Ashkelon

At 60 hectares, Ashkelon is one of the largest archaeological sites in Israel. It certainly was certainly inhabited for a long period of time: 6000 years, from the Chalcolithic to the Mameluke period.

Since 1985 Lawrence Stager of Harvard University has excavated the site for the Leon Levy Expedition. He has uncovered many significant remains and aspects of life at Ashkelon from the Middle Bronze through the Byzantine periods. Although many of the results of the excavations are no long visible, a Middle Bronze IIA gate – the earliest extant arched/barrel vaulted gate in the world – is well preserved. Also at the site are the remains of a Crusader rampart and a Byzantine church.