Introducing Archaeology Series
by Joel Ng
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Introduction to Biblical Archaeology
Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 1: Archaeological History and Method
by Joel Ng (2003)
Archaeological theories and finds seem to have an astonishing lag between claims being made, scholarly acceptance, and actually entering the public consciousness. In some cases, the public may even hear about a theory only after most scholars have already rejected it. Many people still think that W.F. Albright's "conquest hypothesis" of the Israelite invasion of Canaan, for example, still holds today. My hope is that this may in some way help to bring people up to speed on contemporary developments in archaeology, and if possible, make what seems like a hopelessly dry topic come to life. If you are a Christian fundamentalist or Evangelical, reading this may help you to get a better understanding of what archaeology can and cannot prove, and how a much more sophisticated approach to the biblical past is both better, and necessary.
Before we start, I recommend obtaining J.C.H. Laughlin's handy reference, Archaeology and the Bible, 2000, New York: Routledge, and follow the references cited therein for further reading. Notes here are kept to an absolute minimum and this intro roughly follows Laughlin (2000). Many of the details and problems with methods in archaeology cannot be dealt with in an introduction such as this. It also presumes a fair degree of understanding of the major outline of the Bible stories. If you are unfamiliar with the events recorded in the Bible, you can follow by reading (or obtaining summaries of) Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 2 Maccabees (in the Apocrypha) later in the series. The best collated source of information is at Peter Kirby's site, Early Jewish Writings.
What exactly is Biblical Archaeology?
This might seem like an unnecessary question, but in fact, nobody can quite agree on what it should be. Archaeology is the study of the life and culture of the past. Biblical archaeology, then, would be the study of the life and culture of the peoples mentioned in the Bible. There is a current debate about doing away with the term "biblical archaeology" because it is a hindrance to the study of the past on its own terms. Replacements such as "Near Eastern Archaeology" (Eurocentric in its own right), "Syro-Palestinian Archaeology" (cumbersome), have been suggested. However, it is undeniable that historically, the study of Palestine as it relates to the biblical narrative was the main motivating force for the development of archaeology in Palestine, so I have retained the term.
Archaeology concerns itself with finding and then developing theories to account for the artifacts buried under deep layers of sediments. Why are they there? What can they tell us about the people who used these things? When did inventions arise (and how did they spread)? How did it change their ways of living? We now know, for example, just how sophisticated Philistines actually are—a group of larger "Sea Peoples" who share a common past with the later Greek civilisation. We can also tell how early or late the Israelite practice of not eating pork came about by studying when pigs arrived in the region, and when pig bones (with evidence of human consumption) disappeared. The archaeologist taps into a whole new world altogether, by asking the right questions.
However, a word of caution here. Archaeology is an interpretive field. Norman Gottwald recently wrote that "[t]hose who naively assume that 'the hard facts' of archaeology are more easily and definitively demonstrated than the obscurities of biblical texts will necessarily be disappointed by the 'subjective' element in archaeological interpretation." Much of what is discovered must be interpreted, translated, dated, and discussions of origins are subjective. While archaeology has shown that the Bible is not inerrant and reflects the theological disposition of its authors, archaeology remains tentative and must be open to new evidence. It says nothing about the theology or ultimate questions of the Bible, though it does help to illuminate the lives of those who wrote it.
What about History?
A brief detour before I begin (it is unfortunately long, but it deserves to be dealt with at length here for reasons that will become apparent later in the series): Archaeology differs from history in that, strictly, it does not create narratives of the past. The act of writing history based on sources both archaeological and literary is called "historiography. " It is obvious that such an act is both political and focused on explaining history in order to bring certain events to the fore. The "Whig interpretation of history" is the practice of reading history in light of the present, in order to vindicate the present. Needless to say, it has been rejected in the philosophy of history since Butterfield's seminal text in 1931 (see above link), yet continues today among apologists and academics. This trap must be avoided, but has been a major stumbling block in biblical archaeology and history (and many other social sciences, I might add, for example, Francis Fukuyama sees history as leading inexorably to liberal democracy, while Karl Marx saw history as leading inexorably to the emancipation of the working class). Thus, while we may identify different authors of the Pentateuch, just because one seems more primitive than the other does not imply that it is in fact more primitive until a good reason for its age can be argued. The danger of reading the present into the past is always there.
The Hebrew Bible itself contains large sections of ancient historiographical writings (indeed, these are the parts that interest archaeologists), and understanding that fact alone leads one to a more nuanced understanding of what is and is not verifiable. It becomes obvious that it suffers from what we would now term a Whiggish interpretation of history (and some might argue that this is the goal of the ancient historiographers), and that its writing was always politically motivated. The cycle of Israelites sinning, misfortune befalling them, their repentence, and their eventual deliverance, so common throughout the Bible, is a good example of Whiggish history in practice. Yet while Herodotus (an ancient Greek historian who wasn't even that reliable) is sometimes drawn upon to shed light on events and even explain discrepancies, so too is the Bible (which is even more unreliable). Literary criticism comes in here to help understand the Bible and deal with the layers in order that it can better unravel the political motivations of the authors. But there are further problems.
