between the major ancient players in the region: Canaanites, Mitannians and Hittites in the Bronze Age and Israelites, Arameans and Phoenicians in the Iron Age. This large, imposing site that commands the main road through the Jordan Valley, has never been excavated until a joint project of Azusa Pacific University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This lecture will summarize the rich remains found during the five seasons of excavation conducted to date, with a continuous stratigraphic sequence from the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron II. Especially significant is the dense Iron Age I occupation that includes well-planned public buildings and special cultic installations. The significance of our Iron Age I sequence is that this is precisely the time when mighty Hazor is virtually unsettled, showing that Abel Beth Maacah apparently replaced it, alongside its neighbor, Dan. These remains reflect a process of social, political and ethnic reorganization that preceded the establishment of the territorial kingdoms of the Iron Age IIA. Excavations have shown that the city apparently contracted at this time, which can be contextualized within the complex geo-political relations between Israel and Aram-Damascus, as expressed in the Tel Dan stele.