(Baptist Press) An international team of archaeologists has excavated the remains of King Solomon's city at Tel Gezer. The site -- located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv -- is known as one of the three major cities that Solomon fortified, according the biblical account of Solomon's reign as recorded in the Book of Kings (1 Kings. 9:15-17).
Toppled building stones, accumulating more than 1 1/2 meters in height, were found in two rooms of a building and in an adjacent courtyard, apparently the sign of an attack, the team reported. The initiator of this attack could have been Shishak, the Egyptian pharaoh, around 918 BC, as recorded in the biblical text (1 Kings. 14:25-26) and Egyptian documents.
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One of the surprises found within the destruction was a rare ivory-carved game board, the team reported. The game board was found in pieces retrieved in the field by volunteers who sifted the soil. It was reconstructed by the expedition's conservator, Rachael Arenstein.
