Ashkelon National Park

Ashkelon National Park lies on the Mediterranean coast in the southern part of modern Ashkelon.[1] It encompasses Tel Ashkelon, also known in Arabic as Tell el-Hadr, the mound containing the remains of the ancient city.[2] Ashkelon was an ancient seaport on Israel's southern coastal plain and one of the five principal Philistine city-states.[7]

The ancient city is situated approximately 19 kilometers north of Gaza and 16 kilometers south of Ashdod.[7] Its position along the Via Maris, the coastal route linking Egypt with Syria and Mesopotamia, made it a major commercial center.[11] A cross-route led toward Jerusalem, while abundant wells, a favorable climate, and fertile soils supported a substantial agricultural hinterland.[4]

Ancient Ashkelon was laid out in a roughly semicircular form, with the Mediterranean shoreline forming its straight side.[1] The shoreline extended approximately 1,200 meters, while the landward arc measured about 2,200 meters. That arc began as an earth rampart approximately 40 meters thick and 35 meters high and was later reinforced with a substantial wall.[1] The park also preserves sandy soils, dunes, kurkar formations, and planted groves in formerly cultivated areas. It serves as an archaeological site, coastal recreation area, beach destination, and overnight campground.[4]

Human habitation in the Ashkelon area reaches deep into prehistory; one account states that people lived there about 10,000 years ago, while an urban settlement was established around 2000 BCE.[8][12] Ashkelon first appears under the name "Asqanu" in Egyptian Execration Texts dating to approximately the 20th–19th centuries BCE, when it was a Canaanite city-state under strong Egyptian influence.[7]

Ashkelon appears in several El-Amarna letters of the 14th century BCE and generally maintained loyalty to Egypt, although Jerusalem's ruler Abdihiba complained that its people had aided the Habiru.[7] Around 1280 BCE, the city revolted against Ramses II, and it was captured again under Merneptah around 1229 BCE, as recorded on the Israel Stele.[7] Ashkelon became a major trading center because of its position along the Via Maris, and the Tanakh mentions it in the Samson narrative and David's lament.[3][11]

The Philistines took Ashkelon around the middle of the 12th century BCE, making it one of their Pentapolis and one of their principal seaports.[7] It remained an important Mediterranean port until the Philistine city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's army in 604 BCE.[2] Ashkelon had previously come under Assyrian suzerainty: Tiglath-Pileser III brought it under Assyrian control in 734 BCE, an unsuccessful revolt was punished in 732 BCE, and Sennacherib's account of his 701 BCE campaign records Ashkelon's submission and the deportation of its king.[7]

Under the Ptolemies, Ashkelon became a free port and autonomous city with a flourishing Jewish community, later developing into an important center of Greek civilization.[7] It minted its own coins in 111 BCE and regained independence in 104 BCE, from which year it reckoned its civic era.[7] Jewish life continued in the city during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, as indicated by textual and archaeological evidence, and Jewish communities are also recorded during parts of the medieval era.[7][2] The Mamluk ruler Baybars destroyed Ashkelon's walls in 1270, after which they were not rebuilt.[1]

Ashkelon National Park is identified as Israel's first declared national park, although published accounts give either 1964 or 1965 as the declaration year.[1][8] Its reported area also varies. A 2002 account gives approximately 1,700 dunams, including about 600 dunams occupied by the ancient city.[1] A 2023 account describes about 1,000 dunams, while a 2025 article gives roughly 3,000 dunams and includes approximately 1,000 dunams of southern sand and kurkar landscape.[4][13]

Visitors encounter excavation areas near the sea, a sculpture garden with Roman statues, and views of the Mediterranean, the ancient rampart, and the surviving fortification walls.[11] Development work announced in 2021 included conservation of the basilica and odeon and a new network of accessible paths around the park's principal heritage and landscape features.[6][9] In June 2022, the restored odeon and five monumental statues were officially inaugurated.[10]

Swimming in the stretch of sea immediately below the archaeological route is prohibited because of strong undertow and unstable water conditions.[14] The park nevertheless includes a regulated bathing beach elsewhere, as well as picnic areas and overnight camping facilities.[4] Its landscape combines sandy soils, kurkar formations, planted groves, archaeological remains, and coastal recreation areas.[4]

