The Daily Bread at Tell Halif: An Overview of Food Production and Consumption

The excavations at Tell Halif provide archaeologists of the southern Levant and scholars of the Hebrew Bible material to better understand the daily lives of the average man, woman, and child in Iron Age IIB Judah. Tell Halif is uniquely situated in a liminal zone between the Shephelah and the Negev regions. The Shephelah can be seen as ordered civilization, while the Negev is the chaotic desert. Tell Halif could also be seen as being situated in a social or political liminal zone between Judah and Philistia. Judah as the ‘us,’ Philistia as the ‘other,’ or ‘them.’ Patterns of food