Archaeologists found something unexpected when excavating an ancient city in Israel; an even more ancient Canaanite city.
The hidden city's identity was given away when the researchers found an Egyptian amulet of Amenhotep III and some Late Bronze Age pottery that seemed out of place, LiveScience reported.
The site is in Gezer, which was once a trade center for both Africa and Asia.
"Beneath this city was an earlier city that was destroyed in a fierce conflagration. This city was functioning during the Egyptian 18th Dynasty's rule over the southern Levant. ..This destruction corresponds to other destructions of other cities in the region, a reflection of the internecine warfare that was occurring between the Canaanite cites as reflected in the well-known Tell el-Amarna correspondence," a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary news release reported.
The city of Gezar was believed to have been ruled by a number of civilizations including the "Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and (according to biblical records) possibly even the Egyptians.
"It's always changed hands throughout history," Steven Ortiz, a co-director of the site's excavations and a biblical scholar at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told LiveScience.
In the site the researchers have made a number of stunning discoveries including a set of "underground water tunnels" which may have been used to store liquid during sieges.
In a layer of the ancient city levels the team found the scarab, which was believed to have belonged to King Tut's grandfather King Amenhotep III.
The team believes the finding shows the Canaanite city was under Egyptian rule during the 14th century.
"It's not surprising that a city that was of importance in the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah would have an older history and would have played an important political and military role prior to that time," Andrew Vaughn, a biblical scholar and executive director of the American Schools of Oriental Research, who was not involved in the study, told LiveScience. "If you didn't control Gezer, you didn't control the east-west trade route."
The city is believed to have lost its prestige when a new major road changed locations.
"Just like today when you have a ghost town - where you move the train and that city goes out of use," Ortiz said.
