It’s tough being an archaeologist. You spend months out in the field trying to pick away the sands of time, often finding nothing. And even when you do find something, it’s tough to get people excited. Well, the hard work may have paid off, as archaeologists have uncovered an entire city in the dust of Israel.

After months of brushing dirt away with toothbrushes, they’ve uncovered the remains of a 14th-century BC Canaanite city buried underneath the ruins of another city in Israel. Archaeologists found the site buried under an existing ancient city, Gezer, which was once a major center that sat at the crossroads of trade routes between Asia and Africa.

The discovery of this older city underneath Gezer suggests that the site was in use for much longer than previously thought. They also found the traces of an Egyptian amulet of Amenhotep III (pictured) and several pottery vessels from the Late Bronze Age at the location.

The city of was ruled over many centuries by Canaanites, Egyptians and Assyrians, and Biblical accounts from roughly the 10th century BC describe an Egyptian pharaoh giving the city to King Solomon as a wedding gift after marrying his daughter.

Steven Ortiz, a co-director of the site’s excavations and a biblical scholar, said that:

It’s not surprising that a city that was of importance in the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah would have an older history and would have played an important political and military role prior to that time. If you didn’t control Gezer, you didn’t control the east-west trade route.

[Source : Live Science]