Biblical Archaeology_A Very Short Introduction Read online

  Despite all the success enjoyed by biblical archaeology following the Six-Day War, one of its leading practitioners, William G. Dever of the University of Arizona, began to question the validity of this field of study. As early as 1972, Dever attempted to rid the profession of the name “biblical archaeology” and to introduce in its place what he considered to be a more accurate name, “Syro-Palestinian archaeology.” Arguing that archaeologists were no longer primarily interested in proving or disproving the Bible, but were now using their methods to shed light on the various peoples and cultures of the ancient Near East, Dever went on a decades-long crusade to delete the words “biblical archaeology” from the lexicon. Due in part to this effort, the name of the semipopular journal published by the American Schools of Oriental Research—the premier professional organization for Near Eastern archaeologists in the United States—was changed from Biblical Archaeologist to Near Eastern Archaeology in 1997. However, not all agreed with Dever. Amnon Ben-Tor, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote in the introduction to his classic edited volume on ancient Israel: “Eliminate the Bible from the archaeology of the Land of Israel in the second and first millennia BCE, and you have deprived it of its soul.”

  Important new excavations began during the 1980s, especially by the second generation of Israeli archaeologists—including David Ussishkin, Israel Finkelstein, Amihai Mazar, Roni Reich, Adam Zertal, and others—at biblical sites such as Shiloh, Izbet Sartah, and Giloh. In the excavations conducted from 1981 to 1996 at the site of Tel Miqne, directed by Trude Dothan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sy Gitin of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, cadres of American, Israeli, and international volunteers were used, on occasion digging at night under floodlights to avoid the heat of the day. Advances in the discipline, stemming from the influence of the New Archaeology, meant that the excavators were supplemented by specialists in paleoethnobotany, physical anthropology, palynology, archaeozoology, and other disciplines in which the study of minutiae recovered from the excavation sheds additional light on daily life in antiquity.

  Similarly, Larry Stager’s excavations at the Philistine site of Ashkelon, conducted on behalf of Harvard University and the Leon Levy Foundation and stretching over the course of more than twenty years (since 1985), produced much new data concerning Ashkelon’s archaeological record. He was able to trace the history of the site from its days as a Bronze Age port through its several destructions at the hands of invaders, including the Neo-Babylonians in the late seventh century BCE, and then into the Persian period and beyond.

  7. Israel Finkelstein at the Megiddo excavations in northern Israel, where he has been co-director since 1992. Finkelstein is the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel and former director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.

  Perhaps the best-known artifact coming from Stager’s excavations is a statuette of a silver calf, dating to the Middle Bronze Age. The statuette was discovered during the final days of the 1990 season at Ashkelon, within a pottery vessel shaped like a miniature religious shrine. The vessel/shrine had been placed in one of the storerooms of a religious sanctuary shortly before the destruction of the city in about 1550 BCE. This type of icon was originally associated with Canaanite worship and later with the Israelite God Yahweh; it is perhaps best known from the biblical story of the golden calf and the Israelites at Mount Sinai (Exod. 32:4). Obviously the silver calf from Ashkelon is not the same as the golden calf from the Bible, but it was found in a religious context at the site and does indicate that such icons, or idols, were worshipped in the region during the Canaanite period, before the coming of the Israelites.

  The Ashkelon excavation team also contributed unexpectedly to the quality of life for other foreign archaeologists working in Israel. The team members were housed in a five-star hotel for the early years of the dig, which represented a dramatic change in living conditions for the volunteers and staff, much to the envy of those participating in other excavations ongoing in the country at the time. Until that point, most excavations had housed their people in tents or in schools that were vacant for the summer; the staff and volunteers slept on cots, ate bad food, and shared toilets and showers with little room for privacy. The excavations at Ashkelon changed all that; as a result, today most foreign archaeological teams are based at either kibbutzim or hotels, with air-conditioned rooms in which to sleep and swimming pools in which to relax during down time. It may not sound important, but the contribution to archaeology was immeasurable—good food, a cold room, and decent showers can make a world of difference when spending much of the day excavating in the hot sun, with temperatures routinely more than 100 degrees.

  Stager’s excavations at Ashkelon were perhaps unique at the time in being funded essentially single-handedly by one private foundation, an unusual situation and one regarded with some envy by the other excavations. However, the practice has reemerged in the new millennium, with some archaeologists warning darkly that religious or political motivations on the part of the sponsors may unduly influence interpretation of the data, much as Sir Charles Marston’s sponsorship of John Garstang’s excavations at Jericho may have played a role in Garstang’s fateful ascription of the destruction of the city to Joshua. For example, Eilat Mazar’s sponsored excavations in Jerusalem on land owned by the ‘Ir David (Elad) Foundation have been called into question, with the foundation accused by some of having political motives in sponsoring her excavations, namely a desire to claim a Jewish link to the past history of the area and establish more of a Jewish presence in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem, just outside the walls of the Old City.

