Philistines

by

Carl S. Ehrlich

• LAST REVIEWED: 28 April 2017
• LAST MODIFIED: 28 August 2018
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0144

Introduction

The Philistines were a people with roots in the Aegean or Anatolian world who settled on the southern coastal strip of Canaan around the year 1200, during the transitional period between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. In Egyptian sources dating to this time, they are one among a number of so-called Sea Peoples who came into conflict with Egypt. Although they are mentioned anachronistically in the Hebrew Bible in both the ancestral (i.e., patriarchal) narratives and the exodus traditions, it is only in narratives dealing with the period of the judges (particularly in the Samson cycle: Judges 13–16) and with the rise of the Israelite monarchy, corresponding respectively to Iron Age Ib and IIa, that they play a more central role as antagonists: particularly of Samson and of the first Israelite king, Saul. In spite of the text’s negative attitude toward them, David appears to have spent some time as a Philistine vassal before assuming the mantle of Israelite kingship following the deaths of Saul and most of his sons at Philistine hands. After David’s supposed neutralization of the Philistine threat, the Philistines appear only sporadically in the biblical text, most noticeably in prophetic oracles against the nations. According to biblical literature, the Philistines were organized in a loose confederation of five city-states (the Philistine Pentapolis): Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza along the coast, and Ekron and Gath farther inland, although the latter city does not appear in later texts. From the perspective of the biblical text, the Philistines were the quintessential “other,” distinguished from the other inhabitants of the Levant through their uncircumcised state. Our picture of Philistine history and culture is greatly expanded first by a number of ancient Near Eastern texts, particularly from the late New Kingdom Period in Egypt (13th–12th centuries BCE) and from the neo-Assyrian period (8th–7th centuries BCE), and second by the results of archaeological excavations at Philistine sites. Although a distinctive style of bichrome pottery was associated with the Philistines already at the end of the 19th century, it was not until the 1960s that intensive excavations began to be carried out both at cities of the Philistine Pentapolis (with the exception of Gaza, which is covered by the modern city of the same name) and at smaller and more peripheral sites. These have allowed us to draw a much more nuanced picture of Philistine history, society, and material culture, which oftentimes provides a corrective to the witness of the biblical text.

General Overviews

Studies of the Philistines approach the subject matter from varying perspectives. This category is dedicated to studies with a more global approach. These include both popular and more scholarly works. Bierling 1992 attempts to mesh the archaeological results with an understanding of the biblical text, while Dothan and Dothan 1992 provides an engaging account of this husband-and-wife team’s search for Philistine remains. Emphasis is placed on their own archaeological excavations of Ashdod, Tel Miqne-Ekron, and on Cyprus. Litani 2013 is an illustrated museum catalogue that presents an overview of Philistine material culture. Among the more scholarly works, Noort 1994 provides a comprehensive textual and archaeological study on the Philistines and associated Sea Peoples: presumably owing to its publication in German, this study has not been sufficiently taken note of in the scholarly literature. Margalith 1994 controversially argues for widespread Philistine influence on biblical literature. Niesiołowski-Spanò 2016 builds upon Margalith 1994 and goes far beyond in a provocative synthesis of Philistine influence on Israelite history and culture. Killebrew and Lehmann 2013 provides a relatively comprehensive collection of essays on the complex Philistine and Sea Peoples’ phenomenon. Ehrlich 1996 surveys the history of the Philistines between David and Tiglath-pileser III (c. 1000–730 BCE), more or less at which historical point the Tadmor 1966 study of the Philistines under Assyrian rule takes over. And Finkelstein 2002, whose author has a reputation as a re-dater of both archaeological levels and biblical texts, argues that the depiction of the Philistines in biblical literature is a reflection of the late date of the texts’ composition. Owing to the rapid pace of archaeological discovery in the Philistine world in recent years, many of the archaeological arguments in works older than about a decade have been superseded.

• Bierling, Neal. Giving Goliath His Due: New Archaeological Light on the Philistines. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A popular introduction to the study of the Philistines and their culture and history, written by an educated layman who participated extensively in the excavations of Tel Miqne-Ekron, among other sites in Israel. However, Bierling’s book should be used with caution, since his understanding of the biblical text is somewhat literalist.

  Find this resource:

• Dothan, Trude, and Moshe Dothan. People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. New York: Macmillan, 1992.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Written by the scholars who established the modern study of the Philistines, this engaging book documents their personal search for the remains of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples. Drawing on their own excavations, the book reads like a mystery novel, while providing a wealth of information about the Philistines and their material culture.

  Find this resource:

• Ehrlich, Carl S. The Philistines in Transition: A History from ca. 1000–730 BCE. Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 10. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1996.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Examines a period of Philistine history that has not often been an object of interest: from the time of their supposed subjugation by David of Israel until their conquest by the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser III during his campaigns to the Levant in 734–732 BCE. Appendixes provide editions of relevant biblical and Assyrian texts.

  Find this resource:

• Finkelstein, Israel. “The Philistines in the Bible: A Late-Monarchic Perspective.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27 (2002): 131–167.

  DOI: 10.1177/030908920202700201Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Finkelstein’s central thesis, which employs both textual and archaeological evidence, is that the biblical texts relating to the Philistines date to the late monarchic period (7th–6th centuries BCE), rather than to the time of which they purport to tell (mainly 11th–10th centuries BCE). This has controversial implications for the evaluation of these texts as historical sources.

