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 libraries have been dug up—one at Lachish and one at Taanach near Megiddo, both dating back to the I4th century B.C., and both containing documents bearing on this region and time.

In brief it appears that every small group of cities, if not "every walled city with its villages," every "land of a city" in Palestine had its government independent of other cities, and each government its official chancery and archives. At any event, at least a score of such city states are directly suggested—including Mitannian, Jebusite, Hittite, and Amorite cities—as having official archives at the time of the entry of Hebrews into Palestine.

Whether there were temple libraries as well does not appear so clearly from external evidence but may probably be inferred from the names, Debir, and (perhaps) Nebo, as well as from the well-known fact that each of the many