Tel Qastile

This morning bno and I set out in the rain to Tel Qasile which is in the Erez Israel Museum which is next to the Yarkon river near downtown Tel Aviv. Blacksono was not interested, he was still tired and shagged out after a 3 day high school field trip. It was pouring. The museum itself was actually way better than I expects. It's really quite big and spread out over a a large area. Tel Qasile is in the middle of the museum grounds. Excavations begun there in 1949, that made it the first archaeological dig in the newly formed state. The Tel covers the remains of a 12 century BCE Philistine port city. It was built on a sandstone ridge overlooking the Yarkon river. In the 11th century BCE it became a thriving city with three temples all built of mud brick. On the southern side of the tel living quarters built along a street were uncovered. At the center stood a four room house. The signs claim that the city was destroyed by King David in the 10th century BCE, but I think that recent research has shown that to be not exactly true.

In the background you can see the "four roomed house" looking quite sad and quite the worse for wear. As you can see its been raining.
I just love the skyline of Tel Aviv in the background. This is the main street of the town and dwellings.
More houses. These were built out of sandstone and not mud brick like the temples.
Got to love the skyline.
Around the temple area the walls are looking a little sad.
This is one of the temples. It is covered with a corrugated metal roof to protect the mud bricks from damage by the elements. There are actually signs that point out what is what. Not bad for a fifty year old site.
This is a basalt millstone in one of the reconstructed mills on the museum grounds. There is also a nicely reconstructed olive oil press as well as a host of other buildings covering copper, ceramics, glass and the post office (I swear).

All in all a nice place, even though the Tel itself is a little sad and run down. The best news of all is that I flashed my University of Leicester student card and I got a 10 NIS reduction. Man I was chuffed.