  Find this resource:

• Killebrew, Ann E., and Gunnar Lehmann, eds. The Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology. SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An important collection of twenty-four essays covering a broad range of topics in Philistine and Sea Peoples studies. Following an introduction by the editors, the first section, consisting of nine essays, looks at “The Philistines in Text and Archaeology.” The second section, consisting of five essays, examines “The Other ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Levant.” The third section, consisting of eight essays, is dedicated to “Anatolia, the Aegean, and Cyprus.” Finally, an appendix provides information on “The ‘Sea Peoples’ in Primary Sources.”

  Find this resource:

• Litani, Galit. The World of the Philistines: The Rise and Fall of the Philistine Culture; Beginning of the 12th Century BCE–End of the 7th Century BCE. Translated by Zvi Gal. Ashdod, Israel: Corinne Mamane Museum of Philistine Culture, 2013.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A bilingual English-Hebrew catalogue of the permanent exhibit at the world’s first museum dedicated solely to the Philistines. Lavishly illustrated, it provides a basic overview of Philistine history and material culture.

  Find this resource:

• Margalith, Othniel. The Sea Peoples in the Bible. Translated by Othniel Margalith and Shulamit Margalith. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1994.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An intriguing but idiosyncratic attempt to argue for widespread Philistine and Sea Peoples’ influence on biblical literature. The author overstates his case by his uncritical use of both biblical and Greek literature, and by his ignoring of archaeological evidence that would contradict his theories. Stimulating, but to be used with caution.

  Find this resource:

• Niesiołowski-Spanò, Łukasz. Goliath’s Legacy: Philistines and Hebrews in Biblical Times. Translated by Maria Kantor. Philippika: Altertumswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen/Contributions to the Study of Ancient World Cultures 83. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2016.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A provocative work that seeks to overturn many of the consensus positions in Philistine studies. Niesiołowski-Spanò’s basic thesis is that the Philistines had a much greater and longer impact on Israelite history and culture than previously supposed. Indeed, he attributes to the Philistines the origins of many of the ethnic groups and tribes mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, thus positing Philistine origins for both Canaanites and Israelites. The Philistine influence may also be identified in the vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. And in distinction to other interpreters of the past, he does not view Nebuchadnezzar’s late-7th-century conquests as bringing an end to Philistine history. While many will disagree with his conclusions, he forces the reader to reconsider old assumptions.

  Find this resource:

• Noort, Ed. Die Seevölker in Palästina. Palaestina Antiqua 8. Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Noort challenges the dominant orthodoxy that the Sea Peoples organized a massive invasion of Egypt and that Philistine material culture was largely imported from outside Canaan. Instead, the author argues that Philistine settlement does not date to the eighth year of Ramses III and that much of Philistine material culture continues older local traditions.

  Find this resource:

• Tadmor, Hayim. “Philistia under Assyrian Rule.” Biblical Archaeologist 29 (1966): 86–102.

  DOI: 10.2307/3211004Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Based on his readings of Assyrian and biblical texts, the author was one of the world’s leading scholars of the ancient Near East. This study provides a political and economic history of the Philistines during the days of the neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th–7th centuries BCE. Although older, this is still an informative and accessible essay.

  Find this resource:

Textual Sources

Texts are as open to differing interpretations as is archaeology (and vice versa). In addition to the biblical text, there are a number of ancient textual sources—mainly from Egypt and Mesopotamia—that help shed light on the Philistines. These can be found in annotated translations in both Hallo 2003 and Weippert 2010. Adams and Cohen 2013 provides a useful listing of mentions of both Philistines and other Sea Peoples in ancient Near Eastern sources from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. Both Dothan and Cohn 1994 and Machinist 2000 deal with how the biblical text interprets and uses the Philistines in both an ideological and historiographical manner. Finkelstein 2002 and Zorn 2010 come to diametrically opposed conclusions regarding the antiquity of the information about the Philistines contained in the biblical text. Shai 2006 employs mainly the biblical text to arrive at conclusions regarding the changing political organization of the Philistines. Finally, Maeir 2007 uses archaeology to solve an amusing interpretative crux in the Ark narrative of 1 Samuel 4:1–7:1, in which the Philistines are afflicted by a plague of opalim in retribution for their capture of the Ark of the Covenant.

• Adams, Matthew J., and Margaret E. Cohen. “The ‘Sea Peoples’ in Primary Sources.” In The Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology. Edited by Ann E. Killebrew and Gunnar Lehmann, 654–664. SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A helpful listing with rudimentary bibliography of mentions of Philistines and other Sea Peoples in Egyptian, Hittite, Ugaritic, and other sources from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.

  Find this resource:

• Dothan, Trude, and Robert L. Cohn. “The Philistine as Other: Biblical Rhetoric and Archaeological Reality.” In The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity. Edited by Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn, 61–73. New York: New York University Press, 1994.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An insightful article that looks at the biblical construction of the Philistines as “other” and deconstructs it partly by using archaeological evidence.

  Find this resource:

• Finkelstein, Israel. “The Philistines in the Bible: A Late-Monarchic Perspective.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27 (2002): 131–167.

