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| '''Khirbet Qeiyafa''' (or '''Kiafa''') is an archaeological site estimated at 14 ] located on the northern hills that border the ], a key location in the ] along the main road from ] and the Coastal Plain to the eastern Hill Country. | '''Khirbet Qeiyafa''' (or '''Kiafa''') is an archaeological site estimated at 14 ] located on the northern hills that border the ], a key location in the ] along the main road from ] and the Coastal Plain to the eastern Hill Country. | ||
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Khirbet Qeiyafa (or Kiafa) is an archaeological site estimated at 14 hectares located on the northern hills that border the Elah Valley, a key location in the kingdom of Judah along the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to the eastern Hill Country.
The initial excavation of the site by Saar Ganor and Yosef Garfinkel took place from August 12 to 26 in 2007 on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Archaeology. They presented a preliminary report at the annual ASOR conference shortly thereafter on November 15th. During this public lecture, they hypothesized that it could be Biblical Azekah, which until then had been exclusively associated with Tell Zakariya.
Site description
The site consists of a lower city of about 10 hectares and an upper city of about 3 hectares surrounded by a massive wall ranging from 2-4 metres tall. At the center of the upper city is a large rectangular enclosure with massive rooms on the south, equivalent to similar enclosures found at royal cities such as Samaria, Lachish, and Ramat Rachel. On the southern slope, outside the city, there are Iron Age rock-cut tombs.
Area "A" extended 5x5 metres & consists of 2 major layers: Hellenistic above, and Iron II below. Area "B" contains 4 squares, about 2.5 metres deep from top-soil to bedrock. Aside from these 2 strata, there were also some small Bronze Age sherds.
The Hellenistic/upper portion of the wall was built with small rocks atop the Iron-II/lower portion consisting of big boulders in a casemate design. Part of a structure identified as a city gate was uncovered, and some of the rocks where the wall meets this gate are estimated at 5 tons.
Controversy
Several peer archaeologists in attendance at the initial presentation of findings from the 2007 season expressed unambiguous disagreement with the possibility that this site could be Azekah, based primarily on the lack of more strata and relatively few artifacts recovered so far.