The last middle bronze age rampart in Ashkelon: the end of the middle bronze age?
Ross J. Voss

Phase 10 marks the final rampart expansion of the cities defences which resulted in the burial of the last of four successive gates. The adjacent lower terrace which supported the sanctuary of the silver calf was also covered along with four tombs situated between the sanctuary courtyard and the corridor of the pedestrian gate. Two of the four tombs had been robbed prior to the raising of the rampart. The large corpus of Phase 10 pottery recovered from the rampart is of primary importance for tracing the cross-cultural associations which Ashkelon maintained in its final autonomous stage. This potttery permits the relative dating of the end of this period by the presence, and, absence of certain pottery traditions which can be linked with intra and inter site MB-IIC and LB-IA ceramic assemblages. Since scholars have traditionally adopted political criteria for determining the end of the middle bronze age in Canaan either by demarcating it at the inception of the eighteenth dynasty or, extending the period lower by two gennerations into the reign of Thutmoses III: regional develoments of insite stratigraphy or ceramic typology has taken a back seat in the discussion. With new discoveries in Ashkelon the time is now ripe for a reassessment of where and when Egyptian hegemony begins in southern Canaan.