Tel Arad

 
10km/6mi west of Arad on the road to Beersheba a side road goes off to Tel Arad, where excavations between 1962 and 1984 brought to light two major complexes - a Canaanite town and an acropolis dating from Israelite and Roman times.

History

On a site occupied since the Chalcolithic (fourth millennium B.C.) a large Canaanite town was built here in the seconnd millennium B.C. Its king drove the Israelites back when they sought to advance into the Promised Land from the south (Numbers 21,1). After its capture by Joshua (Joshua 12,14) it passed to the tribe of Judah, and the "children of the Kenite" (Moses' father-in-law) dwelt in the town. The further development and fortification of the town are probably to be attributed to Solomon, who built a temple to Jehovah on the site of a hilltop sanctuary of the Kenites. Soon afterwards, in 920 B.C., Arad was taken by Pharaoh Seshonq, the Shishak of the Old Testament. It was soon recovered by the kingdom of Judah, however, to which it belonged until the fall of Judah in 586 B.C. Arad retained its importance, thanks to its situation on important trade routes, into the Roman period, and was abandoned only after the first Islamic campaign of conquest in the seventh century.
Things to See

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