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Ashkelon or Ashqelon (; Hebrew: , , ;
Philistine The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when ...
: ), also known as Ascalon (; Ancient Greek: , ; Arabic: , ), is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age. In the course of its history, it has been ruled by the Ancient Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the
Babylonia Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
ns, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hasmoneans, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs and the Crusaders, until it was destroyed by the
Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') i ...
in 1270. The modern city was originally located approximately 4 km inland from the ancient site, and was known as al-Majdal or al-Majdal Asqalan ( Arabic: ''al-Mijdal''; Hebrew: ''ʾĒl-Mīǧdal''). In 1918, it became part of the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and in 1920 became part of Mandatory Palestine. Al-Majdal on the eve of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
had 10,000 Arab inhabitants and in October 1948, the city accommodated thousands more refugees from nearby villages. Al-Majdal was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in
Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon * Ghazzeh, a village in ...
. The town was conquered by Israeli forces on 5 November 1948, by which time most of the Arab population had fled,B. Morris, The transfer of Al Majdal's remaining Palestinians to Gaza, 1950, in ''
1948 and After; Israel and the Palestinians ''1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians'' is a collection of essays by the Israeli historian Benny Morris. The book was first published in hardcover in 1990. It was revised and expanded, (largely on the basis on newly available material) an ...
''.
leaving some 2,700 inhabitants, of which 500 were deported by Israeli soldiers in December 1948. Most of the remaining Arabs were deported by 1950. Today, the city's population is almost entirely Jewish. Migdal was initially repopulated by Jewish immigrants and demobilized soldiers. It was subsequently renamed multiple times, first as Migdal Gaza, Migdal Gad and Migdal Ashkelon, until in 1953 the coastal neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name "Ashkelon" was adopted for the combined town. By 1961, Ashkelon was ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000. In the population of Ashkelon was , making it the third-largest city in Israel's Southern District.


Etymology

The name Ashkelon is probably western Semitic, and might be connected to the triliteral root ("to weigh" from a Semitic root , akin to Hebrew or Arabic "weight") perhaps attesting to its importance as a center for mercantile activities. Its name appeared in Phoenician and Punic as () and (). '' Scallion'' and '' shallot'' are derived from ''Ascalonia'', the Latin name for Ashkelon.


Archaeology

Beginning in the 1700s the site was visited, and occasionally drawn, by a number of adventurers and tourists. It was also often scavenged for building materials. The first known excavation occurred in 1815. The Lady Hester Stanhope dug there for two weeks using 150 workers. No real records were kept. In the 1800s some classical pieces from Askelon (though long thought to be from Thessaloniki) were sent to the Ottoman Museum. From 1920 to 1922 John Garstang and W. J. Phythian-Adams excavated on behalf of the
Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, and is the oldest known organization in the world created specifically for the study ...
. They focused on two areas, one Roman and the other Philistine/Canaanite. In the years following, a number of salvage excavations were done by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Modern excavation began in 1985 with the Leon Levy Expedition. Between then and 2006 seventeen seasons of work occurred, led by Lawrence Stager of Harvard University. In 2007 the next phase of excavation began under Daniel Master. It continued until 2016. In the 1997 season a cuneiform table fragment was found, being a lexical list containing both Sumerian and Canaanite language columns. It was found in a Late Bronze Age II context, about 13th century BC. In 2012 an Iron Age IIA Philistine cemetery was discovered outside the city. In 2013 200 graves were excavated of the estimated 1,200 the cemetery contained. Seven were stone built tombs. One ostracon and 18 jar handles were recovered inscribed with the
Cypro-Minoan script The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM) is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus during the late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on ...
. The ostracon was of local material and dated to 12th to 11th century BC. Five of the jar handles were manufactured in coastal Lebanon, two in Cyprus, and one locally. Fifteen of the handles were found in an Iron I context and the rest in Late Bronze Age context.


History

Ashkelon was the oldest and largest seaport in Canaan, part of the
pentapolis A pentapolis (from Greek ''penta-'', 'five' and ''polis'', 'city') is a geographic and/or institutional grouping of five cities. Cities in the ancient world probably formed such groups for political, commercial and military reasons, as happened ...
(a grouping of five cities) of the Philistines, north of
Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon * Ghazzeh, a village in ...
and south of
Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
.


