Tels (pre­his­toric set­tle­ment mounds), are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the flat­ter lands of the east­ern Mediter­ranean, par­tic­u­lar­ly Lebanon, Syr­ia, Israel and east­ern Turkey. Of more than 200 tels in Israel, Megid­do, Hazor and Beer She­ba are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of those that con­tain sub­stan­tial remains of cities with bib­li­cal con­nec­tions. The three tels also present some of the best exam­ples in the Lev­ant of elab­o­rate Iron Age, under­ground water-col­lec­t­ing sys­tems, cre­at­ed to serve dense urban com­mu­ni­ties. Their traces of con­struc­tion over the mil­len­nia reflect the exis­tence of cen­tral­ized author­i­ty, pros­per­ous agri­cul­tur­al activ­i­ty and the con­trol of impor­tant trade routes.