Lachish
settlement
Possible locations
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Unearthed
The Amarna lettersNamed outside the Biblec. 1360–1330 BC
The towns of the conquest narratives were real city-states with named rulers, writing to Egypt in the century before Israel first appears in the record.
Sennacherib's Prism — Hezekiah shut up "like a bird in a cage"Named outside the Biblec. 691 BC
The invasion of Judah in 701 BC, Hezekiah by name, the siege of Jerusalem and the tribute are all recorded by the invader himself — and the city's survival is implicit in his own silence about taking it.
The Lachish Reliefs and the destruction of LachishConfirmed by the groundc. 700–692 BC
A siege the Bible mentions in a single verse can be seen carved by the besieger and dug out of the ground at the place it happened.
The lmlk storage jarsConfirmed by the groundlate 8th century BC
A kingdom-wide store of stamped royal jars, concentrated in the year Sennacherib invaded.
The Lachish letters — "we are watching for the signals of Lachish"Confirmed by the groundc. 588 BC
Letters from the last weeks of Judah, found in the ash of the gate they were written in, name the two cities Jeremiah names — one of them apparently already dark.