  DOI: 10.1177/030908920202700201Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An attempt to place the biblical depictions of Philistine material culture within the world of Philistine archaeology. This leads Finkelstein to the controversial conclusion that the biblical texts relating to the Philistines are reflective more of their late period of composition than they are of the period of the heyday of the Philistines during Iron Age I.

  Find this resource:

• Hallo, William W., ed. The Context of Scripture. 3 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The most up-to-date and authoritative collection of English translations of texts from the world of the Hebrew Bible. The texts are annotated and include basic bibliographical information. Since the general arrangement of the texts is genre-based, one has to search through the index to find texts relating to the Sea Peoples and the Philistines.

  Find this resource:

• Machinist, Peter. “Biblical Traditions: The Philistines and Israelite History.” In The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment. Edited by Eliezer D. Oren, 53–83. Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Going beyond Dothan and Cohn 1994, Machinist attempts to survey the sweep of the Hebrew Bible’s depiction of the Philistines and leaves the reader with solid theories regarding both the use of the biblical text for the reconstruction of history and more specifically the function of the Philistines as a foil for Israel during its period of gestation.

  Find this resource:

• Maeir, Aren M. “A New Interpretation of the Term ‘opalim (עפלים) in the Light of Recent Archaeological Finds from Philistia.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32 (2007): 23–40.

  DOI: 10.1177/0309089207083762Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The word ‘opalim has long been an interpretative crux, with guesses as to its meaning ranging from boils to hemorrhoids. On the basis of a collection of votive penises found at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath, Maeir proposes translating the word as “penis,” thus having God punish the uncircumcised Philistines on the organ that distinguishes them most clearly from the Israelites.

  Find this resource:

• Shai, Itzhaq. “The Political Organization of the Philistines.” In “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Vol. 1. Edited by Aren M. Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji, 347–359. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  On the basis of an examination of the textual evidence, Shai puts forward the hypothesis that during Iron Age IIa the Philistines were united in a Pentapolis, probably under the leadership of Gath. Following the destruction of Gath, the four remaining Philistine cities functioned as independent city-states in Iron Age IIb.

  Find this resource:

• Weippert, Manfred. Historisches Textbuch zum Alten Testament. Grundrisse zum Alten Testament 10. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2010.

  DOI: 10.13109/9783666516931Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In distinction to Hallo 2003, in which the organizing principle is according to literary genre, Weippert provides a selection of texts relating to the history of the biblical world. In addition, while Hallo focuses on texts of literary merit, Weippert is more concerned with historical importance.

  Find this resource:

• Zorn, Jeffrey R. “Reconsidering Goliath: An Iron Age I Philistine Chariot Warrior.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 360 (2010): 1–22.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  While Finkelstein 2002 concludes that the description of Goliath’s armor in 1 Samuel 17 is at best a hodgepodge of different styles that reveals the late date of the composition of the text, Zorn concludes that the description is a trustworthy reflection of the armaments that a Philistine warrior would have worn in Iron Age I.

  Find this resource:

The Sea Peoples

The arrival of the Philistines in Canaan is associated with the movement of various groups throughout the eastern Mediterranean world during the period of transition between the Late Bronze Age II and the Iron Age Ia (c. 1250–1150 BCE), during which there was a global collapse of Bronze Age civilization throughout the world of the ancient Near East and the Aegean; yet, it is unclear whether the peoples plying the seas were the cause or the effect of this process. Nor is it clear whether the Sea Peoples were colonists or refugees, merchants or marauders, peaceful people or pirates (on the latter, see Hitchcock and Maeir 2014). Drews 1993 attempts to answer the former question by surveying and critically analyzing the various explanations given for the collapse of Bronze Age civilization and whether the reasons for the demise were economic, environmental, natural, political, social, or technological. Although the threat of seafarers is known also from the Ugaritic texts, it is in texts from the reigns of the Egyptian pharaohs Ramses II, Merneptah, and Ramses III, that the names of a number of these seafaring groups are preserved, including in the case of the latter the Peleset, who are identified with the Philistines. It is also to the reign of Ramses III that the reliefs from the mortuary temple at Medinet Habu depicting various Sea Peoples including the Philistines are to be dated. Cifola 1988 provides an interpretation of the ideology behind these reliefs. While Sweeney and Yasur-Landau 1999 mines the reliefs for sociological data, Wachsmann 1998 focuses on the material world of the Philistines, specifically on their nautical capabilities. Although Sandars 1985 attempts to provide an overview of the whole of the discussion concerning the Sea Peoples, most scholarly studies devoted to them are collections of essays, since very few scholars would be able to do justice to this complex cross-cultural phenomenon on their own. While including a number of essays on the Sea Peoples phenomenon and the era of Philistine settlement, Gitin, et al. 1998 encompasses the whole of the eastern Mediterranean world during Late Bronze Age II and Iron Age I. The focus of Oren 2000 is more specifically on the Sea Peoples within the context of their time. Harrison 2006–2007 deals slightly more broadly with the Sea Peoples, the Philistines, and their world, as do both the more recent Killebrew and Lehmann 2013 and Fischer and Bürge 2017. Janeway 2017 looks at the ceramic evidence for the presence of Sea Peoples at the site of Tell Tayinat in southeastern Turkey.