Neolithic period

The Neolithic site of Ashkelon is located on the Mediterranean coast, north of Tel Ashkelon. It is dated by
Radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...
to 7900 bp (uncalibrated), to the poorly known Pre-Pottery Neolithic C phase of the Neolithic. It was discovered and excavated in 1954 by French archaeologist
Jean Perrot Jean Perrot (1920 – 24 December 2012) was a French archaeologist who specialised in the late prehistory of the Middle East and Near East. Biography Perrot was a graduate of the Ecole du Louvre where he studied under two experts in Syrian arc ...
. In 1997–1998, a large scale salvage project was conducted at the site by Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
and nearly were examined. A final excavation report was published in 2008. In the site over a hundred fireplaces and
hearth A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a lo ...
s were found and numerous pits, but no solid architecture, except for one wall. Various phases of occupation were found, one atop the other, with sterile layers of sea sand between them. This indicates that the site was occupied on a seasonal basis. The main finds were enormous quantities of around 100,000 animal bones and around 20,000 flint artifacts. Usually at Neolithic sites flints far outnumber animal bones. The bones belong to domesticated and non-domesticated animals. When all aspects of this site are taken into account, it appears to have been used by
pastoral nomads Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fix ...
for meat processing. The nearby sea could supply salt necessary for the conservation of meat.


Canaanite settlement

The city was originally built on a sandstone outcropping and has a good underground water supply. It was relatively large as an ancient city with as many as 15,000 people living inside the walls. Ashkelon was a thriving Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 BCE) city of more than . Its commanding ramparts measured long, high and thick, and even as a ruin they stand two stories high. The thickness of the walls was so great that the mudbrick
city gate A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. It is a type of fortified gateway. Uses City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods ...
had a stone-lined, tunnel-like
barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
, coated with white plaster, to support the superstructure: it is the oldest such vault ever found. Later Roman and Islamic fortifications, faced with stone, followed the same footprint, a vast semicircle protecting Ashkelon on the land side. On the sea it was defended by a high natural bluff. A roadway more than in width ascended the rampart from the harbor and entered a gate at the top. In 1991 the ruins of a small ceramic tabernacle was found a finely cast bronze statuette of a bull calf, originally silvered, long. Images of calves and bulls were associated with the worship of the Canaanite gods El and Baal. Beginning in the time of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC) the city was under Egyptian control, under a local governor. In the Merneptah Stele that Pharaoh (1213–1203 BC) notes putting down a rebellion in the city. Ashkelon is mentioned in the
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
Execration Texts Execration texts, also referred to as proscription lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon stat ...
of the 11th dynasty as "Asqanu." In the
Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...
( 1350 BC), there are seven letters to and from Ashkelon's (Ašqaluna) king
Yidya Yidya, and also Idiya, was the Canaanite mayor/ruler of ancient Ašqaluna/Ashkelon in the 1350- 1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. Yidya is mainly referenced in the Amarna letters corpus, in his own letters: EA 320–326, (EA for 'el Ama ...
, and the
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
pharaoh. One letter from the pharaoh to Yidya was discovered in the early 1900s.


Philistine settlement

The Philistines conquered Canaanite Ashkelon about 1150 BCE. Their earliest pottery, types of structures and inscriptions are similar to the early Greek urbanised centre at Mycenae in mainland Greece, adding weight to the hypothesis that the Philistines were one of the populations among the " Sea Peoples" that upset cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean at that time. Ashkelon became one of the five Philistine cities that were constantly warring with the Israelites and later the
United Kingdom of Israel The United Monarchy () in the Hebrew Bible refers to Israel and Judah under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. It is traditionally dated to have lasted between and . According to the biblical account, on the succession of Solomon's son Re ...
and successive Kingdom of Judah. According to Herodotus, its temple of Venus was the oldest of its kind, imitated even in Cyprus, and he mentions that this temple was pillaged by marauding Scythians during the time of their sway over the Medes (653–625 BCE). As it was the last of the Philistine cities to hold out against
Babylonian king The king of Babylon (Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''šakkanakki Bābili'', later also ''šar Bābili'') was the ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon and its kingdom, Babylonia, which existed as an independent realm from the 19th centur ...
Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...
. When it fell in 604 BCE, burnt and destroyed and its people taken into exile, the Philistine era was over.


Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods

Ashkelon was soon rebuilt. Until the conquest of Alexander the Great, Ashkelon's inhabitants were influenced by the dominant Persian culture. It is in this archaeological layer that excavations have found dog burials. It is believed the dogs may have had a sacred role; however, evidence is not conclusive. After the conquest of Alexander in the 4th century BCE, Ashkelon was an important free city and
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
seaport. It had mostly friendly relations with the
Hasmonean kingdom The Hasmonean dynasty (; he, ''Ḥašmōnaʾīm'') was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from BCE to 37 BCE. Between and BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, an ...
and
Herodian kingdom The Herodian Kingdom of Judea was a client state of the Roman Republic from 37 BCE, when Herod the Great, who had been appointed "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40/39 BCE, took actual control over the country. When Herod died in 4 BCE, ...
of Judea, in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. In a significant case of an early witch-hunt, during the reign of the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra, the court of Simeon ben Shetach sentenced to death eighty women in Ashkelon who had been charged with
sorcery Sorcery may refer to: * Magic (supernatural), the application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed to subdue or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces ** Witchcraft, the practice of magical skills and abilities * Magic in fiction, ...
. Herod the Great, who became a client king of Rome over Judea and its environs in 30 BCE, had not received Ashkelon, yet he built monumental buildings there: bath houses, elaborate fountains and large colonnades. A discredited tradition suggests Ashkelon was his birthplace. In 6 CE, when a Roman imperial province was set in Judea, overseen by a lower-rank governor, Ashkelon was moved directly to the higher jurisdiction of the governor of Syria province. The city remained loyal to Rome during the Great Revolt, 66–70 CE.


