hen Abimelech went to Thebez. . . .There was a strong tower within the city, and all the people of the city fled to it, all the men and women . . . went to the roof of the tower. And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it. . . . And a certain woman threw an upper millstone upon Abimelech's head and crushed his skull" (Judges 9: 50-53).

The woman hefted the bulk of the black basalt grinding stone. She squinted into the sunshine and made out the rotund form of Abimelech on the ramparts outside the city. She took aim. The stone hurled straight at him, and red "gore" splattered as the stone found its mark.

This may sound like the story of the unnamed woman of Thebez who killed Abimelech, but it is not. Instead, this woman has a name, Gina Rogers. The story is not set in the Iron Age, but rather it occurred on Wednesday, July 26, 2000, and although she was standing on an Iron Age house, she was not at Thebez; instead she was at Tall al Umayri. The rotund form of her enemy was not a man, but was rather a watermelon that we had named "Abimelech."

The ideas of some biblical scholars led to our attack on Abimelech the watermelon.

Mary Boyd (dig participant and Methodist minister) and I have been impressed with the physical strength of women in the ancient world. They carried water, probably lifted heavy stones for house building, milked sheep and goats, spun, wove, and participated in the daily "grind" of preparing bread. Imagine our surprise when we read commentaries on this passage that stated that "the notion that a millstone is even present at the top of a tower is at least a highly unrealistic detail," and that the woman "must have dropped it, and probably had help, as a single individual could hardly manage to throw one."

These statements did not ring true to Mary and me, for although our preaching, writing, and teaching do not require great physical strength, we have carried many an upper millstone without difficulty. Although we had never actually tried throwing them, we were sure most women could do so. We gathered all the complete upper millstones found during the 2000 excavation season, weighed them (1.9 kgs to 4.1 kgs), and packed them in a crate. Waving aside offers of assistance from dig directors and workmen, I carried the full crate, weighing 18.9 kgs, from the workroom to the car, from the car up the mound and from there to the second story of the house.

Nine women from the dig climbed up the ladder and each hefted a millstone. Not one of them complained about the weight and could have easily thrown it; however, since we agreed it would be unwise to throw complete ancient artifacts, we used broken millstones to try to replicate the actions of the woman of Thebez. Our experiment was successful—Gina, the first participant, hit Abimelech "dead" on. And shouts of victory were heard from those watching on the walls.