• Cifola, Barbara. “Ramses III and the Sea Peoples: A Structural Analysis of the Medinet Habu Inscriptions.” Orientalia 57 (1988): 275–306.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In this important article, Cifola argues that one should not take the evidence of the pictorial representation of Ramses’ battle(s) against the Sea Peoples at face value, since the reliefs of the Medinet Habu temple are arranged according to a theological and not necessarily historical pattern.

  Find this resource:

• Drews, Robert. The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A scholarly yet readable study about the period of transition between the Bronze and Iron ages. After surveying the process of the collapse and the many different explanations given for it, Drews concludes that it was changes in the technology of warfare that allowed the “barbarians” to overcome their traditional masters.

  Find this resource:

• Fischer, Peter M., and Teresa Bürge, eds. “Sea Peoples” Up-to-Date: New Research on Transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th–11th Centuries BCE. Proceedings of the ESF Workshop held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 3–4 November 2014. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie 81. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The most recent collection of essays about the Sea Peoples. It is based on a conference held in Vienna in 2014. The contributions are arranged in five subject areas: “Overviews: From Italy to the Levant”; “Climate and Radiocarbon”; “Theoretical Approaches on Destruction, Migration and Transformation of Culture”; “Case Studies: Cyprus, Cilicia and the Levant”; and “Material Studies.”

  Find this resource:

• Gitin, Seymour, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern, eds. Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE. Festschrift Trude Dothan. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1998.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A major collection of essays that covers a broad range of topics and geographical locations, from the Mycenaean world to Egypt and the Levant. The temporal focus is on the transitional period from the end of the Late Bronze Age until the beginning of Iron Age II (13th–9th centuries BCE).

  Find this resource:

• Harrison, Timothy P., ed. Special Issue: Cyprus, the Sea Peoples and the Eastern Mediterranean: Regional Perspectives of Continuity and Change. Scripta Mediterranea 27–28 (2006–2007).

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The focus of this important collection of essays is on the island of Cyprus as the hub from which the Sea Peoples and the Philistines radiated into the Levant. Nonetheless, individual papers deal also with the Aegean and Anatolian evidence, and specifically the Philistines and their peregrinations.

  Find this resource:

• Hitchcock, Louise A., and Aren M. Maeir. “Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a Seren’s Life for Me!” World Archaeology 46.4 (2014): 624–640.

  DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2014.928602Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In this article, the authors lay out the evidence for their theory that the complex Sea Peoples phenomenon in the transitional Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age may be explained through the medium of piracy.

  Find this resource:

• Janeway, Brian. Sea Peoples of the Northern Levant? Aegean Style Ceramic Evidence for the Sea Peoples from Tell Tayinat. Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 7. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This revised doctoral dissertation from the University of Toronto examines and evaluates the implications of the ceramic evidence from the site of Tell Tayinat in southeastern Turkey. Finds made at the site, including its status as the capital city of a kingdom called Palastin, have given rise to speculation that there was a relationship between the inhabitants of this site and the more southerly Philistines. While Janeway accepts the fact of Sea Peoples’ presence here, he cautions strongly against a facile equating of the inhabitants of Tell Tayinat with the Philistines.

  Find this resource:

• Killebrew, Ann E., and Gunnar Lehmann, eds. The Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology. SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This work provides a relatively recent and wide-ranging collection of essays dealing with the breadth of Philistine and Sea Peoples studies. The volume is arranged in three major sections (“The Philistines in Text and Archaeology”; “The Other ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Levant”; and “Anatolia, the Aegean, and Cyprus”), with an introduction (“The World of the Philistines and Other ‘Sea Peoples’”) by the editors and a helpful appendix listing “The ‘Sea Peoples’ in Primary Sources.”

  Find this resource:

• Oren, Eliezer D., ed. The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment. University Museum Monograph 108, University Museum Symposium Series 11. Philadelphia: University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Like Gitin, et al. 1998; Harrison 2006–2007; and Killebrew and Lehmann 2013, and authored by leading scholars in the field, these important essays cover a wide range of issues associated with the Sea Peoples and the Philistines, from questions of cultural background and influence to a specifically archaeological focus on material culture and cult.

  Find this resource:

• Sandars, Nancy K. The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean. Rev. ed. Ancient Peoples and Places. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Mainly due to the wealth of information added to our knowledge as a result of close to three decades of continued archaeological investigation in the eastern Mediterranean, this is an outdated study; however, it is still the best single-volume popular and richly illustrated introduction to the Sea Peoples and their world.

  Find this resource:

• Sweeney, Deborah, and Assaf Yasur-Landau. “Following the Path of the Sea Persons: The Women in the Medinet Habu Reliefs.” Tel Aviv 26 (1999): 116–145.

  DOI: 10.1179/033443599788145719Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Most studies of the reliefs from Medinet Habu have concentrated on the battle scenes and the depictions of the Sea People ships and warriors. This article turns its attention to the womenfolk of the Sea Peoples as they are depicted within the reliefs and tries to extrapolate information of a sociological nature from them.

  Find this resource:

• Wachsmann, Shelley. Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This is an invaluable work for all interested in the ships of the Sea Peoples in general and of the Philistines in particular. Pages 163–197 deal specifically with the Philistines’ distinctive two-prowed ships as depicted with birds’ heads on the Medinet Habu reliefs.