Byzantine period

The city of Ascalon appears on a fragment of the 6th-century Madaba Map. The bishops of Ascalon whose names are known include Sabinus, who was at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and his immediate successor, Epiphanius. Auxentius took part in the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Jobinus in a synod held in Lydda in 415, Leontius in both the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Bishop Dionysius, who represented Ascalon at a synod in Jerusalem in 536, was on another occasion called upon to pronounce on the validity of a baptism with sand in waterless desert and sent the person to be baptized in water. No longer a residential bishopric, Ascalon is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.


Early Islamic period

During the Muslim conquest of Palestine begun in 633–634, Ascalon (called ''Asqalan'' by the Arabs) became one of the last Byzantine cities in the region to fall. It may have been temporarily occupied by Amr ibn al-As, but definitively surrendered to
Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan Mu'awiya I ( ar, معاوية بن أبي سفيان, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; –April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the deat ...
(who later founded the Umayyad Caliphate) not long after he captured the Byzantine district capital of
Caesarea Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...
in 640. The Byzantines reoccupied Asqalan during the Second Muslim Civil War (680–692), but the Umayyad caliph
Abd al-Malik Abdul Malik ( ar, عبد الملك) is an Arabic (Muslim or Christian) male given name and, in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' Abd'', ''al-'' and '' Malik''. The name means "servant of the King", in the Christian insta ...
() recaptured and fortified it. A son of Caliph
Sulayman Sulayman (Arabic: سُلِيمَان ''sulaymān'') is an Arabic name of the Biblical king and Islamic prophet Solomon meaning "man of peace", derived from the Hebrew name Shlomo. The name Sulayman is a diminutive of the name Salman (سَلْ ...
(), whose family resided in
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
, was buried in the city. An inscription found in the city indicates that the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi ordered the construction of a mosque with a minaret in Asqalan in 772. Asqalan prospered under the
Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...
and contained a mint and secondary naval base. Along with a few other coastal towns in Palestine, it remained in Fatimid hands when most of Islamic Syria was conquered by the Seljuks. However, during this period, Fatimid rule over Asqalan was periodically reduced to nominal authority over the city's governor. In 1091, a couple of years after a campaign by
grand vizier Grand vizier ( fa, وزيرِ اعظم, vazîr-i aʾzam; ota, صدر اعظم, sadr-ı aʾzam; tr, sadrazam) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. The office of Grand Vizier was first ...
Badr al-Jamali to reestablish Fatimid control over the region, the head of
Husayn ibn Ali Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, أبو عبد الله الحسين بن علي بن أبي طالب; 10 January 626 – 10 October 680) was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a son of Ali ibn Abi ...
(a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) was "rediscovered", prompting Badr to order the construction of a new mosque and ''
mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...
'' (shrine or mausoleum) to hold the relic. (According to another source, the shrine was built in 1098 by the
Fatimid vizier The vizier ( ar, وزير, wazīr) was the senior minister of the Fatimid Caliphate for most of the Egyptian period of its existence. Originally it was held by civilian officials who acted as the chief civilian ministers of the caliphs, analogous ...
al-Afdal Shahanshah.) The mausoleum was described as the most magnificent building in Ashkelon. In the British Mandate period it was a "large ''maqam'' on top of a hill" with no tomb, but a fragment of a pillar showing the place where the head had been buried.Canaan, 1927, p
151
/ref> In July 1950, the shrine was destroyed at the instructions of
Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
in accordance with a 1950s Israeli policy of erasing Muslim historical sites within Israel. Around 2000, a modest marble mosque was constructed on the site by Mohammed Burhanuddin, an Indian Islamic leader of the Dawoodi Bohras.


