About two weeks before the end of the last excavation season at Tel Hatzor, in July, a clay tablet with hieroglyphic was found. The tablet teaches how to forecast the future with an animal liver, a practice common in the ancient East. The priests would examine the liver of an animal that had been sacrificed to the gods and use it to predict the future. The tablet found at Hatzor has not yet been deciphered, but its hieroglyphics are reminiscent of the style of early documents from the ancient kingdom of Mari on the Euphrates, in what is today Syria. Mari was an important political center during the Middle Bronze Age, in the years 2000-1500 B.C.E., and Hatzor was the only city in the Land of Israel that had connections with it at that time. . . .The city was one of the most important not only in the northern part of the Land of Israel but in the entire Middle East. It was surrounded by a large rampart and wall, which were uncovered during excavations by Professor Yigael Yadin. The findings uncovered in site digs testify to its comprehensive ties not only with Mari but also with Egypt, the Hittite kingdom, Babylon, Crete, Greece and Cyprus. It is therefore not surprising that in the description of the conquest of the city in the Book of Joshua, it is written: "Because Hatzor before times was the head of all those kingdoms" (Joshua 10:11).
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