A glimpse at the later state of things, when those earlier nations and cities were overwhelmed by an invasion of a rude nomad race, as described in the Books of Joshua and Judges, has been afforded quite recently by the exploration by Mr. Flinders Petrie of a mound on the plain of Southern Judæa, which he is disposed to identify with the ancient Lachish. A section of this mound has been exposed by the action of a brook, and it shows, as in Dr. Schliemann's excavations on the supposed site of Troy at Hissarlik, several successive occupations. The lowest and earliest city was fortified by a wall of sun-burnt bricks, 28 feet 8 inches thick, and which still stands to a height of 21 feet. It shows signs of great antiquity, having been twice repaired, and a large accumulation of broken pottery was found both outside and within it. This city, which Petrie identifies with one of those Amorite cities which were "walled up to heaven," had been taken and destroyed, and the wall had fallen into ruins. Then, to use Professor Sayce's words, "came a period when the site was occupied by rude herdsmen, unskilled in the arts either of making bricks or of fortifying towns. Their huts were built of mud and rolled stones from the Wady below, and resembled the wretched shanties of the half-savage Bedouins, which we may still see on the outskirts of the Holy Land. They must have been inhabited by the invading Israelitish tribes, who had overthrown the civilization which had long existed in the cities of Canaan, and were still in a state of nomadic barbarism." Above this come newer walls, which had been built and repaired three or four times over by the Jewish kings, one of the later rebuildings being a massive brick wall 25 feet thick, with a glacis of large blocks of polished stone traced to a height of 40 feet, which Petrie refers to the reign of Manasseh. Then comes a destruction, probably by the Assyrians under Sennacherib, and then other buildings of minor importance, the latest being those of a colony of Greeks, who were swept away before the age of Alexander the Great.