As at Troy, it is probable that it was only the citadel which was thus
strongly fortified. Below it was the main part of the town, the
inhabitants of which took refuge in the citadel when an enemy threatened
to attack them. The fortified part, indeed, was not of very large
extent. Its ruins measured only about two hundred feet each way, while
the enclosure within which it stands is a quarter of a mile in diameter.
Here a regular series of pottery has been found, dating from the
post-exilic age through successive strata back to the primitive
Amoritish fortress. To Prof. Petrie belongs the credit of determining
the characteristics of these various strata, and fixing their
approximate age.

The work begun by Prof. Petrie was continued by Mr. Bliss. Deep down
among the ruins of the Amoritish town he found objects which take us
back to the time of Khu-n-Aten and his predecessors. They consist of
Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth dynasty, and on one of the
beads are the name and title of "the royal wife Teie." Along with them
were discovered beads of amber which came from the Baltic as well as
seal-cylinders, some of them imported from Babylonia, others western
imitations of Babylonian work. The Babylonian cylinders belong to the
period which extends from 3000 to 1500 B.C., while the imitations are
similar in style to those which have been found in the pre-historic
tombs of Cyprus and Phoenicia.

But there was one discovery made by Mr. Bliss which far surpasses in
interest all the rest. It is that of a cuneiform tablet, similar in
character, in contents, and in age to those which have come from Tel
el-Amarna. Even the Egyptian governor mentioned in it was already known
to us from the Tel el-Amarna correspondence as the governor of Lachish.
One of the cuneiform letters now preserved at Berlin was written by him,
and Ebed-Tob informs us that he was subsequently murdered by the people
of his own city.

Here is a translation of the letter discovered at Tel el-Hesi:--

"To ... rabbat (?) [or perhaps: To the officer Baya] (thus speaks) ...
abi. At thy feet I prostrate myself. Verily thou knowest that Dan-Hadad
and Zimrida have inspected the whole of the city, and Dan-Hadad says to
Zimrida: Send Yisyara to me [and] give me 3 shields (?) and 3 slings and
3 falchions, since I am prefect (?) over the country of the king and it
has acted against me; and now I will restore thy possession which the
enemy took from thee; and