migdal

plural migdals

1. A fortified tower built in biblical times.

   Migdals or towers, part of temple precincts, were places of refuge.

   2014, Simcha Jacobovici, Barrie Wilson, The Lost Gospel, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   If we leave the citadels of walled cities hitherto studied out of consideration, because of the fact that they are planned to meet other contingencies, we find only one group of migdals which has been examined, though inadequately — the fortresses in the Negeb, knowledge of which we owe to Woolley and Lawrence (PEF Annuall, III, pp. 41, 3).

   1924, Benjamin Wisner Bacon, The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research

   But there "was a migdal oz within the Ir, and there fled all the anashim and nashim. and all ba'alei haIr, and locked it after them, and got them up to the top of the migdal.

   2002, Dr. Phillip Goble, The Orthodox Jewish Bible (Shofetim 9:51), →ISBN, page 243

   The building has been called a “migdal” (Hebrew “fortress”) temple because of its massive walls, up to fifteen feet thick; its two towers at the entrance; and its presumed second or even third stories.

   2005, William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, →ISBN