Three skeletons and a fiery destruction
Thu, Mar 08, 2018
Archaeologists encountered the dramatic remains of three ancient individuals in present-day Israel — likely victims of an Egyptian pharaoh’s military campaign.
The faces of disaster through the ages are legion, and the dusty places of archaeological digs in Israel have been no exception, as archaeologists at the Tel Gezer excavation site in central Israel will tell you after they encountered 3,200-year-old skeletal remains of three individuals.
As they were conducting excavations during the summer of 2017, traces of human bones emerged as they dug within a stratum that evidenced a fiery destruction. They were articulated skeletons. The archaeologists could see that one of them, an adult, whose remains were badly decomposed and burned, was lying with hands over the head. The bones of a child, whose remains were also burned and badly decomposed, were also found. And finally, as they were closing down the season, they found the remains of yet a third individual, an adult, whose bones were significantly better preserved. This person, it appeared, was lying in a fetal-like position, as if to defend against the falling debris of surrounding collapsing walls, the stones and mud-brick of which still lay atop the skeleton when archaeologists encountered it. The physical circumstances of the remains clearly suggested that these were not intended burials.
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-2018/article/three-skeletons-and-a-fiery-destruction
