Deir el-Balah: A Geological, Archaeological, and Historical Reassessment of an Egyptianizing 13th and 12th Century B.C.E. Center

Abstract

Salvage excavations conducted at Deir el-Balah from 1972 to 1982 revealed a Late Bronze II Egyptianizing settlement (Strata IX-IV) and cemetery located along the Ways of Horus. In preliminary reports, Deir el-Balah is presented as a 14th- (Amarnaperiod) and 13th-century B.C.E. site, a stratigraphic interpretation that rests on the assumption that a large, open, man-made pit or crater served as a water reservoir. Based on an analysis of the microstratigraphy and sediments using grain size and micromorphological techniques, we challenge the claim that the crater ever functioned as a pond or water reservoir. Considered together with a reanalysis of the archaeological evidence, we propose that the two main periods of Late Bronze Age occupation, Strata IX and VII, date to the 13th and 13th/early 12th centuries B.C.E. As a result of the redating of Deir el-Balah, the site should be understood within the context of an expanding imperialistic Egyptian presence that characterized 19th and early 20th Dynasty New Kingdom Egyptian policy in Canaan.