There was a flurry of news coverage of the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription yesterday, even though only a few words of that inscription have been translated (or, at least, announced).  Here are a few highlights.

CBS News has a 45-second video showing a man opening and handling the inscribed potsherd (ostracon).  A few letters are visible.

You can watch a 5-minute interview with the excavator, Yosi Garfinkel (in Hebrew) (via Yitzhak Sapir).

A few photos were released, but they appear to be deliberately impossible to read, as the excavators naturally want to translate the inscription before someone on the internet does.  It also has been suggested that high-tech photos may be necessary before the excavators are able to read the inscription in its entirety.  Here are a few photos: ostracon 1, ostracon 2, aerial view of the site and the gatehouse.

There is some debate on the ANE-2 list about whether this is a (Proto-)Canaanite inscription or a Hebrew inscription.

A member of the excavation team has posted some of his thoughts on Jim West’s blog.

The most ridiculous headline belongs to a British rag: ‘Proof’ David slew Goliath found as Israeli archaeologists unearth ‘oldest ever Hebrew text’

And if you prefer your inscriptions on a coffee mug, Eisenbrauns just announced the 2008 Gezer Calendar mug

There are a couple of other stories that I don’t have time to comment on now, but you can read about Eilat Mazar’s discovery of the tsinnor (water shaft) that David used to conquer Jerusalem and about an inscribed stone seal found in Jerusalem.  Don’t believe everything you read.

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The Jerusalem Post has some details about the inscription from today’s archaeology conference in Jerusalem.  Some extracts:

A teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters, in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet. Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David’s rule in Jerusalem. Scholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years…. The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning "judge," "slave" and "king." The Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult – perhaps impossible – to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time. Garfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning "to do," a word he said existed only in Hebrew. "That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found," he said…. If the inscription is Hebrew, it would indicate a connection to the Israelites and make the text "one of the most important texts, without a doubt, in the corpus of Hebrew inscriptions," Maier said. But it has great importance whatever the language turns out to be, he added.

The full story is here.

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The New York Times has an article in tomorrow’s print edition about Khirbet Qeiyafa (with thanks to Joe Lauer for pointing it out).  The article appears to me to be a teaser, released on the same day of the excavator’s lecture in Jerusalem, which likely will include some new revelations.  The article quotes a number of archaeologists, but most of the information is already known to those who have followed the excavation here or elsewhere.  I’m going to comment on some portions of the article, but you’ll do best the read the article in its entirety first, and then read my comments.

Five lines on pottery uncovered here appear to be the oldest Hebrew text ever found and are likely to have a major impact on knowledge about the history of literacy and alphabet development.

This is a dramatic statement, but the rest of the article ignores the inscription.  The “competition” for the earliest Hebrew text would be the Izbet Sartah inscription (11th century), the Gezer Calendar (10th century), and the Tel Zayit Inscription (10th century).  Interestingly, all of these inscriptions are from the same general vicinity (the western foothills, aka Shephelah).

A great power [like that described of David and Solomon], they note, would have left traces of cities and activity, and been mentioned by those around it. Yet in this area nothing like that has turned up — at least until now.

Hold on here.  Gezer is only a few miles up the road, and the excavations there were pretty decisive that it was a well-fortified city in the time of Solomon.  This is an example of trying to make the site more important by denigrating the significance of others.

Another reason this site holds such promise is that it was in use for only a short period, perhaps 20 years, and then destroyed — Mr. Garfinkel speculates in a battle with the Philistines — and abandoned for centuries, sealing the finds in Pompeii-like uniformity.

This is very important.  The problem with other sites is that they may be used for a long period of time, making it difficult to distinguish exactly what was going on at an earlier point it is history.  For that reason, archaeologists love destructions.  Even better is a single period site with a relatively short-lived occupation.

“The fortification required 200,000 tons of stone and probably 10 years to build,” he said as he walked around the site one recent morning. “There were 500 people inside. This was the main road to Jerusalem, the key strategic site to protect the kingdom of Jerusalem. If they built a fortification here, it was a real kingdom, pointing to urban cities and a centralized authority in Judah in the 10th century B.C.”

