King Taita and His ‘Palistin’: Philistine State or Neo–Hittite Kingdom?

The end of the Hittite Empire and the destruction and abandonment of Alalakh represents a cultural break between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the ‘Amuq Valley. In the Iron I, a population with clear ties to the greater Aegean world, perhaps related to the Philistines of southern Canaan, established an agro–pastoral settlement at Tell Ta‘yinat and the surrounding area. This occupation, marked by Field Phases 6–3 at Ta‘yinat, was both materially and chronologically ephemeral, and should be viewed as a cultural outlier sandwiched between the Hittite–controlled LBA and later Iron I. This intrusive population lived alongside the indigenous inhabitants of the Amuq, bequeathing to the region a toponym – Palistin – that would far outlast their own relevance and archaeological visibility. By the First Building Period at Tell Ta‘yinat, which immediately followed the Aegean–related phases, the site was home to a dynasty overseeing a typical Neo–Hittite state, with its toponym all that remained of the ‘Sea Peoples’ presence that occupied it at the beginning of the Iron Age.