ngual inscriptions in either Hebrew or Aramaic, and Greek, found engraved on rocks several hundred meters from the tell. These inscriptions from the 1st century BCE read "boundary of Gezer" and "of Alkios" (probably the governor of Gezer at the time).
Early Bronze Age
Inhabitants of the first settlement at Gezer, toward the end of the 4th millennium BCE, lived in large rock-cut caves.
Middle Bronze Age
The tell was surrounded by a massive stone wall and towers, protected by a five meter high earthen rampart covered with plaster. The wooden city gate, near the southwestern corner of the wall, was fortified by two towers.
- Cultic site with massebot
Cultic remains discovered at the site were a row of ten large standing stones, known as massebot, oriented north-south, the tallest of which was 3 meters high, with an altar-type structure in the middle, and a large, square, stone basin. The exact purpose of these megaliths is still debated, but they may have constituted a Canaanite "high place" from the Middle Bronze Age, ca. 1600 B.C.E.
The Canaanite city was destroyed in a fire, presumably in the wake of a campaign by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III. The oldest known historical reference to the city is to be found on an inscription of conquered sites at Thutmose's temple at Karnak.
The Tell Amarna letters, dating from the 14th century BCE, include ten letters from the kings of Gezer swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh. The city-state of Gezer (named Gazru in Babylonian) was ruled by four leaders during the 20-year period covered by the Amarna letters. Discoveries of several pottery vessels, a cache of cylinder seals and a large scarab with the cartouche of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III attest to the existence of a city at Gezer's location in the 14th century BCE - one that was apparently destroyed in that century - and suggest that the city was inhabited by Canaanites with strong ties to Egypt.
Late Bronze Age
In the Late Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BCE) a new fortification wall, four meters thick, was erected. In the 14th century BCE, a palace was constructed on the high western part of the tell. Toward the end of the Bronze Age, the city declined and its population diminished. Gezer is mentioned in the victory stele of Merneptah, dating from the end of the 13th century BCE.
In 12th-11th centuries BCE, a large building with many rooms and courtyards was situated on the acropolis. Grinding stones and grains of wheat found among the sherds indicate that it was a granary. Local and Philistine vessels attest to a mixed Canaanite/Philistine population.
Tiglath-Pileser III and the Neo-Assyrian period
The Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III put Gezer under siege between the years 734 and 732 BC. The city was probably captured by the Assyrians at the end of the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser III to Canaan. A reference to Gezer may appear in a cuneiform relief from the 8th-century BCE royal palace of Tiglath-Pileser III at Nimrud. The siege has been depicted on a stone relief at the royal palace in Nimrud, where the city is called 'Gazru'.
Recent archaeological excavation at the site reveals that not long after the city fell into Assyrian hands it became an Assyrian administrative center.
Gezer was sparsely populated during Roman times and later times, as other regional population centers took its place.
Ottoman and modern periods
Bible: the sack of Gezer
|Siege of Gezer|
|Commanders and leaders|
|Casualties and losses|
According to the Hebrew Bible, the only source for the event, the Sack of Gezer took place at the beginning of the 10th century BCE, when the city was conquered and burned by an unnamed Egyptian pharaoh, identified by some with Siamun, during his military campaign in Palestine. This anonymous Egyptian pharaoh then gave it to King Solomon as the dowry of his daughter. Solomon then rebuilt Gezer and fortified it.
The Bible states:
.... King Solomon .... build .... the wall of .... Gezer (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed the Canaanites 