These are some numbers that I had not seen before.  It does seem strange that a fortress that took 10 years to build would only be in use for 20 years.  Why was it not rebuilt?  Was it because it was captured by the Philistines?  Or was it because David’s kingdom was strong enough (and its border now further away) that this fortress was no longer necessary?

“This is an important site, one of the very few cases from the 10th century where you can see a settlement fortified in a style that is typical of later Israelite and Judean cities,” said Amihai Mazar, a professor of archaeology at Hebrew University. “The question is who fortified it, who lived in it, why it was abandoned and how it all relates to the reign of David and Solomon.”

Mazar certainly asks the key questions.  It’s important to remember that many of these things are interpretive, which means that an archaeologist can interpret the finds one way and another archaeologist can come to a different (even opposite) conclusion.  If only the stones could speak.

The Philistines had a huge city, Gath, some seven miles away, but pottery found there looks distinct from what Mr. Garfinkel has found here.

This suggests that Qeiyafa was an Israelite fort.  That’s a real question because the Shephelah at this time was contested by the Philistines and Israelites.

Seymour Gitin, an archaeologist and a director of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, a private American institution, who has seen the finds, said: “The real value is that there was an urban center in the 10th century. You can extrapolate and say this helps support a kingdom, a united monarchy under David and Solomon. People will rightly use this material to support that.”

What Gitin is saying is that a fortress like this doesn’t come out of nowhere.  There must be some sort of strong organizing force (government) that financed and directed it.  This compound wasn’t built by three bored Israelites one Sunday afternoon.

“Some of us look at things in a very ethnocentric way — everything is Israelite or Judahite,” [Israel Finkelstein] said. “History is not like that. There were other entities playing a big role in the southern part of the country. And even if it belongs to Jerusalem, fine. So there is a late 10th-century fortified structure there. I don’t believe that any archaeologist can revolutionize our entire understanding of Judah and Jerusalem by a single site. It doesn’t work that way. This is a cumulative discipline.”

Whoops!  Look at how quickly Finkelstein re-dated the whole enterprise by approximately a century. 

Earlier in the article the fortress is dated to 1050-970 B.C.  Finkelstein makes it late 10th-century with a wave of his hand.  This is not accidental, as his recent publications are built upon the theory that the biblical history was written very late and is entirely unreliable.  Any discovery which suggests a strong central government in Judah in the 10th century is very inconvenient for his views.

He [Garfinkel] says with some 96 percent of this site still to be unearthed, a process likely to take 10 years, he hopes that more writing, more olive pits and more pottery will be uncovered, and add depth to what he believes is a revolutionary find.

Most critical in the whole discussion is this note of caution.  Too often absolute and sensational conclusions are made after the first discoveries.  We have time.  Any discoveries heralded now, of course, certainly makes recruiting slave labor volunteers much easier.

The New York Times does not have any photos of the site, but we do.  For more photos of the site in relation to the Elah Valley, and my speculation before the Times article or Garfinkel’s lecture, see this previous blog post.  The Times article does not mention the possibility that Khirbet Qeiyafa is Ephes Dammim.

Khirbet Qeiyafa, 10th c four chambered gate, ar080731447

Khirbet Qeiyafa four-chambered gatehouse (10th century B.C.)
Khirbet Qeiyafa stele fragment, ar080731446  Khirbet Qeiyafa excavations with stele fragment
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An update for the 2008 season at Gath (Tell es-Safi) is now posted at The Bible and Interpretation website.  Director Aren Maeir has summarized the discoveries and it’s worth reading in full.  Some of the highlights:


Early Bronze Age: the site was apparently huge


Middle Bronze Age: more excavation of the city wall and glacis


Late Bronze Age: a very large building, with rich collection of pottery


Iron Age I: remains of plants and animals could help determine the Philistines’ diet; Mycenaean IIIC pottery found