Crusaders, Ayyubids, and Mamluks

During the Crusades, Asqalan (known to the Crusaders as ''Ascalon'') was an important city due to its location near the coast and between the
Crusader States The Crusader States, also known as Outremer, were four Catholic realms in the Middle East that lasted from 1098 to 1291. These feudal polities were created by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade through conquest and political in ...
and Egypt. In 1099, shortly after the Siege of Jerusalem, a Fatimid army that had been sent to relieve Jerusalem was defeated by a Crusader force at the Battle of Ascalon. The city itself was not captured by the Crusaders because of internal disputes among their leaders. This battle is widely considered to have signified the end of the First Crusade. As a result of military reinforcements from Egypt and a large influx of refugees from areas conquered by the Crusaders, Asqalan became a major Fatimid frontier post. The Fatimids utilized it to launch raids into the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Trade ultimately resumed between Asqalan and Crusader-controlled Jerusalem, though the inhabitants of Asqalan regularly struggled with shortages in food and supplies, necessitating the provision of goods and relief troops to the city from Egypt on several occasions each year. According to William of Tyre, the entire civilian population of the city was included in the Fatimid army registers. The Crusaders' capture of the port city of Tyre in 1134 and their construction of a ring of fortresses around the city to neutralize its threat to Jerusalem strategically weakened Asqalan. In 1150 the Fatimids fortified the city with fifty-three towers, as it was their most important frontier fortress. Three years later, after a seven-month siege, the city was captured by a Crusader army led by King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. The Fatimids secured the head of Husayn from its mausoleum in the city and transported it to their capital Cairo. Ascalon was then added to the County of Jaffa to form the
County of Jaffa and Ascalon The double County of Jaffa and Ascalon was one of the four major seigneuries comprising the major Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to 13th-century commentator John of Ibelin. History Jaffa was fortified by Godfrey of Boui ...
, which became one of the four major seigneuries of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem the six elders of the Karaite Jewish community in Ashkelon contributed to the ransoming of captured Jews and holy relics from Jerusalem's new rulers. The
Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon The Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon (c. 1100) was a communication written by six elders of the Karaite Jewish community of Ascalon and sent to their coreligionists in Alexandria nine months after the fall of Jerusalem during the First Cr ...
, which was sent to the Jewish elders of Alexandria, describes their participation in the ransom effort and the ordeals suffered by many of the freed captives. A few hundred Jews, Karaites and Rabbanites, were living in Ashkelon in the second half of the 12th century, but moved to Jerusalem when the city was destroyed in 1191. In 1187, Saladin took Ashkelon as part of his conquest of the
Crusader States The Crusader States, also known as Outremer, were four Catholic realms in the Middle East that lasted from 1098 to 1291. These feudal polities were created by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade through conquest and political in ...
following the
Battle of Hattin The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of t ...
. In 1191, during the Third Crusade, Saladin demolished the city because of its potential strategic importance to the Christians, but the leader of the Crusade, King Richard I of England, constructed a citadel upon the ruins. Ashkelon subsequently remained part of the diminished territories of Outremer throughout most of the 13th century and Richard, Earl of Cornwall reconstructed and refortified the citadel during 1240–41, as part of the Crusader policy of improving the defences of coastal sites. The Egyptians retook Ashkelon in 1247 during
As-Salih Ayyub Al-Malik as-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub (5 November 1205 – 22 November 1249), nickname: Abu al-Futuh ( ar, أبو الفتوح), also known as al-Malik al-Salih, was the Ayyubid Kurdish ruler of Egypt from 1240 to 1249. Early life In 1221, as-S ...
's conflict with the Crusader States and the city was returned to Muslim rule. The Mamluk dynasty came into power in Egypt in 1250 and the ancient and medieval history of Ashkelon was brought to an end in 1270, when the Mamluk sultan
Baybars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari ( ar, الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, ''al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī'') (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak ...
ordered the citadel and harbour at the site to be destroyed. As a result of this destruction, the site was abandoned by its inhabitants and fell into disuse.


Ottoman period


El-Jurah

The Palestinian village of
Al-Jura Al-Jura ( ar, الجورة) was a Palestinian people, Palestinian village that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, located approximately two kilometers west of Al-Majdal, Askalan, Majdal (both within the boundaries of present-day Ash ...
(El-Jurah) stood northeast of and immediately adjacent to Tel Ashkelon and is documented in Ottoman tax registers.


Majdal

The Arab village of Majdal was mentioned by historians and tourists at the end of the 15th century. In 1596, Ottoman records showed Majdal to be a large village of 559 Muslim households, making it the 7th-most-populous locality in Palestine after Safad, Jerusalem,
Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon * Ghazzeh, a village in ...
,
Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
, Hebron and Kafr Kanna.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 144Petersen, Andrew (2005). ''The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule AD 600–1600''. BAR International Series 1381. p. 133. An official Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that ''Medschdel'' had a total of 420 houses and a population of 1175, though the population count included men only.


Mandatory Palestine


El-Jurah

El-Jurah was depopulated during the 1948 war.


