Tell Jemmeh (Gemmeh) in Israel

Updated December 9th 2019

The site of Tell Jemmeh is located about 10 km south of Gaza on the southern bank of the Nahal Besor. Its position at the 300 mm isohyet places it at the border of arid and semi-arid land. This region of Israel's southern coastal plain can be characterized as a marginal agricultural area for both past and present (1).

The proximity of Tell Jemmeh to Gaza (ancient Tell Ajjul) -- a major commercial center throughout much of antiquity -- insured its interaction in a broad sphere. Tell Jemmeh is located about eight km southeast of the trunk route ("The Way of the Land of the Philistines" or Via Maris: See Exodus 13:17) that connected Palestine and Egypt.

Sat Jun 1 2002 – 35 · The Gazette (Montreal Quebec Canada) · Newspapers.com

Sir Flinders Petrie conducted the first large-scale excavation of the mound in 1928, identifying it incorrectly as the Gerar of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 20:1-2; 26:1-12).

The Smithsonian Institution Excavation at Tell Jemmeh Israel 1970–1990
by David Ben-Shlomo and Gus Van Beek (2014)

The expedition had found evidence to support Mezer's identification and also identified the site with Arsa from Neo-Assyrian scripts^{[1] [WikiPedia]}

See: Digging Up Tell Jemmeh by Gus Van Beek in Archaeology (1983) Pages 12-19

The site is a strategic and large mound located near Gaza and the Mediterranean coast. It was inhabited continuously for at least 1,400 years during the Middle and Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Persian period. The highlights of this excavation are the findings of a large and affluent courtyard house from the Late Bronze Age, a sophisticated well-preserved pottery kiln from the early Iron Age, a complex of Assyrian-related administrative buildings during the late Iron Age and a complete granary of the Persian period.

The archaeological site of Tell Jemmeh (Tel Re’im) is a prominent mound located in the region of the northwestern Negev and the southern coastal plain of Israel about 12 km south of Gaza and 9 km west of the Mediterranean coast. The site is situated in a strategic location on the southern fringe of a sedentary settlement close to the important maritime gateway of Gaza and on the crossroads of the major coastal highway connecting Egypt and Asia and the route from Arabia to the main coastal gateways on the Mediterranean coast. Even today it stands prominently overlooking the modern roadway, giving the junction its modern name (the Gemma Junction). Throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages the sites of the western Negev presented a unique combination of the material cultures of the regions surrounding it. A case in point is the Iron Age II (10th–7th centuries BCE) when the region witnessed the intensive political, military, cultural and commercial activity of Egypt and Assyria as well as settlement of Arabs, Phoenicians and perhaps also Greeks. This region became pivotal in the administration of the spice trade network that commenced at the Gaza, Ashkelon and Ruqeish headquarters.

In 1952 Benjamin Maisler (Mazar) argued that Tell Jemmeh should be identified with Yurza (Yurtza), a Canaanite town mentioned in the annals of Thutmose III in his cities list of the southern Levant and in the Tell el Amarna correspondence (Maisler 1952:48–51). Today most scholars accept this identification. The association of Tell Jemmeh to Yurza is based on the site’s prominence and strategic positing, controlling the coastal route on the very southern edge of the Canaanite territory. This identification is further substantiated by the petrographic provenancing of two el Amarna letters written from Yurza’s governor Pû-Ba’lu to the king of Egypt to Tell Jemmeh (Goren et al 2004:300).

Yurza: The Identification of Tell Jemmeh by Benjamin Maisler (1952)

https://ancientneareast.tripod.com/PDF/maisler1952.pdf

W. J. Pythian-Adams (1923:146), who was the first to excavate the site, proposed to identify Tell Jemmeh with ancient Gerar, a town mentioned in the Bible in passages primarily dealing with the Patriarchs. The Byzantine site of Umm Gerar, some 3.6 km down the Nahal Besor from Tell Jemmeh, helped support this claim, as according to Pythian-Adams, the name drifted there from the biblical town of Gerar, which must have been nearby.

Report on Soundings at Tell Jemmeh by W. J. Phythian-Adams
in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1923)

Petrie (1928:2) followed Pythian-Adams in also identifying Jemmeh with Gerar: “That the mound of Tell Gemmeh is the site of the ancient Gerar is indicated by the name of the district El Jura around it and by the name of a daughter town Umm Jerar, entirely of Roman age, at a couple of miles downstream.” This identification was accepted by virtually all scholars and was assumed in most archeological publications from 1929 until 1952.