ABSTRACT
Tel Rehov is a large site, covering 10 hectares, situated at an important geographic junction in the Jordan Valley, 5 km south of Beth Shean (Figs. 13.1-3).
Six excavation seasons between the years 1997 to 2003 revealed complex stratigraphic sequences in seven excavation areas, yielding rich material assemblages from the end of the Late Bronze to the end of the Iron Age IIB. The most widely exposed and explored period is the Iron Age IIA (10th9thcenturies BCE),1 which was excavated in six excavation areas (Mazar 1999, 2003b, in press a, in press b).2 The rich material culture assemblages from Tel Rehov provide a major contribution to
many aspects of material culture relating to northern Israel in the 12th-8th centuries BCE. Large well stratified and restorable pottery assemblages and a large number of 14C dates based on shortlived organic samples from a sequence of well stratified loci provide important data for the currently debated subject of Iron Age chronology. The main results were already published earlier (Bruins, van der Plicht and Mazar 2003a; Mazar and Carmi 2001) and raised controversy (Bruins, van der Plicht and Mazar 2003b; Finkelstein and Piaseztky 2003a, 2003b; Gilboa and Sharon 2003; Mazar 2004).
