regain control and boasted about his capture of Gezer. A massive fiery destruction seems to support this in excavations done by Prof. Steven Ortiz. Toward the end of the Bronze Age, the city declined and its population diminished. Iron Age In 12th-11th centuries BCE, a large building with many rooms and courtyards was situated on the acropolis. Grinding stones and grains of wheat found among the sherds indicate that it was a granary. Local and Philistine vessels attest to a mixed Canaanite/Philistine population. The 10th century BCE seems to have been a period of notable urban development for the city until it became destroyed in the third quarter of that century, probably as a result of Shoshenq I's campaign in Canaan at that time. Tiglath-Pileser III and the Neo-Assyrian period The Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III put Gezer under siege between the years 734 and 732 BC. The city was probably captured by the Assyrians at the end of the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser III to Canaan. A reference to Gezer may have appeared in a cuneiform relief from the 8th-century BCE royal palace of Tiglath-Pileser III at Nimrud. The siege may have been the one depicted on a stone relief at the royal palace in Nimrud, where the city was called 'Gazru'. Hellenistic period According to the book of 1 Maccabees, Simon Thassi captured a place called "Gazara" ("Gaza" in Greek) and expelled the population during the Maccabean Revolt. He then brought in new settlers of devout Jews and fortified it, making it part of the Hasmonean kingdom. Some scholars identify Gezer as the same place as the Gazara described by the author of 1 Maccabees. Roman and Byzantine periods Gezer was sparsely populated during Roman times and later times, as other regional population centers took its place. Crusader period In 1177, the plains around Gezer were the site of the Battle of Montgisard, in which the Crusaders under Baldwin IV defeated the forces of Saladin. There was a Crusader Lordship of Montgisard and apparently a castle stood there, a short distance from Ramleh. Early modern and modern periods Archaeological highlights Canaanite water system A large Canaanite (Bronze Age) water system comprising a tunnel going down to a spring, similar to those found in Jerusalem, Tel Hazor and Tel Megiddo, was first excavated by Macalister and was re-excavated as part of the 2006-17 campaigns of the Tel Gezer Excavation and Publication