Philistine Burial Customs in Light of the Finds at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath

Abstract

Despite over a century of research conducted on the Philistines and their material culture, a very small quantity of finds relating to their burial customs has been reported. This has led to quite a lot of speculation on Philistine mortuary customs, with little evidence in support. At a number of sites, suggestions to distinguish “Philistine” burials were attempted, most notably, the erroneous attribution of the anthropoid coffins to the Philistines (Dothan 1982), the suggested cremation burials found at Azor (Dothan and Dothan 1992; Ben-Shlomo 2008, 2012; Buchennino and Yannai 2010), and the burial caves yielding Philistine bichrome pottery at Tel Eton (Edelstein and Aurant 1992). However, the problematic interpretations of these finds, coupled with the fact that none of this evidence was found at the main urban sites of the Philistines, calls into question their centrality within the Philistine realm, and their attribution on a whole to the ethnic group that populated the southern Coastal Plain.

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