Maariv reported that the park received 72,000 visitors in August 2025, placing it among Israel's ten most visited nature reserves and national parks that month.[13] The park had closed at the beginning of the Swords of Iron War and reopened in January 2024. Attendance was initially low after the reopening but later increased substantially.[13]

The first archaeological probes at Tel Ashkelon were conducted in 1920–1921 by W. J. Phythian-Adams and John Garstang.[7][2] They revealed Hellenistic and Roman remains, including a large building identified as either a council house, or bouleuterion, or a forum. The excavators also found earlier Middle Bronze fortifications and pottery in fill layers indicating connections with Aegean and Cypriot cultures.[7] Later investigations uncovered a painted tomb depicting two nymphs in a Nilotic landscape, the god Pan playing a syrinx, a dog chasing a gazelle, and a Gorgon mask.[7]

Large-scale annual excavations began in 1985 under Lawrence E. Stager.[7] From 1985 to 2014, the Leon Levy Expedition excavated Grid 38 on the northern side of the city's central mound, exposing a Bronze and Iron Age sequence across approximately 450 square meters.[15] Researchers combined radiocarbon sampling strategies to construct an absolute chronological framework for the latter half of the second millennium BCE, focusing on the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age and the timing of early Philistine pottery.[15]

The Stager-led excavations uncovered scant Early Bronze II–III remains, an extensive Middle Bronze II defensive system, and a well-preserved gate flanked by towers.[2] Nearby, excavators identified a small shrine known as the "sanctuary of the silver calf." A rare bronze calf figurine coated in silver, approximately 10 centimeters high and dated to around 1600 BCE, was recovered with pottery fragments thought to have formed its container.[7][1] The original figurine and vessel are displayed at the Israel Museum, with copies at the Ashkelon Museum in the Khan.[1]

Later periods are also richly represented. Late Bronze Age remains include building debris and sunken burial vaults.[2] Philistine-period discoveries include fortifications dated to 1100 BCE and vats interpreted as evidence of wine production.[2] A fifth-century BCE Persian-period dog cemetery was also uncovered. One account reports more than 1,500 canine skeletons and suggests that residents buried dogs in designated cemeteries and may have revered them, although the meaning of the practice remains uncertain.[8][11]

Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic public buildings and dwellings have been documented at the site.[7] Byzantine-period remains include a synagogue whose chancel screen was decorated with menorot, a hexagonal church with mosaic floors, and other church structures.[2] Continuing discoveries reported from Ashkelon include a Roman tomb and an arched gateway described as one of the oldest in the world.[11]

An unusual Roman- or Byzantine-period discovery was a bathhouse whose underground sewer contained about 100 infant skeletons.[16] The remains showed no orderly burial and were mixed with animal bones, pottery sherds, and coins. DNA tests on 19 left femoral bones identified 14 male and five female infants.[16] A Hebrew University team headed by Professors Ariella Oppenheim and Patricia Smith, with examination by Professor Charles Greenblatt, proposed that the infants were born to courtesans working at the establishment. A Greek inscription reading "Enter, enjoy and..." contributed to the interpretation that the bathhouse may also have served as a brothel.[16]

Among the park's most celebrated monuments is the Canaanite Gate, discovered in 1993 by a Harvard University excavation team led by Professor Lawrence Stager.[1] Most accounts date the gateway to approximately 1850 BCE, although one report gives a date closer to 1800 BCE.[1][5] Sources consequently describe it either as the world's oldest surviving built-arch gate or as one of the oldest.[1][5]

The gateway was constructed from mud bricks and kurkar in the form of a corridor approximately 15 meters long, nearly four meters high, and about two meters wide. One account explains that it was wide enough for loaded carts traveling toward the port.[12]

A visitor route begins at the Canaanite Gate and climbs to views of the Mediterranean, northern Ashkelon, the earthen rampart, and the fortification wall before continuing toward the park's center and the beach.[14] The visible rampart rises approximately 15 meters and bears a defensive glacis. The route also passes granite pillars projecting horizontally from ancient walls, whose purpose remains unknown.[14]