Majdal

In the
1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...
, ''Majdal'' had a population of 5,064; 33 Christians and 5,031 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Gaza, p
8
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 6,166 Muslims and 41 Christians.Palestine Office of Statistics, Vital Statistical Tables 1922–1945, Table A8. In the 1945 statistics Majdal had a population of 9,910; ninety Christians and 9,820 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
32
/ref> with a total (urban and rural) of 43,680
dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Two thousand two hundred and fifty dunes were public land; all the rest was owned by Arabs.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
46
/ref> of the dunams, 2,337 were used for citrus and bananas, 2,886 were plantations and irrigable land, 35,442 for cereals, while 1,346 were built-up land. Majdal was especially known for its weaving industry. The town had around 500 looms in 1909. In 1920 a British Government report estimated that there were 550 cotton looms in the town with an annual output worth 30–40 million francs. But the industry suffered from imports from Europe and by 1927 only 119 weaving establishments remained. The three major fabrics produced were "malak" (silk), 'ikhdari' (bands of red and green) and 'jiljileh' (dark red bands). These were used for festival dresses throughout Southern Palestine. Many other fabrics were produced, some with poetic names such as ''ji'nneh u nar'' ("heaven and hell"), ''nasheq rohoh'' ("breath of the soul") and ''abu mitayn'' ("father of two hundred").


Israel

During the 1948 war, the Egyptian army occupied a large part of the Gaza region including Majdal. Over the next few months, the town was subjected to Israeli air-raids and shelling. All but about 1,000 of the town's residents were forced to leave by the time it was captured by Israeli forces as a sequel to Operation Yoav on 4 November 1948. General Yigal Allon ordered the expulsion of the remaining Palestinians but the local commanders did not do so and the Arab population soon recovered to more than 2,500 due mostly to refugees slipping back and also due to the transfer of Palestinians from nearby villages. Most of them were elderly, women, or children. During the next year or so, the Palestinians were held in a confined area surrounded by barbed wire, which became commonly known as the "ghetto".Morris, 2004, pp
528
–529.
Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion were in favor of expulsion, while
Mapam Mapam ( he, מַפָּ״ם, an acronym for , ) was a left-wing political party in Israel. The party is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party. History Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatz ...
and the Israeli labor union
Histadrut Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, originally ( he, ההסתדרות הכללית של העובדים בארץ ישראל, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center ...
objected. The government offered the Palestinians positive inducements to leave, including a favorable currency exchange, but also caused panic through night-time raids. The first group was deported to the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
by truck on 17 August 1950 after an expulsion order had been served. The deportation was approved by Ben-Gurion and Dayan over the objections of Pinhas Lavon, secretary-general of the Histadrut, who envisioned the town as a productive example of equal opportunity. By October 1950, twenty Palestinian families remained, most of whom later moved to Lydda or Gaza. According to Israeli records, in total 2,333 Palestinians were transferred to the Gaza Strip, 60 to Jordan, 302 to other towns in Israel, and a small number remained in Ashkelon. Lavon argued that this operation dissipated "the last shred of trust the Arabs had in Israel, the sincerity of the State's declarations on democracy and civil equality, and the last remnant of confidence the Arab workers had in the Histadrut." Acting on an Egyptian complaint, the Egyptian-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission ruled that the Palestinians transferred from Majdal should be returned to Israel, but this was not done. Ashkelon was formally granted to Israel in the
1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt, The Israeli national plan of June 1949 designated al-Majdal as the site for a regional urban center of 20,000 people. From July 1949, new immigrants and demobilized soldiers moved to the new town, increasing the Jewish population to 2,500 within six months. These early immigrants were mostly from Yemen, North Africa, and Europe. During 1949, the town was renamed Migdal Gaza, and then Migdal Gad. Soon afterwards it became Migdal Ashkelon. The city began to expand as the population grew. In 1951, the neighborhood of Afridar was established for Jewish immigrants from South Africa, and in 1953 it was incorporated into the city. The current name Ashkelon was adopted and the town was granted local council status in 1953. In 1955, Ashkelon had more than 16,000 residents. By 1961, Ashkelon ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000. This grew to 43,000 in 1972 and 53,000 in 1983. In 2005, the population was more than 106,000. On 1–2 March 2008, rockets fired by Hamas from the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
(some of them
Grad rockets The BM-21 "Grad" (russian: БМ-21 "Град", lit= hail) is a self-propelled 122 mm multiple rocket launcher designed in the Soviet Union. The system and the M-21OF rocket were first developed in the early 1960s, and saw their first comb ...
) hit Ashkelon, wounding seven, and causing property damage. Mayor Roni Mahatzri stated that "This is a
state of war A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national government, in ...
, I know no other definition for it. If it lasts a week or two, we can handle that, but we have no intention of allowing this to become part of our daily routine." In March 2008, 230 buildings and 30 cars were damaged by rocket fire on Ashkelon. On 12 May 2008, a rocket fired from the northern Gazan city of
Beit Lahiya Beit Lahia or Beit Lahiya ( ar, بيت لاهيا) is a city in the Gaza Strip north of Jabalia, near Beit Hanoun and the 1949 Armistice Line with Israel. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the city had a population of 59 ...
hit a shopping mall in southern Ashkelon, causing significant structural damage. According to '' The Jerusalem Post'', four people were seriously injured and 87 were treated for shock. Fifteen people suffered minor to moderate injuries as a result of the collapsed structure. Southern District Police chief Uri Bar-Lev believed the Grad-model Katyusha rocket was manufactured in Iran. In March 2009, a Qassam rocket hit a school, destroying classrooms and injuring two people. In November 2014, the mayor,
Itamar Shimoni Itamar Shimoni ( he, איתמר שמעוני; born 1968) is an Israeli politician. He was the mayor of Ashkelon from 2013 to 2017. Biography Itamar Shimoni earned a B.A. in Business Administration, Engineering in Industrial Management. He has t ...
, began a policy of discrimination against Arab workers, refusing to allow them to work on city projects to build bomb shelters for children. His discriminatory actions brought criticism from others, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem mayor
Nir Barkat Nir Barkat ( he, נִיר בַּרְקָת; born 19 October 1959) is an Israeli businessman and politician. He served as mayor of Jerusalem between the years 2008–2018. Biography Nir Barkat was raised in Jerusalem. His father, Zalman, was a ...
who likened the discrimination to the anti-Semitism experienced by Jews in Europe 70 years earlier. On May 11, 2021, Hamas fired 137 rockets on Ashkelon killing 2 and injuring many others.


