Originally Posted by
basics
sumkilz,
What's a Tel?
It’s a specific type of fortified city. They would flatten off the top of a hill and build up around it to make a platform for a city, and then build a ring of walls at the perimeter of the flattened area. The walls would have stone for about the first ten feet and then mudbrick on top of that. Before the Hellenistic period, almost all the cities in the region were tels.
This is a picture of Tel Azekah taken from the tel across the valley:
The fortifications at the top are mostly collapsed and buried now, but this is how it was described by Sennacherib (text is fragmentary):
[…Ashur, my lord, encourage]ed me and against the land of Ju[dah I marched. In] the course of my campaign, the tribute of the kings of Philistia? I received…
[…with the mig]ht of Ashur, my lord, the province of [Hezek]iah of Judah like […
[…] the city of Azekah, his stronghold, which is between my [bo]rder and the land of Judah […
[like the nest of the eagle? ] located on a mountain ridge, like pointed iron daggers without number reaching high to heaven […
[Its walls] were strong and rivaled the highest mountains, to the (mere) sight, as if from the sky [appears its head? …
[by means of beaten (earth) ra]mps, mighty? battering rams brought near, the work of […], with the attack by foot soldiers, [my] wa[rriors…
[…] they had seen [the approach of my cav]alry and they had heard the roar of the mighty troops of the god Ashur and [their] he[arts] became afraid […
[The city Azekah I besieged,] I captured, I carried off its spoil, I destroyed, I devastated, [I burned with fire…
It’s a bit of propaganda, but the tel looks higher and much more dramatic when you’re at the base looking straight up at it, and the excavated sections of the fortifications are pretty massive, so it’s not completely an exaggeration.
Azekah was destroyed by the Babylonians at the same time as their siege of Jerusalem. According to Jerimiah 34:7, Lachish and Azekah were the last two fortified cities to hold out other than Jerusalem. There was a letter found in the ruins of Lachish from a subordinate written to the commander of the garrison in between the time Azekah had fallen and Lachish was the last one left:
And inasmuch as my lord sent to me concerning the matter of Bet Harapid, there is no one there. And as for Semakyahu, Semayahu took him and brought him up to the city. And your servant is not sending him there any[more -], but when morning comes round [-]. And may (my lord) be apprised that we are watching for the fire signals of Lachish according to all the signs which my lord has given, because we cannot see Azekah.
Tel Megiddo from the air:
In modern Hebrew and Arabic, the word "tel" also evokes the image of a ruin. That's where the name of Tel Aviv comes from. Aviv is the month in the Hebrew calendar that begins with the Spring equinox, so Tel Aviv is supposed to evoke the image of an old ruin coming back to life.