Izbet Sartah is a small site adjacent to the western neighborhoods of Rosh Ha’Ayin. The site sits on a hill on the eastern fringes of the Samaria Hills and close to the coastal plain. Three layers of a settlement from the early Iron Age were discovered on the site, and identified by the researchers as an Israelite village. The site was discovered in 1973 and excavated by archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University led by Moshe Kochavi and Israel Finkelstein in 1976-1978.

The village was built at the beginning of the 12th century BCE on an area of ca. 2-3 dunams and was abandoned about a hundred years later at the beginning of the 11th century BCE. The village was mostly a large yard, perhaps for keeping sheeps and the goats, and surrounded by a fence with adjoining rooms. According to the researchers of the site, the village reflects the expansion of the Israelites from the heart of the mountain areas of Judea and Samaria toward the coastal plain. It was abandoned due to tensions with the Philistines who lived nearby in Aphek, about three kilometers away.

After a period of several decades in which the village was abandoned, it was rebuilt at the end of the 11th century BCE and this time in a different form. The new village spread over four dunams, in the center of which is a large four-room house surrounded by dozens of silos and a number of smaller houses on the outskirts of the village. In one of the silos an ostracon (a pottery sherd with writing on it) was found, inscribed with 83 letters of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet including a line that uses almost all the letters of the alphabet in an order similar to the one that exists today. This village existed for only a short time, probably a few decades, and was abandoned.

The last village on the site was built at the beginning of the 10th century BCE, shortly after the abandonment of the previous village. The new residents renovated the large house in the center of the village and built several new silos, but after a short time the place was abandoned for the last time and was not inhabited again.

Moshe Kochavi suggested that there is a relation between this site and Eben-ezer, a place mentioned in the book of Samuel 1 (4:1-3) as a place where the Israelites camped before the battle against the Philistines who came from Aphek. However, Eben-ezer is not specifically mentioned in the Bible as the name of a settlement and the identification is merely a suggestion.

Sources

י. פינקלשטיין. 1992. עזבת צרטה, בתוך א’ שטרן וא’ גלבוע עורכים. האנציקלופדיה החדשה לחפירות ארכיאולוגיות בארץ ישראל. ירושלים. עמ’ 1159-1160.

מ. כוכבי. 1989. אפק-אנטיפטריס: חמשת אלפים שנות היסטוריה, תל-אביב: הקיבוץ המאוחד, עמ’ 81-85.