Urban development

In 1949 and 1950, three immigrant transit camps ( ma'abarot) were established alongside Majdal (renamed Migdal) for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, Romania and Poland. Northwest of Migdal and the immigrant camps, on the lands of the depopulated Palestinian village
al-Jura Al-Jura ( ar, الجورة) was a Palestinian people, Palestinian village that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, located approximately two kilometers west of Al-Majdal, Askalan, Majdal (both within the boundaries of present-day Ash ...
, entrepreneur
Zvi Segal Zvi ( he, צְבִי and , ''Tzvi'', Ṣvi, "gazelle") is a Jewish masculine given name. Notable people with this name include: * Zvi Aharoni (1921–2012), Israeli Mossad agent * Zvi Arad (1942–2018), Israeli mathematician, acting president of B ...
, one of the signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence, established the upscale Barnea neighborhood. A large tract of land south of Barnea was handed over to the trusteeship of the South African Zionist Federation, which established the neighborhood of Afridar. Plans for the city were drawn up in South Africa according to the garden city model. Migdal was surrounded by a broad ring of orchards. Barnea developed slowly, but Afridar grew rapidly. The first homes, built in 1951, were inhabited by new Jewish immigrants from South Africa and South America, with some native-born Israelis. The first public housing project for residents of the transit camps, the Southern Hills Project (Hageva'ot Hadromiyot) or Zion Hill (Givat Zion), was built in 1952. Under a plan signed in October 2015, seven new neighborhoods comprising 32,000 housing units, a new stretch of highway, and three new highway interchanges will be built, turning Ashkelon into the sixth-largest city in Israel.


Economy

Ashkelon is the northern terminus for the
Trans-Israel pipeline The Trans-Israel pipeline ( he, קו צינור אילת אשקלון), also Tipline, Eilat–Ashkelon Pipeline, or Europe–Asia Pipeline is an oil pipeline in Israel extending from the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It ...
, which brings
petroleum product Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. The m ...
s from
Eilat Eilat ( , ; he, אֵילַת ; ar, إِيلَات, Īlāt) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan ...
to an
oil terminal An oil terminal (also called a tank farm, tankfarm, oil installation or oil depot) is an industrial facility for the storage of oil, petroleum and petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obt ...
at the port. The Ashkelon seawater
reverse osmosis Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic pre ...
(SWRO)
desalination Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in Soil salinity control, soil desalination, which is an issue f ...
plant is the largest in the world. The project was developed as a BOT ( build–operate–transfer) by a consortium of three international companies: Veolia water,
IDE Technologies IDE Technologies is an Israeli water desalination company.Israel Beer Breweries has been operating in Ashkelon, brewing
Carlsberg Carlsberg may refer to: Places * Carlsberg (district), a district in Copenhagen, Denmark ** Carlsberg station, its train station * Carlsberg, Germany, a municipality in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany * Carlsberg Fjord, Greenland Other uses * Carlsbe ...
and Tuborg beer for the Israeli market. The brewery is owned by the Central Bottling Company, which has also held the Israeli franchise for Coca-Cola products since 1968. ''Arak Ashkelon'', a local brand of arak, is operating since 1925 and distributed throughout Israel.


