General plan of the site, showing the location of Kaplan's excavation sections and

one of the sections in the system of fortifications (after Kaplan 1969)

The site, therefore, is reasonably identified with Asdudimmu, mentioned as one of three cities (together with Ashdod and Gath) conquered by Sargon II following the uprising of Yamani in Ashdod. Due to surviving historical documentation, the course of events is well-known (see, e.g., Tadmor 1958; Rollinger 2001):
There was some anti-Assyrian sentiment in the city of Ashdod, which caused its king Azuri to stop delivering tribute. In 713 BCE, Sargon II tried to solve the problem by choosing Azuri's younger brother Ahimiti as a new, loyal king. However, Ahimiti was overthrown by certain Yamani. Although a son of nobody, a commoner, Yamani took power, apparently with the help of the inhabitants of the city. Having heard that, Sargon promptly assembled a modest but reliable force and in 712 BCE his commander-in-chief (turtanu) marched against Ashdod. Yamani fled to Egypt without a fight. However, later on, the Egyptians handed him over to the Assyrian king. He was sent to Assyria in fetters and details of his further fate are unknown. On its way to Ashdod, the Assyrian army conquered Ashdod's dependent cities (including Ashdod-Yam). In order to prevent further rebellions, Sargon reorganized the territory of Ashdod, conducted deportations, and settled there quite a number of newcomers. More so, he made it the centre of a newly established Assyrian province. Sennaherib, his heir, adopted a different policy a few years later, and let the former royal house of Ashdod rule over the kingdom, side by side with the Assyrian governor.
According to Kaplan (1969), the construction of the massive Iron Age fortifications at Ashdod-Yam belongs to Yamani's preparations for the rebellion against Assyria. Other scholars, however, have offered different scenarios. Thus, according to Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz (2001), any significant activity at Tel Ashdod ceased immediately or a few years after the conquest of the city in 712 BCE by Sargon. According to their reconstruction, Sargon moved the remaining population to the then small coastal settlement of Ashdod-Yam, together with deportees from northeastern parts of the empire. The newly established city at Ashdod-Yam was furnished with a massive brick and earth fortification. Ashdod, however, is mentioned as a major power on a number of occasions in 7th – early 6th centuries historical records. Except for a mention in the late monarchic Biblical prophecies (Jer. 25:20; Zeph. 2:4; Zech. 9:6), Mitinti, King of Ashdod appears in the annals of Sennacherib as a loyal vassal of Assyria, to whom Judean territories were transferred after the campaign of 701 BCE; Ahimilki king of Ashdod is mentioned as paying tribute to Assyria in the days of both Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal; a governor of Ashdod was the eponym of the year 669 BCE; and Herodotus recounts how Psammetichus I laid siege for 29 years to Ashdod and then took it. Likewise, Ashdod still possessed a king in 598 BCE, as the Istanbul prism of Nebuchadnezzar II indicates. Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz have suggested therefore, that after the Assyrian destruction of Ashdod in 712 BCE, Ashdod-Yam took its place as the kingdom's capital; that is mentions of Ashdod in the historical sources of the 7th – 6th centuries BCE refer in fact to Ashdod-Yam.
Following this reconstruction, Na'aman (2001) has offered a slightly different view of events. According to him, Sargon founded the harbor at Ashdod-Yam immediately after he crushed the anti-Assyrian rebellion that broke out upon the death of Shalmaneser V in 720 BCE. Before the Assyrian intervention, Ashdod-Yam was a small port of trade that served the capital city. Sargon's building operations at this site threatened to block Ashdod's access to the sea, depriving it of maritime trade revenues. Na'aman suggests that the revolt at Ashdod should be seen as a local event and as a direct outcome of this building project. In this scenario, the rebels probably seized and fortified the newly established Assyrian emporion at Ashdod-Yam. Sargon took advantage of the revolt, destroyed Ashdod, brought his building activity at Ashdod-Yam to completion and made it the capital of the newly established province. The city of Ashdod remained desolated - although not entirely deserted - and Ashdod-Yam took its place as the kingdom's capital.
These reconstructions have already been criticized by a number of scholars, who do not accept the existence of a chronological gap at Ashdod during the 7th century BCE (e.g., Ben-Shlomo 2003; Shavit 2008). Even before Finkelstein and Singer-Avitz's suggestion with regard to a chronological gap at Ashdod, Fantalkin has argued that there is indeed a chronological gap at Ashdod, but only during the last third of the 7th century BCE; that is during the period of Egyptian domination in the area, which starts immediately after the Assyrian withdrawal from the Southern Levant (Fantalkin 2001). This claim was based on archaeological grounds and also takes Herodotus' information about Psammetichus I’s conquest of Ashdod as reliable (although the 29 year length of the siege is certainly an artificial construction).

A few years ago, Kogan-Zahavi and Nahshoni from the Israel Antiquities Authority, have excavated the remains of what seems to be the administrative palace of the Assyrian representative. The ​building is located in the immediate vicinity of Tel Ashdod, and its existence implies that the city of Ashdod continued to be the capital of the province during the better part of the 7th century BCE. The transfer of the capital to Ashdod-Yam (if it happened at all), could have occurred only after Psammetichus' destruction of Ashdod in the second half of the 7th century BCE.
Saying this, however, one should probably agree with Finkelstein, Singer-Avitz and Na'aman's identification of an Assyrian emporion at the site of Ashdod-Yam.
The Assyrian interest in the coastal area is known to have stemmed from their desire to be involved in, and obtain their share from revenues of, the international trade among Phoenicia, Philistia and Egypt (see, e.g., Elat 1978; Fantalkin 2006; Fantalkin and Tal 2009; Berlejung 2012). As a result, on the one hand the Phoenicians enjoyed the stability of the pax Assyriaca and exclusive access to trade routes and mercantile centers, but on the other hand, Assyrian administrative officials closely monitored that trade and levied duties on it (see, e.g., Frankenstein 1979; Na’aman 2001; Sommer 2007; Fales 2008). There is no doubt that the Assyrians invested a great deal of effort in the routing of commerce and its concomitant taxes, an effort that required constant supervision over main points of control, among them seaports and emporia. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the location of Ashdod-Yam made it an important intermediate station and emporion on the maritime and overland route between Phoenicia and Egypt.

As can be easily seen from this brief survey, there is no shortage of possible scenarios concerning the fate of Ashdod-Yam during the Iron Age. Contrary to these scenarios, however, our archaeological understanding of site's history is rather modest since the site remains virtually unexcavated. It is time to conduct a full-scale archaeological excavation at the Iron Age compound of Ashdod-Yam. Such an endeavor will have the potential to make a significant contribution to the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean and beyond.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY MENTIONED IN THE TEXT:

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