Archaeology
Ekron was excavated during 14 seasons between 1981 and 1996 by a team from the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Israel Exploration Society led by Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin.
The mound of Tel Miqne has a 10 acre upper tell and a lower tell that ranged from 40 to 65 acres at various times in history.
Excavations in 1996 in the temple complex at Tel Miqne recovered a significant artifact for the corpus of Biblical archaeology, a dedicatory inscription of the seventh-century king of Ekron Achish. The inscription not only securely identifies the site, it gives a brief king-list of rulers of Ekron, fathers to sons: Ya'ir, Ada, Yasid, Padi, 'Akish.
Of more than local interest is the recipient of the inscription, 'Akish's divine "Lady. May she bless him, and guard him, and prolong his days, and bless his land." The name or title of the Lady of Ekron is Ptgyh or Ptnyh. Aaron Demsky (Demsky 1997) reads the name as Ptnyh and relates it to the title Potnia theron(Mistress of the Animals) that was applied to the Great Goddess of the Aegean, in her various local manifestations, which include Mycenaean sites. A much earlier representation of the Lady of Ekron, perhaps thirteenth century BCE offers her left breast.
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