Gibeon (ancient city)
 Shown within the West Bank
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| Location | West Bank |
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| Coordinates | 31°50′51″N 35°11′00″E / 31.847451°N 35.183351°E |
Gibeon (Hebrew: גבעון, Standard Hebrew Giv'on, Tiberian Hebrew Giḇʻôn) was a Canaanite city north of Jerusalem. The pre-conquest inhabitants of Gibeon, the Gibeonites, were Hivites according to Joshua 10:12 and Joshua 11:19, or Amorites according to 2 Samuel 21:2.
The remains of Gibeon are located on the south edge of the Palestinian village of Al Jib.
The earliest known mention of Gibeon in an extra-Biblical source is in a list of cities on the wall of the Amum temple at Karnak, celebrating the invasion of Israel by Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I (945-924 BCE).
The 10th-century lexicographer, David ben Abraham al-Fasi, identified al-Jib with the ancient city, Gibeon, which view was corroborated also by the Hebrew Lexicon compiled by Wilhelm Gesenius and Frants Buhl ("now al-Ǧīb"). However, the first scientific identification of al-Jib with the ancient Canaanite city of Gibeon was made by Edward Robinson in 1838. The remains of Gibeon were excavated in six expeditions from 1956 to 1962, led by the University of Pennsylvania archaeologist James B. Pritchard.
Gibeon was founded in the Early Bronze Age, for the excavators discovered 14 EB storage jars beneath the foundations of the Iron Age wall. Other EB remains were discovered at the top of the tel but the stratigraphy had been destroyed by British gunfire during the First World War. It is probable that there was a defensive wall, but this has not yet been found. Tombs cut into the rock on the east site of the hill contained EB jars and bowls, formed first by hand and then finished on a slow wheel. The Early Bronze city was destroyed by fire, but no date has been determined for this destruction.
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