152 Ann E. Killebrew
in their belief in Yahweh and the saga of their unique relationship as his chosen people
(Killebrew 2006).
When considered in its larger eastern Mediterranean and western Asian context, the
gradual process of Israelite ethnogenesis is not unique. Parallel processes of breakdown,
fragmentation, and transformation were occurring throughout much of the eastern
Mediterranean during the twelfth and eleventh centuriesBCE. The impact of the decline
of New Kingdom Egypt, the collapse of the Hittite Empire, and disintegration of the
Mycenaean palace system was a reordering of the spheres of influence and heralded the
appearance of a new group of peoples who settled the southern coast of Canaan and
entered biblical history: the Philistines.
The Philistines
Although best known as biblical Israel’s implacable enemies, the earliest mention of
the Philistines appears on the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.
This Twentieth-Dynasty New Kingdom Egyptian pharaoh commemorates in text and
pictorial reliefs two battles, one on land and one at sea, which took place during the
eighth year of his reign (ca. 1175CE). Enemy combatants are described as having origi-
nated from the “great green” (most likely referring to the Mediterranean Sea), groups
that have been defined collectively as “Sea Peoples” in modern scholarly literature.
The Peleset, or Philistines, are specifically mentioned as one of the peoples from the
“great green” (see Cifola 1988, 1991). The Philistines appear in three additional New
Kingdom Egyptian texts: the Rhetorical Stela (Chapel C at Deir el-Medineh from the
time of Ramesses III), Papyrus Harris I (composed shortly after the death of Ramesses
III), and the Onomasticon of Amenope (late twelfth or early eleventh centuryBCE).
In the last text, three locations—Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Gaza—are mentioned in
relationship to the Philistines. It is noteworthy that these are three of the Pentapolis
cities associated with the Philistines in the biblical account (see Killebrew 2005a: 202–5;
see also Machinist 2000 regarding the biblical traditions).
The Philistines are among the most visibly recognizable peoples in the archaeologi-
cal record. Extensive excavations at the urban centers of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and
especially Ekron have uncovered a distinctive, locally produced, Aegean-inspired mate-
rial culture that departs dramatically from the preceding Late Bronze Age indigenous
(Canaanite) cultural assemblages. The nonlocal origin of the Iron I inhabitants of these
Pentapolis cities is reflected in all aspects of Philistine material culture, including their
pottery assemblage, cultic practices, cuisine, architecture, and city-planning (see, e.g.,
Dothan 1982; Killebrew 2006–2007; Yasur-Landau 2010). The ceramic repertoire, the
hallmark of Philistine culture, is particularly instructive. It is distinctive both typologi-
cally and technologically, reflecting influences from the west Aegean, Crete, and the east
Aegean, with especially close ties to locally produced Mycenaean IIIC assemblages on
Cyprus and Cilicia (see, e.g., Dothan and Zukerman 2004; Ben-Shlomo 2006; Kille-
brew 2013a). Especially noteworthy is the appearance of Aegean-style cooking pots that
coincide with new dietary practices and the consumption of pork (e.g., Ben-Shlomo
et al. 2008).