The economy was based on animal husbandry (cattle herding) and grain production, at it may have been a center for trade.

It then fell into disuse until the middle of the 2nd millennium during the Late Bronze Age when it was rebuilt, staying in use for around a thousand years.

In 1924 William F. Albright proposed that Tell el-Hesi was Biblical Eglon,[4] an identification still accepted by Yohanan Aharoni in the 1970s.

The mound was roughly square with 200 feet on a side in Robinson's time but has been reduced by excavations and military action.

After brief training under Petrie at Meydum in Egypt, Bliss began four seasons of work at Tell el-Hesi.

If the theories of experts are correct, the use of the hot-air blast instead of cold air was known at an extremely early age.

A second series of excavations began in 1970, at the behest of the American Schools of Oriental Research and its President G. Ernest Wright, the Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi.