Tel_Zeton
Tel Zeton
Archaeological site in Israel
Tel Zeton (Hebrew: תל זיתון, also known as Tell Abu Zeitun, is an archaeological site in the Pardes Katz neighborhood of Bnei Brak, Israel. It lies 800 m (2,600 ft) south of the Yarkon River. The mound rises to a height of 9 m (30 ft) above its surroundings and spans an area of 2–3 dunams (1 acre). The site was inhabited in the Middle Bronze Age and later in the Iron and Persian periods. Jacob Kaplan identified the fortified settlement from the Persian period as a Jewish settlement from the time of the Return to Zion in the 5th century BCE, thanks to an ostracon bearing a Hebrew name which appears in the Hebrew Bible from the time of Nehemiah, a Jewish governor appointed by the Achaemenid Empire to govern the autonomous Jewish province. The site was inhabited as late as the 10th century CE, during the Roman, Byzantine, Early Arab, and Mamluk periods.
Tel Zeton was suggested in 1938 as the location of Gath-Rimmon mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Kaplan supported this identification while Benjamin Mazar rejected it. If correct, Tel Zeton should also be identified with two cities mentioned in Egyptian sources from the 14th and 15th centuries BCE.