The City Walls of Lachish: Response to Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel, Martin Klingbeil and Their Colleagues

Between 2013–2017 Yosef Garfinkel and his colleagues conducted excavations at the northern side of Tel Lachish/Tell ed-Duweir. Their conclusions regarding the character and date of the site’s fortifications, and their conclusions regarding the date of Palace C, the last stage of the Palace–Fort, radically differ from the conclusions of the British excavations headed by James Starkey and the renewed excavations of Tel Aviv University headed by me. The interpretations and dates made by Garfinkel and his colleagues regarding the fortifications and the Palace-Fort (Palace C) cannot be accepted. The fortifications uncovered by them on the northern side fit what was known before about the fortifications and their date in other parts of the site.