Scott Stripling tells All Israel News about new piers found in June that he believes formed a door into the gate complex where the priest Eli may have died
Archaeologists working at Tel Shiloh earlier this summer discovered piers that they believe formed a door into a gate complex at the northern edge of the biblical city.
The finding, said Scott Stripling, director of the Tel Shiloh excavations for the Associates for Biblical Research, was surprising but also made sense because the wall was only located about a kilometer from the Shiloh spring. It would be logical for residents to have entered and exited from that side of the city to access water.
“This was either the main gate or another gate,” he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS.
Stripling added that they also discovered a “glacis” – an earthen embankment that surrounds the fortification wall – which terminated at the proposed gate entrance. At that location, there was a symmetrical breach in the wall, which suggests there may have been a gate chamber – a complex through which people had to enter before coming into the city itself.
“This is important because the High Priest, Eli, died in the gate of Shiloh,” Stripling said. “We discovered what we think is the gate mentioned in 1 Samuel 4.”
“When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man, and he was heavy. He had led Israel 40 years” (1 Samuel 4:18).
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