(3) _Exploration of Lachish._--In 1890 the Exploration Fund entered upon a new phase of work or, rather, resumed one that had been interrupted for twenty years,--that of excavation. The services of Prof. Petrie, the Egyptian explorer, were secured and the attempt to wrest from the soil of Palestine some of the buried secrets of the past was renewed. The site chosen was Tell el-Hesy, where stood in ancient times the city of Lachish (Josh. 10:3; 2 Kings 14:19; 18:14, etc.). This mound rose about 120 feet above the bed of an intermittent stream. About 60 feet of this height consisted of accumulated débris of the ancient city. The water in the course of centuries had so exposed some of the potsherds that Petrie was confident before he began digging that rich discoveries awaited him. He worked here only about six weeks, running trenches into different parts of the mound, but he found and classified such a variety of pottery that he felt confident that he had unearthed a city which had been occupied from a time anterior to the Hebrew conquest of Canaan down to about 350 B. C.[41] In 1892 the work was continued under the direction of Dr. Frederick J. Bliss, who cut away a considerable section from the northeast corner of the mound, and found the stratified remains of eight different cities, one above the other.[42] In the third of these cities from the bottom a cuneiform tablet was found, which mentions one of the men who figure in the letters found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. This tablet would indicate that this third city was flourishing during the period 1400-1350 B. C. The two cities below this must, accordingly, belong to an earlier period. Bliss supposed that the first city was built about 1700 B. C. Above the remains of the third city was a bed of ashes of some thickness, which shows, in Petrie’s opinion, that after the destruction of this city the mound was used for a period of perhaps fifty years as a place for burning alkali. Near the top of the débris of the fourth city a glazed seal was found similar to those made in Egypt in the time of the twenty-second dynasty (945-745 B. C.). This city, then, belonged to the early part of the kingdom of Judah. In the seventh and eighth cities pottery of polished red and black types was found. This class of pottery is of Greek origin, dating from 550-350 B. C. These occupations of the mound must, then, be of that period. The fifth and sixth cities would, accordingly, fall between 750 and 550 B. C. This excavation thus shows how the stratification of the mounds of Palestine reveals the march of the peoples across the country; (see Fig. 28).