The park's Roman basilica is the largest of its kind uncovered in Israel.[6][9] John Garstang first excavated the basilica area in 1920–1922. Further work took place in 2008–2012 and again from 2016, under Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists Rachel Bar-Nathan, Saar Ganor, and Federico Kobrin.[6][17]

Public life in Roman Ashkelon revolved around the basilica, where residents conducted business, dealt with social and legal matters, and attended performances and religious ceremonies.[9] The complex measured approximately 115 by 34 meters and contained a nave 77 meters long and 19.7 meters wide.[17] Its floors, walls, columns, capitals, and sculptures incorporated marble imported from Asia Minor. Excavators recovered about 200 marble architectural pieces weighing hundreds of tons in total.[6][9]

The basilica featured about 50 marble columns, of which restorers aimed to reconstruct 17.[17] Each monolithic main shaft was nearly seven meters long and weighed approximately 7.5 tons; with pedestal and capital, the reconstructed columns stood about nine meters high.[17]

Archaeologists attribute the basilica's earliest phase to the time of Herod the Great, citing Herodian coins found in the bedding of its ancient floors.[6][9] It underwent extensive renovation during the Severan Dynasty in the second and third centuries CE, when a small odeon, or theater, was added.[6][9] The basilica was destroyed by an earthquake generally dated in the excavation reports to 363 CE.[6][9] Marble components were reused during the Abbasid and Fatimid periods and cut for construction materials into the Ottoman era; one restoration report estimates that only about 10 percent of the original marble survived.[17][9]

Five marble figures—two nearly complete and three partial—were recovered during the British-era excavations.[10] They include Nike, the goddess of victory, standing on a globe carried by Atlas, and the Egyptian goddess Isis depicted as Tyche, the city's goddess of fortune. After remaining neglected in an excavation pit for decades, the statues underwent a year of conservation and were inaugurated for public display on June 27, 2022, in metal frames between the basilica's southern section and the odeon.[10]

A major discovery associated with the site was a Philistine cemetery found immediately outside the ancient city walls.[18] The excavated area contained more than 210 individuals dating from the 11th through the 8th centuries BCE, although archaeologists estimated that the full cemetery might contain thousands of burials.[18] Burial practices included pit burials with personal items, cremation, and multi-chambered tombs.[18]

The discovery provided evidence about Philistine burial practices at Ashkelon, one of the five principal Philistine cities alongside Gaza, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. The Philistine city remained a major Mediterranean seaport until its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar's army in 604 BCE.[18]

The visitor route through the park passes through 12th-century Crusader-era city walls as well as the much earlier Canaanite earth ramparts.[11] Ruins of Byzantine and Crusader churches are also visible within the park.[11]

Ashkelon's medieval fortifications changed hands repeatedly during the Crusader and Muslim periods. In 1270, the Mamluk ruler Baybars destroyed the walls, which were not rebuilt.[1][2] Their surviving remains now form part of the archaeological landscape surrounding the ancient city.

Several aspects of Ashkelon's history and archaeology remain disputed or inconsistently reported. The Masoretic text of Judges 1:18 states that Judah conquered Ashkelon, Gaza, and Ekron, while the Septuagint says that the cities were not taken.[7]

Published dates for the Canaanite Gate range from about 1800 to 1850 BCE, and sources vary between calling it the world's oldest surviving built-arch gate and describing it more cautiously as one of the oldest.[1][5] Reports date the earthquake that destroyed the basilica to either 350 or 363 CE.[17][9] Column measurements also differ: one report describes columns and capitals reaching approximately 13 meters, while a restoration account gives nine meters for reconstructed columns.[9][17] The sources do not explicitly reconcile these measurements.

Accounts of the bathhouse sewer refer to either about 100 infant skeletons or hundreds, and the brothel interpretation remains an archaeological hypothesis based on DNA evidence, an inscription, and context rather than direct documentation.[16][2] A suggested association between the silver-coated calf figurine and the biblical golden-calf narrative is likewise tentative.[11] Sources also disagree on whether the park was declared in 1964 or 1965.[1][8] Published area figures range from about 1,000 dunams to roughly 3,000 dunams, with an earlier account giving approximately 1,700 dunams; the reports may be measuring different components of the park.[4][13] The 1,700-dunam figure comes from the 2002 account.[1]