One of the reasons why I love the Land of Israel is the opportunity to walk back in history to discover and learn what our forefathers went through. Where I used to live, there were ancient mikvaot down the streets that were preserved by the Israeli Antiquity Authority and nothing could be built on top of it. Every where you go, ancient ruins decorate the paths. You feel "at home" when you are in Israel, from living with your forefathers' past.
The city of Gath, where the annual digging season began this week, is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites.
Close to three millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city’s most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath — the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling.
The Philistines arrived by sea from the area of modern-day Greece around 1200 B.C. They went on to rule major ports at Ashkelon and Ashdod, now cities in Israel, and at Gaza, now part of the Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip.
Source: At site in Israel, archaeologists seek to sketch the lives of Goliath’s countrymen
