these terms is distinguished. A tell is a
site represented by a mound of stratified accumulation, the result of
occupation extending over many centuries, and easily recognizable
among natural hillocks by its regular shape, smooth sides, and flat
top. A khirbet is a field of ruins in which there is little or no
stratification. Nearly all the sites of the latter type are the
remains of villages not older than the Byzantine or Roman period.

2. Identification of ancient sites.
This is a task less easy than it appears to be, and many of the
current identifications of Biblical sites call for revision.
Similarity of name, on which most of these identifications depend, is
apt to be misleading; in many cases sites identified thus with Old
Testament places are not older than the Byzantine Period. [1] This
similarity of name may sometimes be a mere accident; it may also
sometimes be accounted for by a transference of site, the inhabitants
having for some special reason moved their town to a new situation.
In such cases the tell representing the older site may perhaps await
identification in the neighbourhood. In attempting to establish
identifications, the date of the site, as determined from the
potsherds, and its suitability to the recorded history of the ancient
site in question, are elements of equal importance with its name.

[1] An example is Khirbet Teku'a, long identified with the Biblical
Tekoa.

Note: The traveller should be cautioned against embarking on the
study of place-names, identification of scriptural sites, &c., before
mastering the principles of Arabic phonetics. Many of the attempts
made at rendering the names of Palestinian place-names in European
books are simply grotesque. The following are the chief pitfalls:

(1) Confusion of the vowels, the pronunciation of which is obscure.
(2) The consonant _'ain_, to which the untrained European ear is
deaf, and which in consequence is often omitted. Less frequently it
may be over-conscientiously inserted in a place where it does not
exist. Sometimes the _'ain_ and its associated vowel are transposed
(as _M'alula_ for _Ma'lula_) making unpronounceable combinations of
consonants.
(3) The letter _kaf_, often dropped in pronunciation, and therefore
often omitted.
(4) The letter _ghain_, which an unaccustomed ear confuses with
either _g_ or _r_.
(5) The reduplicated letters, which a European is apt to hear and to
write as single.
(6) The nuances between th