Overview
Tel Beersheba is located in the northern Negev, 4 kilometers east of the modern city of Beersheba, on a spur in the middle of the valley of the Hebron and Beersheba riverbeds. The tell's highest point is 307 meters above sea level, about 10 meters higher than its surroundings. Encircling dry riverbeds secure the tell's protection and the freshwater springs provide its water. The top of the mound measures at about 120 by 100 meters, resulting in approximately 10 dunams of inhabitable area. The city that developed at Tel Beersheba was situated at the crossroads between Mount Hebron in the north, the Judean Desert and Dead Sea in the east, the coastal plain in the west; and the Negev hills, Elath, and Kadesh-Barnea in the south.
The patriarchal narratives make frequent reference to Beersheba as a camp for Abraham and Isaac in the southern region of Israel. Beersheba is mentioned in the list of Simeon's cities (Joshua 19:2), in the cities of the Negev of Judah (Joshua 15:28), and frequently as the southern boundary of the land of Israel (e.g., Judges 20:1). The central location of the tell and the absence of any other nearby fortified cities support the identification of the site with the biblical Beersheba (unless, of course, one supposes that Beersheba was an unfortified, open settlement).
From 1969 to 1975, eight seasons of excavations were carried out at Tel Beersheba. The mound is now considered a unique site for the study of Iron Age city planning due primarily to its small size and the intensive excavation work carried out by Tel Aviv University under the direction of Yohanan Aharoni. In 1976, Ze'ev Herzog completed another season of excavation as part of the Beersheba Valley Regional Research Project. The archaeologists have often noted that Beersheba holds significant excavation challenges due to the low standard of the original construction, the tendency to reuse partially destroyed buildings for decades to come, and damage of earlier remains by later construction work. To the east of the mound there extends a lower cape on which remnants of Byzantine structures were discovered along with sherds from the earlier Roman, Hellenistic, and Judean periods. A settlement of substantial dimensions is suspected to have been located at the foot of the mound during these periods.
A few sherds and pits from the Chalcolithic period attest to early habitation by the Beersheba culture, which flourished along the riverbeds and near the water sources around the mound. The lack of any remains from the Bronze Age suggests that the tell was unoccupied during the Canaanite period. Settlement started again during the Israelite Period (Iron Age I), with pit dwellings followed by a small, unfortified cluster of houses (Strata IX-VI). The oval-shaped fortified city that occupied the whole mound was constructed in the tenth century (Stratum V), but the clearest city-plan is preserved in the remains of Stratum II (dated to the late eighth century BCE). The history of the city proper is rather short: from the middle of the tenth to the end of the eighth century (some 250 years). During this time, the city was destroyed several times, terminating Strata V, IV and II along with further disruption between Strata III and II. The destruction of the city of Stratum II in the late eighth century BCE (during the campaign of Sennacherib) is evidenced by the thousands of pottery vessels found in the conflagration debris. Following a lapse of three hundred years, the settlement on the mound was rebuilt by the Persians, followed by a Hellenistic fortress, a Herodian palace, and a Roman rhomboid fortress. The foundations of the Roman fort were visible on the central and highest parts of the mound before the excavations had begun.
The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:
 |
Roman Period |
 |
Hellenistic Period |
 |
Stratum III–II, Iron Age |
 |
Stratum V–IV, Iron Age |
 |
Stratum VI, Iron Age |
 |
Stratum VII, Iron Age |
