Timnah

Timnah/Tel Batash or Khirbet Tibneh

תל בטש or טבנה
Shown within Israel
Alternate name	תמנתה
Location
Coordinates	31°47′06″N 34°54′40″E / 31.785019°N 34.911203°E / 31.785019; 34.911203
Area	10 acre
History
Periods	Middle Bronze Age
Site notes
Excavation dates	1979-1990s
Archaeologists	Amihai Mazar & George L. Kelm

Timnath or Timnah was a Philistine city in Canaan that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in Judges 14, as also in connection with Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38:14. Although inconclusive, modern archaeologists identify the ancient site with Tel Batash (Hebrew: תל בטש‎‎), a tel located in the Sorek Valley, near moshav Tal Shahar, Israel. Earlier historical geographers, such as A. Neubauer, Victor Guérin and Edward Robinson, have identified the site with Khirbet Tibneh, a ruin located ca. 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) southwest of Bet Shemesh, in Israel. French orientalist, Clermont-Ganneau, also thought Tibneh to be a corruption of the Hebrew word, Timnah. When Edward Robinson visited the immediate area in 1838, Tibneh was already a deserted village. The site is not to be confused with the copper smelting site of Timna in the Arabah near Eilat.

Tel Batash, thought by others to be Timnah based on its proximity to Zorah, the hometown of biblical figure Samson, was uncovered through 1977-1979 by Amihai Mazar and George L. Kelm while Kelm was serving as professor of Biblical Backgrounds and Archaeology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, on a dig sponsored by the Seminary.