GALGAL, GALGALA (Hebrew hag-Gilgāl ‘the circle’) — The first encampment of the Israelites after crossing the Jordan (Josh. 4:19) and the base of operations for their various campaigns in the conquest of the land of Canaan (Josh. 7:10). Due to its associations—the resting place of the Ark, the erection of the monument of twelve stones taken from the Jordan, the circumcision, and the celebration of the Passover (Josh. 5:2–12)—it acquired special importance in the history of Israel. Samuel visited its sanctuary annually during the great assemblies (1 Sam. 7:16); Saul was proclaimed king there and later lost his kingdom and lineage there (1 Sam. 10:8; 11:15; 13:5; 15:12). David was joyfully welcomed there by the tribe of Judah upon his return from flight across the Jordan (2 Sam. 19:16). Later, as Gilgal became a center of idolatry like the sanctuary of Bethel, it was condemned in the invectives of the prophets (Hos. 4:15; 9:15; Amos 4:4), and after the Babylonian exile its memory faded.
The Khirbet el-Eleleh (so named from the ruins near the terebinth), located 5 km from the Jordan and 4 km east of Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho), offers the best evidence for representing the Israelite Gilgal, although the name Birket Gilgāliyeh of Tell Jiljūl, unknown to the local Bedouin, is repeated on European maps.
On the authority of ancient texts (Flavius Josephus, *Antiquitates Judaicae*, V, 1, 4; Eusebius, *Onomasticon*, 64, 22) and medieval pilgrims, Gilgal was sought near Jericho, more precisely at Khirbet el-Mufjir, a few kilometers northeast of ‘Ain es-Sultan, where the Madaba Map appears to mark the church of the Dodecathlon. Excavations begun in 1935 brought to light a sumptuous Arab palace of the Umayyad period (8th century), partly constructed with architectural elements possibly taken from the church of the Dodecathlon, deriving from Khirbet el-Eleleh, where there are remains of Byzantine buildings.
Other places bearing the name of Gilgal are: Gilgal visited by the prophets Elisha and Elijah (2 Kgs. 4:38), now Jiljūliyeh, 12 km north of Bethel; Gilgal in the plain of Sharon (Josh. 12:23), Jiljūliyeh, 5 km north of Ras el-‘Ain; Gilgal (Deut. 11:30), Jilgeljih, 4 km southeast of Shechem.