  Find this resource:

Migration and Settlement

One of the burning issues in the study of the Philistines revolves around the question of their origins. The sources in this category deal specifically with the rise of the Philistines in Canaan: where they came from and what their process of coming into existence in this geographical realm entailed. Barako 2000 and Yasur-Landau 2010 both view the Philistines as immigrants from the Aegean world (broadly defined), who settled southern Canaan as a consequence of a large movement of people mainly by an overland route around the year 1200 BCE. Finkelstein 1995, on the other hand, argues against this migratory paradigm: and while conceding that some elements of Philistine culture support some limited immigration, this study draws attention to a cultural continuity with Canaanite culture. In this manner, the date of the Philistine settlement becomes part of Finkelstein’s larger project of dating archaeological levels about a century later than most other scholars do.

• Barako, Tristam. “The Philistine Settlement as Mercantile Phenomenon?” American Journal of Archaeology 104 (2000): 513–530.

  DOI: 10.2307/507227Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An argument against those who have claimed that the settlement of the Philistines in Canaan and the introduction of their distinctive material culture may be attributed to the movement of goods by merchants in search of new mercantile outlets. On the contrary, the evidence supports the theory of a military invasion by migrants.

  Find this resource:

• Finkelstein, Israel. “The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan.” Tel Aviv 22 (1995): 213–239.

  DOI: 10.1179/033443595788194142Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Arguing against the dominant paradigm that assumes that the Philistines arrived in Canaan in the early 12th century BCE during the reign of Ramses III, Finkelstein attempts to demonstrate that there is no evidence that they arrived before the latter part of that century, thus removing the reliefs from Medinet Habu from the discussion.

  Find this resource:

• Yasur-Landau, Assaf. Philistines and Aegean Migration in the Late Bronze Age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511761201Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An argument that the origins of the Philistines may be found in a mainly land-based migration of about 10,000 people from the Aegean world to southern Canaan, destroying Ugarit and invading Egypt on the way. Yasur-Landau focuses his attention on the Philistines as a social phenomenon.

  Find this resource:

Philistine Archaeology

Most archaeological studies devoted to the Philistines tend to investigate specific sites or specific issues in Philistine archaeology. There are a handful of studies, however, that take a more global approach to the subject matter. Dothan 1982 and Brug 1985 provide state-of-the-field surveys and analyses of Philistine studies as they were in the early and mid-1980s respectively. The former volume in particular is considered to be the single most important synthesis of Philistine archaeology and material culture, in spite of the progress of the field in the three decades since its publication. While Dothan’s book was written before the excavations of Tel Miqne-Ekron, Ashkelon, and Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath (among others), it remains the starting point of any discussion about Philistine material culture, although some of its conclusions have been changed or refined over time. Stern 1993 and Stern 2008 is the basic reference work to turn to for anyone interested in specific archaeological sites, their finds, and analyses.

• Brug, John F. A Literary and Archaeological Study of the Philistines. BAR International Series 265. Oxford: B.A.R., 1985.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Provides a textual and archaeological picture of the Philistine phenomenon. Although written in the mid-1980s, this remains a helpful synthesis of Philistine studies. The author views the Philistine settlement as that of small groups rather than a massive migration to or invasion of Canaan during the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition.

  Find this resource:

• Dothan, Trude. The Philistines and Their Material Culture. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1982.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  If there is one indispensable work on the Philistines and their archaeology, this is it. Although the author surveys the literary remains (pp. 1–24), her focus is on gathering and systematizing Philistine material culture, particularly its distinctive bichrome pottery (pp. 94–218). Her survey of the sites with Philistine remains (pp. 25–93) is also of great value.

  Find this resource:

• Stern, Ephraim, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. 4 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Arranged by the names of archaeological sites, this reference work provides summaries of the excavations and analyses of their results. Richly illustrated, each entry also includes a bibliography. When seeking information about individual sites, this is the place to start.

  Find this resource:

• Stern, Ephraim, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 5: Supplementary Volume. Jerusalem/Washington, DC: Israel Exploration Society/Biblical Archaeology Society, 2008.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Published fifteen years after Stern 1993, this work adds new excavations to the database and brings the results of older excavations up-to-date. To be used in conjunction with Stern 1993.

  Find this resource:

Society

Archaeological and textual evidence provide the raw material for the attempt to understand the cultural processes that affected the Philistines. The studies listed here all try in some way to understand the dynamics of Philistine culture. For Faust 2006, the Philistines provide the foil against which Israelite society took shape, while Killebrew 2005 is more concerned with understanding the ethnicity of Philistine society. Stone 1995 looks at the terminology employed in describing the processes of change that the Philistines underwent in their somewhat more than half a millennium of existence. While Stone suggests that they “acculturated” themselves, more recently, other terms (such as “creolization”) have also been employed in the attempt to find just the right linguistic nuance to describe the cultural processes the Philistines underwent during their nearly six hundred years of existence in southwestern Canaan. Ben-Shlomo 2006 argues for significant non-Philistine influence in early Philistine administration. Finally, Hesse 1986 uses animal remains to draw conclusions about Philistine versus Canaanite/Israelite ethnicity, some aspects of which are called into question in Maeir, et al. 2013, which argues that Philistine culture and identity were much more complex and varied than previously assumed (see also Kolska Horwitz, et al. 2017), and in Sapir-Hen, et al. 2013, which argues that pig bones are not to be used to distinguish Israel from Philistine identity but to divide a Judean from an Israelite one.