Iron IIA (1000-800 B.C.): – all bullet points are direct quotations from the article

  • clear early Iron IIA pottery
  • a well-dated fragment of a seal impression (of the late 21st Dynasty in Egypt, ca. mid-10th cent BCE)
  • several nice clusters of carbonized grape pips. This latter find should be able to provide robust 14C datings for this phase
  • One cannot overemphasize the importance of the finds in this level, since it may provide the first concrete, well-dated (from several perspectives) context from the early Iron Age IIA in Philistia. In fact, the finds from this level may serve as a central key to solving the “hot debate” on the chronology of the Iron Age, raging for now for more than a decade. Hopefully, the 14C results will be available by late 2008.
  • these finds demonstrate conclusively that our original assumption that the city of Gath was very large during the Iron Age IIA, reaching ca. 45-50 hectares [108-120 acres] in size, was correct. This makes it perhaps the largest site in Philistia, and perhaps in the entire Land of Israel during this period. As such, it appears to match the image of Gath that is portrayed in the biblical texts that relate to the early monarchy, in which the city is described as the largest and most important of five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, the primus inter pares among the five cities.



Iron IIB (c. 700 B.C.): two destruction layers, possibly related to Sargon II and Sennacherib


Methodology: “in-field laboratory (including an IR spectrometer in the field), which was supplemented by the additional laboratories back in the base camp, provided us with “on-line” results of these analyses – which enabled “real-time” understanding of the archaeological finds. This joint program is unparalleled at ANY excavation in Israel, and in fact, in the world. The close integration of a “regular” excavation team with a wide team of archaeological scientists IN THE FIELD, is simply unparalleled anywhere.”

For many reasons, this excavation looks like it will be extremely beneficial for archaeological and biblical studies.

Gath, Tell es-Safi, from east, tb060906175 Gath, view from the east
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Recently Dr. Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.  In conjunction with that, he published an article in their journal (abstract here) about his work at Khirbet en-Nahas, including his belief that the copper mines were in operation here during the time that the Bible records King Solomon as mining copper.  Lots of new sources and blogs have made a big deal out of the story, and while it is a good story, it is not a new story.  If you haven’t read about it before, or if you need a refresher, by all means read it again.  But if it all sounds familiar, you know why (NY Times 2006 article here; see also article in a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review). 

The university press release is here.  There’s a good 12-minute video made by the university  (with dozens of BiblePlaces.com photos used without even a kind mention of their source).  You can find many more articles by searching for “Levy copper mines.”

Kh en-Nahas overview to nw, df080207181dxo
Khirbet en-Nahas, view from southeast
Kh en-Nahas Area S, Iron Age four-room workshop, view ne, df080207014dxo
Khirbet en-Nahas, Iron Age workshop
Kh en-Nahas slag remains on surface, df080207332dxo
Copper slag remains on surface
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A brief report of the finds from the 2008 season at Hazor is now posted (click link at top or directly here).

Tel Dan may be even more lush and beautiful the next time you visit following an agreement for the neighboring kibbutz to take water from the lower spring rather than the one next to the tel.  The article from the JPost, in part:

Rather than pumping from the higher-altitude Tel Dan spring, the kibbutz will receive its water from the lower Dan spring, which can supply the kibbutz in a more sustainable manner.
Reclaiming the Tel Dan spring for the nature reserve will rejuvenate the aquatic habitat, which has languished and dried out due to the lack of water, the authority said. In addition, the diversion of the fish pond water to agriculture will prevent it from flowing into the streams that feed the Jordan River, thereby reducing pollution. It will also free up 1 million cu.m. of water per year for nature….
“The right of nature to water is protected by law since 2004, but it doesn’t mean our work is done – rather, it has just begun. We’ve [also] managed to increase the amount of water in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, and to revive the Ein Gedi Stream after 50 years, and today we are taking an important step forward in increasing the amount of water in the streams which feed the Jordan,” he said.

Dan headwaters of Jordan, tb011500028 Headwaters of Jordan River at Tel Dan
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