Where were the five Philistine cities?

Question

Accepted Answer

The five Philistine cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, all on the southern coastal plain of today's Gaza Strip and Israel, within a strip about 50 km long between Gaza in the south-west and Ekron in the north-east. Joshua names "five lords of the Philistines; the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites", and the same five send a golden offering with the returned ark in 1 Samuel. The Philistines settled these cities in the twelfth century BC. Gaza lies under the modern city of Gaza, the last town on the road from Egypt before the desert. Ashkelon is Tel Ashkelon on the shore, now a national park inside the modern city. Ashdod is Tel Ashdod a few kilometres inland, south of the modern city of that name. The two inland cities were found more recently. Ekron is Tel Miqne, about 35 km west of Jerusalem, where an inscription found in 1996 names Achish son of Padi, ruler of Ekron, and settles the identification. Gath, the home of Goliath, is identified with Tell es-Safi, about 9 km south of Ekron, where the Elah valley opens onto the plain; after other sites were tried this is now widely accepted. Gath was destroyed in the late ninth century BC, when Hazael of Syria took it, and the later prophets name only four cities. Ashkelon and Ekron were burned by Nebuchadnezzar about 604 BC.