  Chapter 6

  The 1990s and beyond: from nihilism to the present

  The early 1990s began with another attack on the discipline of biblical archaeology, not by William Dever this time but by a group of scholars known collectively as biblical minimalists. These scholars, who include Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas Thompson, Keith Whitelam, and Philip Davies, suggest that much of the Hebrew Bible and the history of ancient Israel is essentially a fabrication by writers and scholars living in either the Persian period in the fifth century BCE or the Hellenistic period in the third through first centuries BCE. They are called minimalists because they believe that the amount of actual history and historical facts contained in the Bible is minimal. The minimalists are frequently referred to as the Copenhagen School because several of them teach at the University of Copenhagen, although others are at the University of Sheffield in England. One should be aware that on the other side of the spectrum are the so-called biblical maximalists who argue that the biblical stories are indeed both completely factual and historically correct, even if they cannot always be verified by archaeology.

  The minimalists have frequently attempted to use archaeology to strengthen their arguments. However, not one of them is a practicing field archaeologist, and their efforts sometimes backfire. The most famous example is that of the Tel Dan Stele. The first fragment of the stele was found in 1993 at the site of the same name, located in northern Israel near the modern Lebanese border and the headwaters of the Jordan River. The site has been continuously excavated since 1966 by teams led first by Avraham Biran and now by David Ilan of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. On the Tel Dan Stele is the earliest extrabiblical inscription ever found that documents the existence of the House of David (Beit David). It was discoveredjust as a debate concerning whether David and Solomon had ever existed was reaching a crescendo among scholars. At a single blow, the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person.

  As it is currently reconstructed, the inscription describes the defeat of both Joram, king of Israel, and Ahaziyahu, king of Judah, by a king of Aram-Damascus in the ninth century BCE. It reads in part:

  Now the king of Israel entered formerly in the land in my father’s land; [but] Hadad made me myself
king, and Hadad went in front of me; [and] I departed from [the] seven [...] of my kingdom; and I slew seve[nty ki]ngs, who harnessed thou[sands of cha]riots and thousands of horsemen. [And I killed Jo]ram, son of A[hab,] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahazi]yahu, son of [Joram, kin]g of the House of David; and I set [their towns into ruins ?... the ci]ties of their land into de[solation ?...]... other and to overturn all their cities ?... and Jehu] [ru]led over Is[rael...] siege upon [...]

  Gila Cook, the expedition’s surveyor, discovered the first fragment from the stele. She had gone out to the site in the early afternoon and happened to notice that one of the rocks in a wall that had recently been excavated had letters inscribed upon it. It seems that the original inscription, which had been inscribed and erected at Tel Dan in about 842 BCE, had later been taken down and broken into fragments, some of which were eventually reused in the wall. It was only because of the raking light of the afternoon sun that she could see the inscribed letters, which had been missed by all previous members of the excavation team, including the volunteers who had excavated the wall of which the stone was now a part. Two more fragments came to light the following summer, in 1994, and the three fragments now form what is left of the Tel Dan Stele. It is possible that more will be found in the future.

  The finding of the inscription caused a major sensation and was published on the front page of the New York Times and in Time magazine. It continued to make news when Niels Peter Lemche, one of the most prominent members of the Copenhagen School, suggested that the inscription might be a forgery planted by the excavator, Avraham Biran. However, Biran was one of the oldest, most distinguished, and most trusted archaeologists working in the state of Israel—he was Albright’s first PhD student at Johns Hopkins University and the longtime director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem—and no serious scholar doubted the authenticity of the fragments. Nor did they question the interpretation of the inscription when other minimalists suggested that Beit David might not mean the “House of David” but something else entirely (such as the word “house” connected with the word “beloved,” “uncle,” or “kettle”). Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that the inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David.

  In 1996, undeterred by the skepticism with which his Tel Dan Stele forgery hypothesis had been greeted, Niels Peter Lemche claimed that another inscription, which had just been found at the site of Tel Miqne some twenty-three miles southwest of Jerusalem, was also a forgery. Lemche’s accusation was eventually dismissed, and the so-called Tel Miqne/Ekron Inscription has been recognized by virtually all other scholars as another important discovery for biblical archaeology.

  Tel Miqne, the site excavated by Trude Dothan and Sy Gitin from 1981 to 1996, had first been tentatively identified in 1957 by Joseph Naveh of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as Ekron, one of the five capital cities of the Philistines mentioned frequently in the Bible (the others being Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Gaza). The inscription was found during the thirteenth and final season of excavation at the site, in an area known as Temple Complex 650. Discovered in a level dating to the time of the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the site in 603 BCE, it confirmed Naveh’s suggestion that Tel Miqne represented the archaeological remains of Ekron, for the inscription had apparently originally been commissioned by a king of Ekron named Achish to commemorate the construction of a temple in the city, probably sometime in the early seventh century BCE.