Education

The city has 19 elementary schools, and nine junior high and high schools. The Ashkelon Academic College opened in 1998, and now hosts thousands of students. Harvard University operates an archaeological summer school program in Ashkelon.


Landmarks


Ashkelon National Park

The ancient site of Ashkelon is now a
national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
on the city's southern coast. The walls that encircled the city are still visible, as well as Canaanite earth ramparts. The park contains Byzantine, Crusader and Roman ruins. The largest dog cemetery in the ancient world was discovered in Ashkelon.


Bath Houses

In 1986 ruins of 4th- to 6th-century baths were found in Ashkelon. The bath houses are believed to have been used for prostitution. The remains of nearly 100 mostly male infants were found in a sewer under the bathhouse, leading to conjectures that prostitutes had discarded their unwanted newborns there.


Religious sites


Places of worship

The remains of a 4th-century Byzantine church with marble slab flooring and glass mosaic walls can be seen in the Barnea Quarter. Remains of a synagogue from this period have also been found.


Maqam al-Imam al-Husayn

An 11th-century mosque, Maqam al-Imam al-Husayn, a site of pilgrimage for both Sunnis and Shiites, which had been built under the Fatimids by Badr al-Jamali and where tradition held that the head of Mohammad's grandson Hussein ibn Ali was buried, was blown up by the
IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...
under instructions from
Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
as part of a broader programme to destroy mosques in July 1950.Brief History of Transfer of the Sacred Head of Hussain ibn Ali, From Damascus to Ashkelon to Qahera By: Qazi Dr. Shaikh Abbas Borhany PhD (USA), NDI, Shahadat al A'alamiyyah (Najaf, Iraq), M.A., LLM (Shariah) Member, Ulama Council of Pakistan. Published in ''Daily News'', Karachi, Pakistan on 3 January 200

.
Meron Rapoport Meron may refer to: People * Meron (surname), including a list of people with the name * Meron Abraham (born 1995), an Eritrean cyclist * Meron Amanuel (born 1990), an Eritrean cyclist * Meron Benvenisti (born 1934), an Israeli political scientist ...
,
'History Erased,'
''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'', 5 July 2007.
The area was subsequently redeveloped for a local Israeli hospital, Barzilai. After the site was re-identified on the hospital grounds, funds from Mohammed Burhanuddin, leader of a Shi'a Ismaili sect based in India, were used to construct a marble mosque, which is visited by Shi'ite pilgrims from India and Pakistan.


Shrines

A domed structure housing the 13th-century tomb of Sheikh Awad sits atop a hill overlooking Ashkelon's northern beaches. A Roman burial tomb two kilometres north of Ashkelon Park was discovered in 1937. There are two burial tombs, a painted Hellenistic cave and a Roman cave. The Hellenistic cave is decorated with paintings of nymphs, water scenes, mythological figures and animals.


Museums

Ashkelon Khan and Museum contains archaeological finds, among them a replica of Ashkelon's Canaanite silver calf, whose discovery was reported on the front page of '' The New York Times''. The Outdoor Museum near the municipal cultural center displays two Roman burial coffins made of marble depicting battle and hunting scenes, and famous mythological scenes.


Others

The Ashkelon Marina, located between Delila and Bar Kochba beaches, offers a shipyard and repair services. Ashkeluna is a water-slide park on Ashkelon beach.


Health care

Ashkelon and environs is served by the Barzilai Medical Center, established in 1961. It was built in place of Hussein ibn Ali's 11th-century mosque, a center of Muslim pilgrimages, destroyed by the
Israeli army The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branc ...
in 1950. Situated from
Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon * Ghazzeh, a village in ...
, the hospital has been the target of numerous Qassam rocket attacks, sometimes as many as 140 over one weekend. The hospital plays a vital role in treating wounded soldiers and terror victims. A new rocket and missile-proof emergency room is under construction.


Demographics

In the early years, the city was primarily settled by Mizrahi Jews, who fled to Israel after being expelled from Muslim lands. Today, Mizrahi Jews still constitute the majority of the population. In the early 1950s, many South African Jews settled in Ashkelon, establishing the Afridar neighbourhood. They were followed by an influx of immigrants from the United Kingdom. During the 1990s, the city received additional arrivals of
Ethiopian Jews The Beta Israel ( he, בֵּיתֶא יִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Bēteʾ Yīsrāʾēl''; gez, ቤተ እስራኤል, , modern ''Bēte 'Isrā'ēl'', EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "House of Israel" or "Community of Israel"), also known as Ethiopian Jews ...
and Russian Jews.