• Ben-Shlomo, David. “New Evidence of Seals and Sealings from Philistia.” Tel Aviv 33 (2006): 134–162.

  DOI: 10.1179/033443506787924537Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Drawing mainly on previously unpublished seals and seal impressions from Tel Miqne-Ekron, Ben-Shlomo argues on the basis of their iconography that the early Philistines adopted Canaanite and Egyptian administrative and political structures and may have employed non-Philistines to run their administration.

  Find this resource:

• Faust, Avraham. Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance. Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2006.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  While this important book of anthropological archaeology is devoted to the origins of Israel, a major section (pp. 111–156) is devoted to Philistine/Israelite interaction in Iron Age I, which in the author’s opinion was a major influence on the formation of Israel as an ethnic group.

  Find this resource:

• Hesse, Brian. “Animal Use at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Bronze Age and Iron Age.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 264 (1986): 17–27.

  DOI: 10.2307/1357016Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Basing himself on the faunal remains, Hesse draws attention to a change in diet from a sheep- and goat-based diet to a cow- and pig-based one in the changeover from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. He associates this change in diet with the coming of the Philistines.

  Find this resource:

• Killebrew, Ann E. Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel 1300–1100 B.C.E. SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies 9. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Like Faust, Killebrew is an archaeologist with an anthropological focus. Her chapter on the Philistines (pp. 197–245) presents them as immigrant colonists from Cyprus (or perhaps Anatolia). The Philistine immigrants were not Mycenaeans fleeing disaster, but people from the eastern Mediterranean who deliberately colonized the Levant.

  Find this resource:

• Kolska Horwitz, Liora, Armelle Gardeisen, Aren M. Maeir, and Louise A. Hitchcock. “A Contribution to the Iron Age Philistine Pig Debate.” In The Wide Lens in Archaeology: Honoring Brian Hesse’s Contributions to Anthropological Archaeology. Edited by Justin Lev-Tov, Paula Hesse, and Allan Gilbert, 93–116. Archaeobiology 2. Atlanta: Lockwood, 2017.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  While accepting the argument in Hesse 1986 that pig consumption may be used in Iron Age I to distinguish Philistine from Israelite sites (but based on additional faunal remains), the authors also agree with Sapir-Hen, et al. 2013 that the later Iron Age saw the introduction of a taboo on pork consumption in Judah as a way to distinguish a Judean from an Israelite identity.

  Find this resource:

• Maeir, Aren M., Louise A. Hitchcock, and Liora Kolska Horowitz. “On the Constitution and Transformation of Philistine Identity.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 32 (2013): 1–38.

  DOI: 10.1111/ojoa.12000Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An important survey of the development of many key indicators of Philistine culture with a view to demonstrate that this culture and its external interactions were much more complex than previously thought. In addition, the authors see no evidence that a putative conquest by Judah in the 9th century had any effect on changing Philistine material culture and ethnic identity.

  Find this resource:

• Sapir-Hen, Lidar, Guy Bar-Oz, Yuval Gadot, and Israel Finkelstein. “Pig Husbandry in Iron Age Israel and Judah: New Insights Regarding the Origin of the ‘Taboo.’” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 129 (2013): 1–21.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This article argues against the use of pig bones to distinguish Israelite and Philistine ethnicities from one another. Rather, the authors argue that the taboo of pig consumption was a function of the need to distinguish southern Judean from northern Israelite identity, and hence a setting of inner-Israelite ethnic boundary markers.

  Find this resource:

• Stone, Bryan Jack. “The Philistines and Acculturation: Culture Change and Ethnic Continuity in the Iron Age.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 298 (1995): 7–35.

  DOI: 10.2307/1357082Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Until the appearance of this article, it had been commonly assumed that the Philistines had “assimilated” to Canaanite culture. Stone argues that the Philistines did not disappear as a distinct culture, but “acculturated” themselves to Canaan, while retaining many distinctive cultural markers of their own.

  Find this resource:

Religion

The Hebrew Bible presents a picture of Philistine religion that makes them appear as run-of-the-mill Levantine polytheists, who worshipped, in particular, the gods Dagon, Baal, and Astarte. However, archaeological finds have refined and clarified the biblical picture. Ehrlich 2006–2007 surveys the major textual and archaeological finds pertaining to Philistine religion and cult, concluding that the feminine played a larger role in their cult than is indicated in the biblical texts. Elkowicz 2012 concentrates on material remains and analyzes possible Philistine cult places and their associated finds. Gitin 1993 looks at 7th century BCE finds from Ekron that bear on the subject. Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2000 examines Philistine religion in light of a dedicatory inscription found at Ekron after the publication of Gitin 1993, which was erected by Ikausu (Achish), one of the rulers of Ekron around 700 BCE. Singer 1992 argues that the worship of the grain-god Dagon was not indigenous to Canaan but was picked up by the Philistines on their way to southern Canaan and replaced their original worship of a mother goddess, whom Singer tentatively identifies as the Anatolian goddess Kybele/Kybebe/Kubaba. Against this notion Yasur-Landau 2001 argues that the Ashdoda type of figurine represented the Philistine mother goddess whom he identifies with Aegean Gaia and, subsequently, Canaanite Asherah. Finally Uehlinger 2002, whose area of specialization is iconography, examines a relief from the palace of neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III that presumably depicts a king of Gaza, whom Uehlinger identifies as Hanunu of Gaza, and images of his gods, when they submitted to Assyrian might in 734 BCE. If this interpretation is correct, this relief would be unique in its contemporaneous depiction of Philistine deities by non-Philistine artists.

