Hannathon in the Amarna Letters
Hannathon (Ḫinnatuna) first appears in history in two of the Amarna Letters, the famous diplomatic correspondence from the fourteenth century BCE. Both letters highlight Hannathon’s strategic location in northern Canaan, along the main route linking Megiddo with the Akko Plain.
In EA 8, the king of Babylon complains to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) about the fate of Babylonian merchants traveling through Canaan. According to the letter, the merchants were detained at Hannathon and killed by men from Akko, who also seized the silver they were carrying.
EA 245 tells an even more dramatic story. Biridiya, the ruler of Megiddo, reports that he and Yashdata captured Lab’ayu, the notorious ruler of Shechem. Surata of Akko then took custody of the prisoner at Megiddo and was supposed to deliver him to the Egyptians at the harbor of Akko. But Lab’ayu never reached Egypt. At Hannathon, he escaped—apparently after bribing Surata. What happened next is not entirely clear. The letters suggest that Lab’ayu was pursued and eventually killed, perhaps during an unsuccessful attempt to capture him again.
Hannathon under Assyrian Rule
In the second half of the eighth century BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded into the southern Levant and brought much of the region under its control. In the process, several local kingdoms—including Hamath, Aram-Damascus, and Israel—were defeated and eventually disappeared as independent political entities.
Hannathon appears in the royal annals of Tiglath-Pileser III (Ann. 18, line 5) among the northern Israelite cities conquered during the Assyrian campaigns of 734–732 BCE. The annals also record the deportation of local populations from the conquered territories, part of the broader Assyrian policy of reorganizing and controlling newly annexed regions.
Hannathon after the Assyrian Conquest
Archaeological surveys conducted in the Lower Galilee during the 1970s by archaeologist Zvi Gal suggested that the region experienced an unusually long break in settlement following the Assyrian campaigns. According to this interpretation, occupation declined sharply in the late eighth century BCE and did not recover until the final centuries of the Persian period, around the fourth century BCE.
One of the main goals of the current project is to test this influential theory through detailed excavation at Tell el-Badawiya/Hannathon. As one of the region’s key sites, Hannathon offers an important opportunity to examine how the Lower Galilee was affected by Assyrian conquest and what happened there in the centuries that followed.
A Fortified Farm on the Mound
After the campaigns of Tiglath-Pileser III, Hannathon disappears from the historical record. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the main regional center shifted to Sepphoris, about 4.5 km to the southeast. Tell el-Badawiya flourished again in the Middle Ages, when a small fortified farm was established on the western side of the mound. Excavations showed that the complex remained in use well beyond the Crusader period, continuing into the Mamluk era in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries CE.
The Ottoman Period
During the Ottoman period, a new structure was built at the site. It appears on the maps of the Survey of Western Palestine prepared by Conder and Kitchener, where it is marked as Khan el-Badawiya. The exact date of the structure’s abandonment is unknown, but its presence attests to the continued use of the site into the Ottoman era.
In Search of Historical Hannathon
Located at the western edge of the Beit Netopha Valley (Sahl al-Battuf), Tell el-Badawiya occupies a strategic position along one of the major routes of Lower Galilee. On the basis of this location, Albrecht Alt, the renowned biblical scholar of Leipzig University, identified the site with Hannathon, an ancient city known from several historical sources. Hannathon is mentioned in the Amarna Letters (EA 8 and 245), in the royal annals of Tiglath-Pileser III (Ann. 18, line 5), and in the Hebrew Bible (Josh. 19:14). Together, these references provide the historical framework for identifying Tell el-Badawiya with the ancient city of Hannathon.
Tell el-Badawiya in the Modern Era
In contrast to many other archaeological sites in northern Israel, very limited fieldwork has been carried out at Tell el-Badawiya/Hannathon. In 1923, W.J. Phythian-Adams was granted a permit to conduct soundings at the site on behalf of the British School of Archaeology. Unfortunately, the results of these soundings were not published and are mentioned only briefly by W.F. Albright.
More recently, the site was surveyed by Zvi Gal, as part of a broader regional study of the Lower Galilee in the Bronze and Iron Ages. A decade later, in 1987, Ruth (Ruthy) Gertwagen investigated the fortified farm and revealed various finds dated from the 12th-16th centuries CE.