Where was Ekron, the city of Baal-zebub?

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Ekron is Tel Miqne, also called Khirbet el-Muqanna, a mound on the inner edge of the southern coastal plain of Israel, about 36 km west of Jerusalem in a straight line; the map point stands on it. It was the northernmost of the five Philistine cities, about 9 km north of Gath, and the identification is certain: an inscription found there in 1996 names the city. In the Bible Ekron is best known for its god. When King Ahaziah of Israel fell through a lattice in Samaria, he sent to “enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease”, a journey of some 64 km to the south-west; Elijah met the messengers: “Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron?” The name means “lord of the flies”, perhaps a mocking change of Baal-zebul, “Baal the prince”; in the Gospels Beelzebub is the prince of devils. Earlier the captured ark was sent on from Gath to Ekron, as the Hebrew and the King James Version read; the Greek and the Russian Synodal name Ashkelon here. After Goliath fell, Israel pursued the Philistines “to the gates of Ekron”. Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin excavated Tel Miqne from 1981 to 1996. The Philistines founded a fortified city here in the twelfth century BC; under Assyrian rule in the seventh century it became the largest olive-oil production centre yet found in the ancient Near East, with over a hundred presses. In its temple the excavators found the inscription of “Achish son of Padi, ruler of Ekron”; Padi is the king whom Ekron's nobles handed over to Hezekiah in 701 BC and whom Sennacherib restored. The city was burned in Nebuchadnezzar's campaign on the Philistine coast, usually dated 604 BC, as Zephaniah had warned: “Ekron shall be rooted up.”