Hazor Destruction Layer

Excavations at the largest Canaanite city in the region uncovered a violent thirteenth-century BEC destruction, with a burnt palace, deliberately mutilated Egyptian and Canaanite statues, and a metre of ash. Joshua names Hazor specifically as the one city burned, and the smashing of idols rather than mere looting suggests ideologically motivated destroyers. Candidates include Israelites, Sea Peoples, Egyptians, or rival Canaanites, and the excavators themselves have differed. It is the strongest single piece of material evidence bearing on the conquest account, and simultaneously a reminder of how hard destruction layers are to attribute.