page_title: Abel-beth-maachah
section_title: Identification with Abel-beth-maacah of the Bible
hierarchical_section_title: Abel-beth-maachah / Identification with Abel-beth-maacah of the Bible
caption_attribution_description: English: Tel Abel Beth Maacah – view of the northern part of the tell from the east; the Lebanese village of Adaisse in the background
context_page_description: Tel Abel Beth Maacah, Arabic name: Tell Abil el-Qameḥ, is a large archaeological site consisting of a mound with a small upper northern section and a large lower southern one, connected by a saddle. It is located on the northern border of present-day Israel, about 2 km south of the town of Metulla and about 6.5 km west of Tel Dan. Since at least the early 13th century CE the mound was the location of the Arab village of Abil el-Qameh, also spelled al-Qamh etc., whose residents were forced to flee in 1948.
  The survey and excavations conducted so far have shown that the site had been inhabited during the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as the Persian, Hellenistic, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. However, the lower mound was not occupied after the Iron Age I, when occupation seems to have concentrated on the upper mound.
  The site was fortified by walls and a rampart in the Middle Bronze Age II. These fortifications were reused in the Late Bronze Age in the south of the mound, but went out of commission in the Iron Age I. A silver hoard in a jug, dating to the end of the Late Bronze Age, is one of the earliest such hoards found in the country.
context_section_description: The tell was described by a number of prominent 19th-century and early 20th-century explorers, including Victor Guérin, Félix-Marie Abel and Edward Robinson, who was the first to identify the mound with biblical Abel Beth Maacah (Avel Bet Maᶜakha). The proposal has won scholarly acceptance, based largely on historical-geographical considerations. The identification is based mainly on the appearance of the town in two geographic lists in the Bible. In 1 Kings 15:20, the Aramean king Ben-Hadad I was solicited in the 9th century BCE by King Asa of Judah to attack the northern kingdom. He did successfully, although apparently soon after this, control over this region returned to Israelite hands during the reign of Ahab. "Ben-hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. He conquered Ijon, Tel Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali". A similar geographic list is noted in the story of the Assyrian conquest of the region in the late 8th century BCE in 2 Kings 15:29: "In the days of King Pekah of Israel, King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and carried the people captive to Assyria".
caption: Tel Abel Beth Maacah – view of the northern part of the tell from the east; the Lebanese village of Adaisse in the background
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