• Ehrlich, Carl S. “Philistine Religion: Text and Archaeology.” In Special Issue: Cyprus, the Sea Peoples and the Eastern Mediterranean: Regional Perspectives of Continuity and Change. Edited by Timothy P. Harrison. Scripta Mediterranea 27–28 (2006–2007): 33–52.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The main thesis of this article is that there is a disconnect between the biblical depiction of the Philistine pantheon as a male-dominated one and the archaeological evidence, in which the divine feminine seems to play the major role in the Philistine cult.

  Find this resource:

• Elkowicz, Dominik. Tempel und Kultplätze der Philister und der Völker des Ostjordanlandes: Eine Untersuchung zur Bau- und zur Kultgeschichte während der Eisenzeit I–II. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 378. Münster, Germany: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An analysis of the “Temples and Cult-Places of the Philistines and the Peoples of Transjordan,” this volume is subtitled “An Investigation into Architectural and Cultic History during the Iron Age I-II.” Elkowicz examines cult places and their paraphernalia among the Philistines and other peoples surrounding Israel and Judah in order to come to conclusions regarding cult and cult practices.

  Find this resource:

• Gitin, Seymour. “Seventh Century B.C.E. Cultic Elements at Ekron.” In Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, June–July 1990. Edited by A. Biran and J. Aviram, 248–259. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1993.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A preliminary publication of 7th-century cultic elements from Tel Miqne-Ekron. This was one of the first publications that shed light on a period in Philistine religion that had until then been unknown. Among the objects considered are petaled chalices, dedicatory inscriptions, and horned altars.

  Find this resource:

• Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Christa. “The Goddess of Ekron and the Religious-Cultural Background of the Philistines.” Israel Exploration Journal 50 (2000): 82–91.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An essay on the dedicatory inscription from Ikausu “to his lady” Ptgyh, who has not been identified to everyone’s satisfaction. Here Ptgyh is derived from a divinity known at Delphi. The author speculates that this is evidence (a) for the ultimate origin of the Philistines and (b) for the Philistines’ continued worship of a mother goddess.

  Find this resource:

• Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Christa. “PTGYH—Divine Anonyma? The Goddess of the Ekron Inscription.” Ugarit-Forschungen 46 (2015): 341–372.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In this continuation and expansion of her earlier work on the topic, Schäfer-Lichtenberger defends her thesis that the enigmatic designation Ptgyh is a holdover of the Philistines’ original cult of Pythian Gaia.

  Find this resource:

• Singer, Itamar. “Towards the Image of Dagon, God of the Philistines.” Syria 69 (1992): 431–450.

  DOI: 10.3406/syria.1992.7297Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Claims that the Philistines adopted the worship of the male grain-god Dagon/Dagan because of the similarity of function between him and the Great Earth-Mother they had originally worshipped. However, since Dagon was not indigenous to Canaan, Singer speculates that the Philistines adopted him either while passing through Syria or later from the Phoenicians.

  Find this resource:

• Uehlinger, Christoph. “Hanun von Gaza und seine Gottheiten auf Orthostatenreliefs Tiglatpilesers III.” In Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnari für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Ernst Axel Knauf and Ulrich Hübner, 92–125. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 186. Fribourg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 2002.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An attempt to identify a fragment of a relief from the palace of Tiglath-pileser III with an incident related in his inscriptions, namely the submission of Hanunu the king of Gaza to the Assyrian king. Depicted is the submission of Hanunu and of his gods, whose might has been broken by the might of Assyria and its gods.

  Find this resource:

• Yasur-Landau, Assaf. “The Mother(s) of All Philistines? Aegean Enthroned Deities of the 12th-11th Century Philistia.” In Potnia: Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age. Edited by Robert Laffineur and Robin Hägg, 329–343. Aegaeum 22. Liège, Belgium: Université de Liège, 2001.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Argues that the Ashdoda type of figurine represents the Great Earth-Mother goddess sitting enthroned. He thus identifies her with Greek Gaia in her original imported Philistine form; Gaia was later identified with the local Canaanite goddess Asherah, who exhibits many of the same attributes and functions.

