[2] Michmas is identified with the Palestinian village of Mukhmas in the West Bank, which preserves its ancient name.
The town is known by its connection with the Philistine war of Saul and Jonathan, as it was the site of the Battle of Michmash recounted in the Bible.
In 1 Samuel 13 ‘And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, abode in Gibeah of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmas.
[6] It tells how Jonathan and his armor-bearer showed themselves ‘to the Philistines’ garrison’ on the other side, and how they passed two sharp rocks: ‘there was a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side: and the name of the one was Bozez and the name of the other Seneh.’[7] They clambered up the cliff and overpowered the garrison ‘within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plough.’ The main body of the enemy awakened by the mêlée thought they were surrounded by Saul's troops and ‘melted away and they went on beating down one another.’[8] A divinely sent earthquake, the effects of which were noted by Saul's watchmen, threw the Philistine camp into turmoil.
[2] During the 1980s, 4 clusters of tombs, consisting of roughly 70 burial caves, were found in the vicinity of modern-day Mukhmas.
In the 1990s, German researchers purchased a ossuary found in Mukhmas bearing the name ‘Shimeon L[evi]’, written in the Hebrew alphabet.