Front Matter

The excavations at Ashqelon unearthed 76 Middle Bronze Age burial pits, cut in the kurkar sandstone ridge. The burial pits are irregular in shape and vary in size. They contained skeletal remains of one individual or more, and a burial kit comprising pottery vessels: a store jar, a dipper juglet and a platter or carinated bowl. Additions to the burial kit included other pottery vessels and various artifacts such as a scarab, toggle pins, daggers, an alabaster pommel, a bone comb and beads. This cemetery is an important addition to the study of Middle Bronze Age burial customs and sites. 

The excavation on the western slope of the city of Safed revealed building remains of the Mamluk-period neighborhood of al-Waṭṭa (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries CE). Four strata were documented: Stratum IV, including pre-Mamluk remains; Stratum III, the main occupation layer, including dense building remains of a Mamluk-period neighborhood; Stratum II, a layer of debris within and between the Stratum III buildings; and Stratum I, a post-occupation layer. Stratum III came to a dramatic end in the first or second decade of the fifteenth century CE, probably due to an earthquake. Many pottery vessels, as well as glass vessels, coins, and metal and bone artifacts were recovered from the debris layers of the destroyed neighborhood, attesting to daily urban life in Mamluk-period Safed.