Ashdod (ancient city)

Ashdod (Philistine: 𐤀𐤔𐤃𐤃 *ʾašdūd; Hebrew: אַשְׁדּוֹד, romanized: ʾašdōḏ; Arabic: أسدود, romanized: ʾasdūd) or Azotus (Koinē Greek: Ἄζωτος, romanized: azōtos) was an ancient Levantine metropolis situated at Tel Ashdod, 'Mound of Ashdod', an archaeological site co-located with the remains of the former Ottoman-era and now depopulated Palestinian village of Isdud, a few kilometers south of the modern Ashdod in present-day Israel.

The first documented urban settlement at Ashdod dates to the 17th century BCE, when it was a fortified Canaanite city, before being destroyed in the Bronze Age Collapse. During the Iron Age, it was one of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis, and is mentioned 13 times in the Hebrew Bible. After being captured by Uzziah, it was briefly ruled by the Kingdom of Judah before changing hands between the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the later Achaemenid Empire.

In the Hellenistic period, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the city became known as Azotus. It was later incorporated into the Hasmonean kingdom. During the 1st century BCE, Pompey removed the city from Judean rule and annexed it to the Roman province of Syria.

Ashdod was a bishopric under Byzantine rule, but its importance diminished over the course of the medieval period.

There was ongoing habitation at the site in the early modern period through to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when the then village of Isdud was depopulated when its inhabitants fled or were expelled. Today, the site is an archaeological site that is open to the public, with visible remains of Isdud and earlier historical ruins, thought to date back to the Philistine period.