The picture of Canaan presented to us by the Tel el-Amarna
correspondence has been supplemented by the discovery of Lachish. Five
years ago Prof. Flinders Petrie undertook to excavate for the Palestine
Exploration Fund in the lofty mound of Tel el-Hesi in Southern
Palestine. Tel el-Hesi stands midway between Gaza and Hebron on the edge
of the Judaean mountains, and overlooking a torrent stream. His
excavations resulted in the discovery of successive cities built one
upon the ruins of the other, and in the probability that the site was
that of Lachish. The excavations were resumed by Mr. Bliss in the
following year, and the probability was raised to practical certainty.
The lowest of the cities was the Lachish of the Amorite period, whose
crude brick walls, nearly twenty-nine feet in thickness, have been
brought to light, while its pottery has revealed to us for the first
time the characteristics of Amorite manufacture. The huge walls bear out
the testimony of the Israelitish spies, that the cities of the Amorites
were "great and walled up to heaven" (Deut. i. 28). They give
indications, however, that in spite of their strength the fortresses
they enclosed must have been captured more than once. Doubtless this was
during the age of the Egyptian wars in Canaan.

As at Troy, it is probable that it was only the citadel which was thus
strongly fortified. Below it was the main part of the town, the
inhabitants of which took refuge in the citadel when an enemy threatened
to attack them. The fortified part, indeed, was not of very large
extent. Its ruins measured only about two hundred feet each way, while
the enclosure within which it stands is a quarter of a mile in diameter.
Here a regular series of pottery has been found, dating from the
post-exilic age through successive strata back to the primitive
Amoritish fortress. To Prof. Petrie belongs the credit of determining
the characteristics of these various strata, and fixing their