Culture and sports

The
Ashkelon Sports Arena The Ashkelon Sport Arena ( he, היכל הספורט העירוני אשקלון) is an indoor sporting arena located in Ashkelon, Israel. The arena opened in 1999 and is home to the Ironi Ashkelon Basketball Basketball is a team sport in ...
opened in 1999. The "Jewish Eye" is a Jewish world film festival that takes place annually in Ashkelon. The festival marked its seventh year in 2010. The Breeza Music Festival has been held yearly in and around Ashkelon's amphitheatre since 1992. Most of the musical performances are free. Israel Lacrosse operates substantial youth lacrosse programs in the city and recently hosted the Turkey men's national team in Israel's first home international in 2013. ''
Im schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon "Im schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon" ("In Ashkelon's Black Whale") is a popular academic commercium song. It was known as a beer-drinking song in many German speaking ancient universities. Joseph Victor von Scheffel provided the lyrics under the tit ...
'' ("In Ashkelon's Black Whale inn") is a traditional German academic commercium song that describes a drinking binge staged in the ancient city.


Photos

File:View of the park in Afridar, Ashqelon, Israel.jpg , Park Afridar File:Night view from Ashqelon.jpg, Night view from Marina File:Ашкелон.jpg, Beach of Ashqelon File:Средиземное море - вид с Ашкелона.jpg, Sea view File:Улица Летчиков.JPG, Ha-Tayassim street File:מדרחוב אשקלון.jpg, Pedestrian mall, Ashkelon


Twin towns – sister cities

Ashkelon is twinned with: *
Côte Saint-Luc Côte Saint-Luc (; also spelled Côte-Saint-Luc, and known historically in English as Cote St. Luke) is a city on the island of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Geography Along with Hampstead and Montreal West, Côte Saint-Luc forms an enclave within ...
, Quebec, Canada *
Grodno Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...
, Belarus * Xinyang, China * Iquique, Chile *
Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
, France * Vani, Georgia *
Kutaisi Kutaisi (, ka, ქუთაისი ) is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the third-most populous city in Georgia, traditionally, second in importance, after the capital city of Tbilisi. Situated west of Tbilis ...
, Georgia * Aviano, Italy *
Berlin-Pankow Pankow () is a locality (''Ortsteil'') of Berlin in the district (''Bezirk'') of Pankow. Until 2001 it was an autonomous district with the localities of Karow, Niederschönhausen, Wilhelmsruh, Rosenthal, Blankenfelde, Buch and Französisch Bu ...
, Germany * Sopot, Poland * Entebbe, Uganda * Portland, Oregon, United States *
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, United States * Sacramento, California, United States


Notable people

* Antiochus of Ascalon (125–68 BC), Platonic philosopher *
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī or ''Ibn Ḥajar'' ( ar, ابن حجر العسقلاني, full name: ''Shihābud-Dīn Abul-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Nūrud-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī al-Kināni'') (18 February 1372 – 2 Febru ...
(1372–1449), Islamic hadith scholar *
Yael Abecassis Yael Abecassis ( he, יעל אבקסיס; born 19 July 1967) is an Israeli actress and model. Biography Yael Abecassis was born in Ashkelon, Israel, to parents of Moroccan Jewish descent. Abecassis married Israeli actor Lior Miller in 1996 an ...
(born 1967), actress and model * Yitzhak Cohen (born 1951), politician * Avi Dichter (born 1952), Israeli politician *
Shlomo Glickstein Shlomo Glickstein ( he, שלמה גליקשטיין; born 6 January 1958) is an Israeli former professional tennis player. He reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 22 in November 1982, and his career-high doubles ranking of World ...
(born 1958), professional tennis player *
Boris Polak Boris Polak (בוריס פולק; born July 15, 1954) is an Israeli former world champion and Olympic sport shooter. Personal life Polak is Jewish and was born in Moldova, in 1954. He made ''aliyah'' (immigrated to Israel) with his family from Al ...
(born 1954), world champion and Olympic sport shooter


See also

* List of cities of the ancient Near East


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * . * * * * * * * * *


External links


Ashkelon City Council

"Ashkelon, ancient city of the sea"
''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'', January 2001
Ancient Ashkelon
University of Chicago
English information on Ashkelon
Ashkelon Volunteers

Information and images about the historical Palestinian city of Mijdal and what remains of it today, as Ashkelon's Migdal neighbourhood {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashkelon Amarna letters locations Ancient sites in Israel Canaanite cities Populated coastal places in Israel Crusade places Hebrew Bible cities Gaza–Israel conflict Medieval sites in Israel Philistine cities Phoenician cities Neolithic settlements Bronze Age sites in Israel Iron Age sites in Israel Cities in Southern District (Israel) Holy cities