Timnah

Timnah/Tel Batash

תל בטש or תמנה
Shown within Israel
Alternative name	תמנתה
Location
Coordinates	31°47′06″N 34°54′40″E / 31.78500°N 34.91111°E / 31.78500; 34.91111
Area	10 acre
History
Periods	Middle Bronze Age
Site notes
Excavation dates	1979–1990s
Archaeologists	Amihai Mazar & George L. Kelm

Timnath or Timnah was a Philistine city in Canaan that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in Judges 14 and in connection with Samson. Modern archaeologists identify the ancient site with a tell lying on a flat, alluvial plain, located in the Sorek Valley ca. 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north-west of Beit Shemesh, near moshav Tal Shahar in Israel, known in Hebrew as Tel Batash (תל בטש) or Teluliot Batashi (plural), and in Arabic as Tell Butashi or Teleilat Batashi (plural). The site is not to be confused with either the as yet unidentified Timna from the hill country of Judah (Josh 15:57), nor with the southern copper-smelting site of Timna in the Arabah near Eilat.

The Tel Batash mound was discovered in the 19th century by C. Clermont-Ganneau, who identified it as a Roman military camp.^[1] In subsequent years, the site was uncovered through 1977–1989, in 12 seasons of excavations, by Amihai Mazar and George L. Kelm while Kelm was serving as professor of Biblical backgrounds and archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, on a dig sponsored by the Seminary.^[2][1]