{"id":13547,"date":"2025-08-13T15:04:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=13547"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:04:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:04:29","slug":"5500-year-old-canaanite-blade-workshop-discovered-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/08\/5500-year-old-canaanite-blade-workshop-discovered-in-israel.html","title":{"rendered":"5,500-Year-Old Canaanite Blade Workshop Discovered in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13550\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13550\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13550\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/08\/Blade-Factory_credit-Israel-Antiquities-Authority.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13550\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Israel Antiquities Authority<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Archaeologists recently announced the discovery of an ancient Canaanite blade factory in Israel. The workshop, which made the blades for the purposes of agricultural use, was found flint\u00a0 at Nahal Qomem, near the southern Israel city of Kiryat Gat. The site had been originally discovered two years ago during work for a new neighborhood in Kiryat Gat. Researchers dated it to the early Bronze Age, making the site around 5,500 years old. The site contains various underground pits, that experts believe might have been used for garbage or to keep food cool.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/rare-intact-5500-year-old-canaanite-blade-workshop-unearthed-in-southern-israel\/\"><em>The Times of Israel<\/em>,<\/a> Dudu Biton, an expert of flint tools and Canaanite blades with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), called the find \u201ctruly extraordinary.\u201d \u201cThis is the first time a Canaanite workshop has been uncovered in its full context,\u201d he said. That the site was so intact made the find truly special, according to Biton. \u201cCanaanite blades and cores had been uncovered in other sites across Israel, but only isolated ones and out of context. This time, however, we\u2019ve discovered not just a few, but hundreds of them, along with the full range of materials related to their production,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201cCanaanite\u201d is used to refer to the group of traditional enemies that the Israelites faced when claiming the Promised Land of Israel. Biton said that there has yet to be any sign of an actual Canaanite settlement near the workshop. \u201c\u201cThere are some remains of walls, houses, and small installations,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if we\u2019re talking about a large settlement, either it never existed, it was destroyed by modern development \u2014 especially since the area has seen extensive agricultural activity \u2014 or we simply haven\u2019t found it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was a cache of unused blades discovered at the site, leading to speculation that it might have been given as some sort of ritual offering. Biton stated it was unlikely, however, that the blades were used for battle, as agricultural blades obtain a special gloss that such blades obtain from cutting into wheat and vegetation. Archaeologists intend to continue exploring the site in hopes of more answers. \u201cWe are especially interested in determining whether the blades produced here were only used locally or traded to other sites across the region,\u201d said Biton. A geologist has determined that the source of the flint for the blades came from the Beit Guvrin area, which is about 9 miles away. If blades can be found in other regions with flint from the same site, it could give researchers greater insight into the trade habits of the Canaanites. The artifacts from the site from the site will be put on display at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archaeologists recently announced the discovery of an ancient Canaanite blade factory in Israel. The workshop, which made the blades for the purposes of agricultural use, was found flint\u00a0 at Nahal Qomem, near the southern Israel city of Kiryat Gat. The site had been originally discovered two years ago during work for a new neighborhood in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":13550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>5,500-Year-Old Canaanite Blade Workshop Discovered in Israel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Archaeologists uncover a 5,500-year-old Canaanite blade factory in Israel, revealing hundreds of tools and clues to ancient times.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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