Resettling the Ruins: Hazor after the Destruction of 732 b.c.e.

Tiglath-Pileser III’s campaign to the southern Levant left many cities destroyed, among them Hazor. It is commonly believed that the site was transformed into an Assyrian administrative center. This article challenges this assumption by presenting new evidence and re-evaluating previously published evidence, shedding light on the immediate post-destruction period but also enhancing our understanding of the Assyrian occupation in the north. It suggests that the only remains at Hazor in the late 8th–early 7th century b.c.e . are squatters, after which settlement at the site ceases. This is a general pattern recognizable in the Hula Valley, indicating that there is no particular Assyrian economic interest in the region, and that the road system now circumvented this area.