The judahite shephelah in the late 8th and early 7th centuries bce

In a recent article, Blakely and Hardin (2002) reviewed the results of excavations at several sites in the Shephelah and Beersheba Valley and interpreted them as evidence of an early Assyrian attack by Tiglath-pileser III on Judah. This study questions their proposal from both the archaeological and textual perspectives. It suggests an alternative interpretation, according to which the sites under discussion were devastated by Sennacherib in 701 BCE and partly reoccupied in the early 7th century, in the days of Manasseh.