ABSTRACT
An assessment of R. A. S. Macalister’s work at Tel Gezer, his most ambitious project undertaken in the country, can be viewed on many different levels. For example, one can compare his results to those of the Hebrew Union College excavations that took place from 1965 through 1973. This topic is dealt with in W. G. Dever’s and J. D. Seger’s articles in this volume. Likewise, one can compliment him for conducting the first survey of the hinterland of a major biblical-period site. This topic, however, is dealt with by E. Mitchell in this volume. One can discuss the value of the finds that his excavation yielded and which were published in his Gezer reports; for this see B. Brandl and R. Reich in this volume. In this chapter, we, representatives of the Tandy Institute of Archaeology expedition, the third in line of major excavations at the site (after Macalister and the Hebrew Union College team), wish to discuss the influence of Macalister’s reportage in The Excavations of Gezer (1912) on our understanding of the ruins excavated (and re-excavated) in our field of excavation; that is, in the area bounded by the six-chambered gate (HUC’s Field III) to the east, the edge of the tell to the south, HUC’s Field VII to the west and the modern path laid out by the Israel Parks Authority to the north (Ortiz and Wolff 2012).
