Editing this volume has been both a political and personal project for me. As a longtime sufferer of a chronic illness, I have been interested in how disparities in healthcare, be it the care an individual receives or the care an individual can afford, shape an individual's life course. Healthcare is not apolitical; a person's class, gender, citizenship, and racial status can determine the quality and amount of care they receive. As we see here in the United States, the first people who were tested for COVID-19 were not those who were vulnerable, on the frontlines of fighting the virus, and in need, but rather wealthy politicians and athletes who had the capital and power to access tests. In the middle of this pandemic, the structural factors influencing people's care seem insurmountable. How do we fix this system given the politicalization of masks, the material culture essential to preventing the spread of COVID-19?

Tell es-Safi/Gath is a multi-period site located on the border between the Judean foothills (Shephelah) and the southern coastal plain in central Israel, which has been subject to survey and excavations over the last two decades. Excavations by Bliss and Macalister in 1899 exposed a fortification system which was dated to the " Jewish period.. In this paper, we present updated data on these fortifications which have led to fresh insights. In two separate excavation areas, we excavated portions of the fortification system that surrounded the site which can now be dated to the EB III of the southern Levant. The EB fortification system influenced the location of later fortifications at the site. The nature of the construction techniques of these fortifications and the character of the settlement which they surrounded suggest that Tell es-Safi/Gath was a major regional urban centre during the EB III and was governed by a centralised administrative hierarchy. The excavations by Bliss and Macalister at Tell es-Safi/Gath in  were one of the first archaeological excavations of a large multi-period site in the Levant, and as such have an important role in the history of the development of archaeological research in the region (e.g. Avissar and Maeir ; Avissar Lewis and Maeir ). As this excavation was done under the auspices of and with the support of the Palestine Exploration Society (Bliss and Macalister ), the preliminary publications of the excavations were published in the issues of the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement. The current excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath (Maeir ) have uncovered various remains which were also dealt with in the earlier excavations, including aspects relating to the fortifications during various periods of this site. In the present paper, we wish to present a renewed look at the Early Bronze Age (EB) fortifications at the site, based both on the finds from Bliss and