Ascalon or Ashkelon[a] was an ancient Near East port city on the Mediterranean coast of the southern Levant of high historical and archaeological significance.

The Mamluk sultan Baybars ordered the destruction (slighting) of the city fortifications and the harbour in 1270 to prevent any further military use, though structures such as the Shrine of Husayn's Head survived.

[11][12] In the EB II-III (2900–2500 BCE), the site of Tel Ashkelon served as an important seaport for the trade route between the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Byblos.

Ashkelon first mention in historical records is in the Egyptian Execration Texts from the time of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt (20th–19th centuries BCE).

[23] Their earliest pottery, types of structures and inscriptions are similar to the early Greek urbanised centre at Mycenae in mainland Greece, adding evidence to the conclusion that they were one of the "Sea Peoples" that upset cultures throughout the Eastern Mediterranean at that time.

At that time, Ashkelon controlled several cities in the Yarkon River basin (near modern Tel Aviv, including Beth Dagon, Jaffa, Beneberak and Azor).

Egyptian cultic and votive items, statuettes and offering tables were likewise discovered, demonstrating a religious influence as well.

The origin of these imports is primarily Phoenicia and the Greek regions of Attica, Corinth and Magna Graecia, as well as Cyprus, Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Scholars have speculated that following their capitals demise, Ashkelon's residents may have acted similarly to the rest of the region's cities and surrendered peacefully to Alexander's army.

In a significant case of an early witch-hunt, during the reign of the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra, the court of Simeon ben Shetach sentenced to death eighty women in Ashkelon who had been charged with sorcery.

[46] Herod the Great, who became a client king of the Roman Empire, ruling over Judea and its environs in 30 BCE, had not received Ashkelon, yet he built monumental buildings there: bath houses, elaborate fountains and large colonnades.

Ambrose of Milan (339 - 397) reports that pagans burnt a basilica in Ascalon and the 5th century Christian historian Theodoret recounts atrocities against bishops and women.

Bishop Dionysius, who represented Ascalon at a synod in Jerusalem in 536, was on another occasion called upon to pronounce on the validity of a baptism with sand in waterless desert.

It may have been temporarily occupied by Amr ibn al-As, but definitively surrendered after a siege to Mu'awiya I (who later founded the Umayyad Caliphate) not long after he captured the Byzantine district capital of Caesarea in c. 640.

[59] During the Muslim civil war of 680–692 (Second Fitna), the south of Syria came under the military rule of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr's caliphate.

An inscription found by Charles Clermont-Ganneau in the 19th century indicates that the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi ordered the construction of a mosque with a minaret in Asqalan in 772.

[8]In 1091, a couple of years after a campaign by grand vizier Badr al-Jamali to reestablish Fatimid control over the region, the head of Husayn ibn Ali (a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) was "rediscovered", prompting Badr to order the construction of a new mosque and mashhad (shrine or mausoleum) to hold the relic, known as the Shrine of Husayn's Head.

[69] In 1100, Ascalon was among the Fatimid coastal cities (along with Arsuf, Caesarea and Acre) that paid tribute to the crusaders, as part of a short truce.

The Franks won the land battle and it has been recounted that when they encountered the Fatimid fleet in Jaffa, they threw the head of the defeated governor of Ascalon on board of the Egyptian ships, to inform them of the Crusader victory.

In 1134, the Crusader count of Jaffa, Hugh II, rebelled against King Fulk, who accused him of conspiring against his realm, and of intimate relations with his wife.

[73] In the time of Fulk, three fortresses were erected around the city, in order to address the threats it imposed on Jerusalem: Beth Gibelin (1135–6), Ibelin (1140) and Blanchgard (1142).

The failure of the Second Crusade and the rise of the Zengid dynasty in Syria motivated Baldwin III of Jerusalem in 1150 to begin preparations to capture Ascalon once and for all.

His stepson Abbas ibn Abi al-Futuh who was involved in his murder then went back to Egypt to be appointed a vizier in his stead, leaving Ascalon without his troops.

[65][75][77] A year after the conquest, Muslim geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi described the city's markets and fortifications, but also the destrcution of its environs, caused by its siege.

[69] In January 1192, crusade leader King Richard the Lionheart of England, proceeded to reconstruct Ascalon's fortifications, an endeavor that lasted four months.

He encamped in the ruins of Ascalon, later abandoning it after one of his men, Henry II, disobeyed his orders and led a failed assault on Gaza.

After him, it was Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy who replaced him and ultimately, Richard of Cornwall oversaw its completion in April 1241, again becoming one of the strongest strongholds in the Mediterranean, with a double wall and series of towers.

In June 1247, after capturing Damascus, the Egyptians dedicated all of the military efforts to Ascalon, and the city fell on 15 October 1247, after an assault headed by Fakhr al-Din ibn al-Shaykh.

[87] By the time of the commissioning of the PEF Survey of Palestine in 1871–77, the interior of Ascalon's ruined perimeter was divided into cultivated fields, interspersed with wells.

[98][99][100][101][102][103][104] In 1991 the ruins of a small ceramic tabernacle was found, containing a finely cast bronze statuette of a bull calf, originally silvered, ten centimetres (4 in) long.