Tel Burna

Tel Burna (also Tell Bornât) is an archaeological site located in the Shephelah (Judean foothills), along the banks of Nahal Guvrin, not far from modern-day Qiryat Gat.

"[4] Eusebius' description, who places the village at the 5th-milestone from Beit Gubrin, puts Tel Burna in approximate position as a contender for the site of ancient Gath, or else Tell ej-Judeideh, as both ruins are principal Bronze Age sites only 2 miles (3.2 km) apart, and situated in the direction of Lod as one sets out from Beit Gubrin.

If in fact the location of Libnah should be sought out at Tel Burna, the excavations thus far do conform to what is understood about the city from the Biblical texts.

[8] Large quantities of LBA pottery shards, a 500 square meter cultic structure with a large courtyard containing a standing stone, Cypriot zoomorphic vessels, Mycenaean figurines, a Cypriot three-cupped votive vessel, and a steatite Mittani cylinder seal were found.

[15] The site was described by Victor Guérin in 1869 (as Tell Bournat) and then a decade later by Lieutenant Claude Conder of the Palestine Exploration Fund (noting 4 foot high fortification walls).

Among the late Iron Age II finds in the backfill of one silo was a jar handle fragment stamped with a private seal "'zr followed by hgy" which the excavators took as two names.

Tel Burna excavation