Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza

You will forgive me, but here I will tell only about places I've been in.
This is why I'm still waiting for Miluim in Gaza to go there...

Ashdod is a ruined site, nothing left to see except a ruined roof,
and corosion everywhere.
If you're really an expert, you will be able to see the walls of the great gate
of the city, a huge gate of mud-sand, still standing up to about 1-1.5m.
Apart from the gate, you can see some of the pavements of the inner city,
but it's really a misery to see it.
The remains are with no doubt from the Pilistine city of Ashdod,
according to the ceramics and architechture, 1200-1000 b.c.
All in all, a ruined place, I don't want to drag you there.

Ashkelon, on the contrary, is a very promising site in terms of
archelogical remains, and other architechtural finds.
In the middle of the wonderful Roman wall, which is somehow
very similar to the walls of Cesarea, an impressive Pilistine gate
was found. This gate is also from sand-mud bricks, just like all the rest.
It is still under development, but you can see it from the closest spot, near the entrance.

See the gate in the following location:
 http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~semitic/ashkelon_gate.html

Apart from the gate, you can still see houses from ancient Ashkelon
in the south corner of the city (no signs yet).

In his famous elegy for Saul and Jonathan, David pleads
"Tell it not in Gath/ PUBLISH IT NOT IN THE BAZAARS [sic!] OF ASHKELON/
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. "
Shops, a plaza and warehouses lined the right side of the main street of
this famous marketplace, while an Administrative Center and a Counting House
were on the left:
 http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~semitic/ashkelon_bazr.html

Ashkelon is being digged by an American college of Archeology
more then 15 years, but still not a single documnet has been published
from the excavations, officially. Stories-yes, papers-yes, money-yes,
but telling which exact remains were found where, with everything included,
for that we have to wait...

Read all about it:
 http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~semitic/ashkelon_dig2.html
 

Hope this concludes the famous 5 Pilistine cities.
I'll let you know if I jump through Gaza...