  Find this resource:

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

Epigraphy is the study of scripts and writing, which is knowledge based on an analysis of inscriptions. There are a small number of inscriptions that have been found in Philistia but not all of them at Pentapolis sites or associated with the Philistines. The most important of these is the Ekron dedicatory inscription, which was first published in Gitin, et al. 1997. This interpretation is challenged in part in Demsky 1997, whose own interpretation is in turn taken to task in Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2000. Press 2012 is an attack on all of the above. Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2015 is a defense of its original interpretation in light of Press’s criticism. Presumably the oldest Philistine inscription is a short one presumably containing (fragments of) two names. It was published in Maeir, et al. 2008. Predating these important finds is Naveh 2009 (first published in 1985) and its attempt to survey all suspected Philistine inscriptions in one short essay. Maeir, et al. 2016 argues on the basis of a selection of Philistine inscriptional remains that the composition of the Philistine polity was more complex than many have assumed. Finally, Porten 1981 discusses a fragmentary Aramaic inscription written on papyrus that was found at Saqqara in Egypt and probably written by Adon, the king of Ekron, to the Egyptian pharaoh at the time of the Babylonian conquest of Nebuchadnezzar II, who brought an end to both Philistine civilization and the independent existence of the kingdom of Judah in a series of campaigns between 604 and 586 BCE. In the course of this article, Porten 1981 also presents a useful survey of Philistine history in the latter part of Iron Age II.

• Demsky, Aaron. “The Name of the Goddess of Ekron: A New Reading.” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 25 (1997): 1–5.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Proposes reading the name of the goddess to whom the Ekron inscription (see Gitin, et al. 1997) is dedicated as Ptnyh instead of Ptgyh. His conjecture has not found much support in the scholarly community (see Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2000).

  Find this resource:

• Gitin, Seymour, Trude Dothan, and Joseph Naveh. “A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron.” Israel Exploration Journal 47 (1997): 1–16.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  After presenting the archaeological context for the discovery of this five-line dedicatory inscription carved in stone, the rest of the article consists of a line-by-line reading and analysis of the inscription, which was placed in Temple Complex 650 by Ikausu (Achish), the ruler of Ekron around the year 700 BCE, and dedicated “to/for his lady/mistress [i.e., goddess] Ptgyh.”

  Find this resource:

• Maeir, Aren M., Brent David, and Louise A. Hitchcock. “Philistine Names and Terms Once Again: A Recent Perspective.” Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 4.4 (2016): 321–340.

  DOI: 10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.4.4.0321Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An article that looks at some of the inscriptional materials found at Philistine sites or attributed to the Philistines. The general conclusion is that these remains indicate that the cultural makeup and ethnic background of the Philistine polity were more complex than some have argued.

  Find this resource:

• Maeir, Aren M., Stefan J. Wimmer, Alexander Zuckerman, and Aaron Demsky. “A Late Iron Age I/Early Iron Age II Canaanite Inscription from Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath, Israel: Paleography, Dating, and Historical-Cultural Significance.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 351 (2008): 39–71.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  A discussion of a short inscription written on an ostracon (a broken piece of pottery used for writing) from the period of the crossover between Iron Age Ib and IIa. It contains what the authors assume are (fragments of) two names written in Phoenician script but evidencing an Aegean or Anatolian linguistic origin.

  Find this resource:

• Naveh, Joseph. “Writing and Scripts in Seventh Century B.C.E. Philistia: The New Evidence from Tel Jemmeh.” In Studies in West-Semitic Epigraphy: Selected Papers. By Joseph Naveh, 17–33. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2009.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  Attempts to survey all inscriptions attributed to the Philistines by the middle of the 1980s. These include three inscribed ostraca (potsherds with writing on them) from Tell Jemmeh, as well as another fourteen miscellaneous ostraca and seals from a total of nine other sites.

  Find this resource:

• Porten, Bezalel. “The Identity of King Adon.” Biblical Archaeologist 44 (1981): 36–52.

  DOI: 10.2307/3209735Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  The city of origin of this Aramaic letter from Saqqara was unknown until Porten discovered a Demotic (Egyptian cursive) notation on one of the folds that identifies the sender of the letter as the ruler of Ekron and, hence, a Philistine. Porten associates the circumstances of the letter’s appeal for help with the Babylonian conquests.

  Find this resource:

• Press, Michael D. “(Pytho)Gaia in Myth and Legend: The Goddess of the Ekron Inscription Revisited.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 365 (2012): 1–25.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  This is an attack on scholars who relate Ptgyh, the goddess of the Ekron Dedicatory Inscription, as well as the “Ashdoda” figurine, to a supposed Great Mother Goddess of the Aegean world. Press sees no evidence for the existence of the latter and is unsure about the linguistic and geographic origin of the former.

  Find this resource:

• Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Christa. “The Goddess of Ekron and the Religious-Cultural Background of the Philistines.” Israel Exploration Journal 50 (2000): 82–91.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  An essay on the dedicatory inscription from Ikausu “to his lady” Ptgyh, which takes exception specifically to Demsky 1997 reading of the name as Ptnyh. Schäfer-Lichtenberger understands the name as Pytogayah, a manifestation of the goddess Gaia as she was worshipped at Delphi.

  Find this resource:

• Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Christa. “PTGYH—Divine Anonyma? The Goddess of the Ekron Inscription.” Ugarit-Forschungen 46 (2015): 341–372.

  Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

  In this follow-up to her earlier essay on the topic (see Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2000), Schäfer-Lichtenberger mounts an extended defense of her interpretation of the name of the goddess mentioned in the Ekron dedicatory inscription against the criticisms of Press 2012. She remains by her conclusion that the enigmatic name Ptgyh is a holdover of the Mycenaean mother-goddess cult, reflective of the Philistine origins.

  Find this resource: