During the third season of excavations at Aphek-Antipatris (summer 1974), two cuneiform fragments were found in the destruction debris of a Late Bronze Age building of substantial proportions. The structure, which was only partially uncovered, was exposed in Area X, beneath the courtyard of the Turkish Fort, near the mosque described in the preliminary report of the first two seasons (Kochavi 1975a). Although only a portion of the entryway to the building was unearthed during the third season, its nature as a public building was made clear by such details as: thick stone walls of standard width (1.4 m.); flagstone pavements; a stairway made of well cut monoliths. Debris from the upper storey covered the lower floor to a depth of ca. 1.5 m. This consisted of burnt bricks and charred wooden beams. The homogeneous finds from the debris date the conflagration to the end of the 13th century B.C.E. The cuneiform fragments were found in Locus 1137 near the stairs in the entryway by Mrs. Linda KeIrn of the expedition staff. The present writer is grateful to Dr. M. Kochavi for intrusting him with the responsibility for their publication (for additional details about the 1974 season at Aphek-Antipatris, see Kochavi 1974; 1975b). In this preliminary study no new numbers have been assigned to the texts other than their registration numbers from the daily journal. Naturally, it is hoped that further excavations will bring to light more texts, at which time a logical, perhaps topical, system of enumeration can be devised.
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Sep 1, 1975
Anson F Rainey 
