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Revision as of 21:59, 3 November 2008 by Wetman (talk | contribs) (restored garbles, tweaked for consistent spellings, clarity: please vet my edit)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Khirbet Qeiyafa (or Kiafa), thought to be Biblical Azekah, is an archaeological site estimated at 14 hectares located on the northern hills that border the Elah Valley where, according to the Biblical account, David fought Goliath. It was a key location in the kingdom of Judah along the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to the eastern Hill Country.
The site is understood to have been occupied for a period of only about 20 years in the tenth century BCE, before being destroyed. The tenth century is the period ascribed to the kingdoms of David and Solomon. The site is dated by pottery styles and by two burned olive pits tested for carbon-14 at Oxford University and found to date from between 1050 and 970 B.C., the period most scholars consider to be during the reign of King David. As of October 2008, two more olive pits remain still to be tested.
A piece of pottery bearing writing in a proto-Canaanite or proto-Hebrew script appears to be a letter or document and is thought to be the earliest example of early Hebrew writing yet discovered, according to Haggai Misgav a specialist in ancient Semitic languages at Hebrew University. The document was written using charcoal and animal fat for ink.
According to archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel the site was a fortification that required 200,000 tons of stone and probably 10 years to build and would have held 500 people. A fortification of this magnitude on the main road to Jerusalem was the key defensive post protecting the kingdom of Jerusalem from the Philistines, according to Garfinkel. The site's magnitude, if supported by further investigation of the site, is a key piece of evidence for the scale and power of the kingdom of David. Garfinkle told the New York Times that, "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.”
The Philistine city of Gath, located seven miles west, has been demonstrated to have different pottery types than Qeiyafa, establishing the distinct ethnic identites of the two sites.
The initial excavation of the site by Saar Ganor and Garfinklel took place from August 12 to 26, 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 the site could be Biblical Azekah, which until then had been exclusively associated with Tell Zakariya. They did however in 2008, reach the conclusion that it is not Azekah..
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 defensive wall ranging from 2-4 metres tall. At the center of the upper city is a large rectangular enclosure with spacious 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 two major layers: Hellenistic above, and Iron Age II below. Area "B" contains four squares, about 2.5 metres deep from top-soil to bedrock. Aside from these two 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 to weigh 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 the relatively few artifacts recovered so far.
See also
External links
- AFOB (Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin) Online Listing for Khirbet Qeiyafa
- Qeiyafa Archaeological Excavations
- IAA list of Summer 2007 excavations
- PDF file containing ASOR 2007 Conference abstracts
- Review by an attendee at the ASOR 2007 conference
- The Elah Fortress website
- Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text
References
- ^ Find of Ancient City Could Alter Notions of Biblical David, ETHAN BRONNER, October 29, 2008, New York Times
- Source at Qeiyafa website