took up the search for the origin of the Philistines at Ashkelon, one of the five "Philistine" cities according to the Hebrew Bible. Led by its founder, the late Lawrence E. Stager, and then by ...

An unrivaled discovery on the southern coast of Israel may enable archaeologists to finally unravel the origins of one of the most notorious and enigmatic peoples of the Hebrew Bible: the Philistines.

But who were the Philistines, exactly? In the Bible, ancient cities like Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron were mentioned as Philistine strongholds. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars finally ...