I have started my Research Reading for my trip to dig at Lachish later this year.

Tonight I thought about some of the Lachish artifacts that I have seen in museums.

These anthropoid coffins were not found at Lachish, but they did find anthropoid coffins at Lachish and that is what started my mind wandering toward Lachish at the Museum.

These coffins are at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. You can read more about them in my post: Unfolding History

Also at the Israel Museum was this juglet with 17 bullae. The bullae were used as seals for papyrus documents or letters. These were usually thrown away, but someone at Lachish collected them in a juglet. Perhaps an ancient shadow of the modern stamp collector.

This 8th Century BCE footbath also is from Lachish. Washing of feet was an important cultural ritual during biblical times.

They also  have copies of the Lachish Reliefs at the Israel Museum. These reliefs were found at the palace of Sennacherib in Ninevah and are now on display at the British Museum in London. I have seen the reliefs at the British Museum, but did not get good pictures of them.

I also would have taken much better pictures of the copies at the Israel Museum if I knew that I was going to be digging at Lachish in the future.

The reliefs chronicle the siege of Lachish by Sennacherib and provide a wealth of historical information.

Now for just a quick look at Lachish. We visited Lachish on the last day of my trip to Israel in 2012. We were trying to visit as many sites as possible in The Shephelah so were unable to explore each individual site. Some of us were also very tired and did not have much energy to go climbing on tels.

We met in this nice shaded picnic area and talked about the importance of the site and also got to here our tour organizer talk about his experience digging at Lachish in the early 80’s.

I wish I was in Florida this evening as I would have gone to a presentation about Lachish by Luke Chandler. He is the leader of the group that I will be traveling with later this year.

More about Lachish in the future. Including some interesting innovations in archaeology that were first implemented at Lachish.

Thanks for wandering with me to Lachish this evening.

Steven