  Written using a Phoenician script, the inscription reads as follows: “The temple (which) Achish, son of Padi, son of Ysd, son of ‘Ada,’ son of Ya’ir, ruler of Ekron, built for Ptnyh, his Lady. May she bless him, and keep him, and prolong his days, and bless his land.” Achish and his father Padi, the first two kings mentioned in this inscription, are both known from other, Neo-Assyrian, inscriptions. The Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib, who marched into Judah and wreaked havoc in 701 BCE while putting down the rebellion of Hezekiah of Jerusalem, recounts in one inscription that he forced Hezekiah to reinstate Padi as king of Ekron. Later kings of Assyria, namely Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, also commissioned inscriptions referring to “Ikausu, king of Ekron”—a reference to Achish.

  The discovery of the Tel Miqne/Ekron Inscription represents one of the few times that an inscription has been found which definitively identifies an archaeological site with a specific ancient city. It is the type of discovery that most biblical archaeologists can only dream about.

  Eventually, the debate about biblical minimalism, especially with regard to David and Solomon, their rule in Jerusalem, and the extent of their empires, spread—perhaps not surprisingly—to encompass the city of Jerusalem itself. By their time, the city was already some two thousand years old, so the specific archaeological argument concerned the size and wealth of the tenth century BCE city in particular. While some scholars argued that it was indeed a mighty capital city, as described by the Bible, others believed that it was simply a small “cow town.” In fact, it is still not clear where David and Solomon are positioned along the continuum from tribal chieftains to mighty kings and just how large the city itself was during their time.

  During her excavations in Jerusalem after 1961, Kathleen Kenyon had discovered the remains of what archaeologists call the Stepped Stone Structure in an area that is just outside the walls of the Old City. This is sometimes thought to be part of the defensive system erected by the Jebusites from whom David captured the city. More recently, excavations by Eilat Mazar of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem within this same area suggest that this Stepped Stone Structure may be connected to a much larger building. Her excavations uncovered massive walls, which she identified as the remains of a building that she called the “Large Stone Structure,” and which she said was part of a complex that included the Stepped Stone Structure on the slope. She identifies this complex as the palace of King David, in part because of its location and the date of the associated pottery, which she regards as dating to the tenth century BCE.

  However, it is by no means clear whether this is David’s palace. Israel Finkelstein and three other archaeologists from Tel Aviv University argue that it is not. They assert, on the basis of construction techniques and structural differences, in addition to pottery and other finds, that the walls unearthed by Mazar do not belong to a single building but rather to several, and that the pottery and other remains indicate that the Stepped Stone Structure represents at least two phases of construction—with the lower part possibly dating to the ninth century BCE and the upper part dating to the Hellenistic period.

  8. The Stepped Stone Structure in Jerusalem, excavated by Kathleen Kenyon, is arguably her most important discovery in the city. It is usually thought to have been part of the original Jebusite (i.e., Canaanite) defensive system of the city, dating back to the Bronze Age.

  Finkelstein has been a major player in recent discussions concerning the precise dating of both artifacts and events purportedly dating to the time of David and Solomon. Throughout the 1990s, Finkelstein proposed a re-dating of the traditional chronology—which places the dates of the reigns of David and Solomon in the tenth century BCE—and suggested instead that much of the pottery and other materials that had been dated to the tenth century BCE should in fact be assigned instead to the ninth century BCE.

  Previously, Yigael Yadin was convinced he had found evidence for a “blueprint” of Solomonic activity at all three sites outside of Jerusalem associated with Solomon in the Hebrew Bible—namely the gates and casemate walls built at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer. However, all of this architectural evidence has now been reconsidered as part of the larger debate concerning the nature of David and Solomon, and it has been suggested, by Finkelstein and others, that they may not date to the reign of Solomon but may i
nstead have been built by a ruler who came after the time of Solomon, such as Ahab or Omri, or even by different rulers in Israel and Judah.

  Finkelstein’s proposed re-dating of these structures to the ninth century BCE comes not only from a suggested reexamination of the relevant pottery found during the excavations at these sites, but from radiocarbon dates that have recently become available. Measuring radiocarbon, or C14, as it is known in the literature, is a process invented by the American chemist and Nobel Prizewinner Willard Libby in 1949. It has proven increasingly useful to archaeologists ever since and is one of the major technological advances to have affected biblical archaeology since 1950. It provides archaeologists with a date when specific organisms— whether humans, trees, plants, or animals—died or stopped growing, by measuring the amount of C14 still present in the excavated remains. It therefore suggests a date for the stratigraphical level or context at a site in which such remains are found. However, it cannot give a precise date (e.g., 1005 BCE); rather, it provides a statistical probability that the date falls within a given range of years (e.g., 1005 BCE ± 15 years = 1020–990 BCE).