The Bible is a unique case in that no other ancient work has been so influential on the study of a field of archaeology. The reasons for this are obvious—the large Judeo-Christian heritage of the West had dominated archaeological thinking of the previous 100 years, but since the last 20-30 years, it is no longer taken for granted. The long-held assumption of a core of truth to any and every biblical story has now been found to be mistaken, and it's not just the minimalists who are pointing this out. No scholar would take the book of Joshua or Judges at face value any longer (although at one time, both of these books represented the paradigms of leading theories for the rise of the Israelites), and few can agree upon when historically reliable information starts to appear in the Bible. That is the core dispute between maximalists (who would point towards David and Solomon's reigns, and find much use in Samuel and Kings) and minimalists (who would point towards the later kings prior to the Babylonian exile, but rather just ignore the Bible). However, this dispute will be dealt later in the series.
How did it all begin?
The beginnings of Biblical archaeology can be traced to Napolean's expedition in Egypt, from which the famous Rosetta Stone was extracted. Its parallel with Greek and Egyptian immediately enabled scholars to decipher hieroglyphics, and in turn led to an explosion of a new study, Egyptology. The first coup came for J.F. Champollion, who discovered a list of towns defeated during the Pharoah Shishak's (Shoshenq's) campaign through Palestine, attested in 2 Chronicles 12:3. Through the 19th century, explorers and treasure hunters began combing the lands of ancient Egypt and Babylon for artifacts. They were often untrained or ill-equipped, knowing none of the methods available to us today. Some, like Henry Layard and Paul Botta (trained as a lawyer and doctor, respectively), worked by digging, like early paleontologists, unwarily through the rocks in search of monumental artifacts or tablets bearing inscriptions.
Back in their home countries, the new "Egyptologists" and "Assyriologists" worked in deciphering texts and publishing their results to an enthralled public. First H.C. Rawlinson (generally acknowledged as the father of Assyriology) uncovered an inscription by Sennacherib bearing the names of Hezekiah, Judah, and Jerusalem. A collaborator of his, Irish clergyman Edward Hincks, also noticed "Yua, son of Humri" was equivalent to "Jehu, son of Omri" on the Black Obelisk. Then Layard published Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon which cited 55 names of rulers, cities, or countries common to the Hebrew Bible and Assyrian texts. For the first time in two millenia, people in Europe were being reconnected with the origins of their religions, and spurred on more expeditions in an effort to recover more of these, believing that the Bible was being spectacularly confirmed, in an age when uniformitarianism and Darwin's theory of evolution seemed to undermine much of the Biblical record. Unfortunately, we must move on at this point. An interesting article on this period of early Assyriology can be found here: Biblical Assyria and Other Anxieties in the British Empire by the Journal of Religion & Society.
With such spectacular finds in Assyria and Egypt, Palestinian archaeology was largely the poor cousin. Heinrich Schliemann had gone to Turkey, The Iliad in one hand, and a spade in the other, and had discovered Troy in a mound (a tel in Hebrew or tell in Arabic) at Hissarlik. However, his contribution went much further—he uncovered several layers of the city and showed how, by cutting trenches through the mound, one could observe the growth of the mound and provide a relative chronology of the site. Sir Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) turned biblical archaeology into a fledgling science, and his lasting contributions were pottery typology (classifying pottery according to type and style) and his introduction of stratification (the study of strata (layers) in a typical tel) which he had probably learned from Schliemann. These ideas revolutionised the field—scattered bits of pottery found everywhere were now useful objects of study in themselves, and the idea of a tel as a layered cake (think of geological columns) allowed one to sequence the findings in relative chronological order. G.A. Reisner arrived later, and his understanding of the complex structure of the tel permitted him to develop a new way of excavating—they dug till they reached a floor level, and then cleared horizontally from there. By doing so, their finds were immediately consistent to a stratum. His method, unfortunately, was not followed by many others, and it was only later when the Wheeler-Kenyon method (in truth, similar to Reisner's) arrived in the 1950s that a better method of excavation was developed.
After Petrie, new breakthroughs and methods were to arrive in the interwar years (1918-1940), which many call the "Golden Age of Archaeology." The collapse of the Ottoman empire following the First World War opened up swathes of Middle Eastern land to archaeologists. Here, many leading archaeologists like William Foxwell Albright, the giant of the period, appeared on the scene and left their mark. Albright mastered Petrie's pottery analysis, and promoted his methods. However, his major contribution (or curse?) was to tie archaeology with historiography—interpreting the finds in the light of the Bible and other Near Eastern studies. His vast knowledge and ability to synthesise wide and disparate fields (he had comparably little field experience, most of it at Tell Beit Mirsim) enabled him to make great comparisons with the Bible, even if some of his methods were later shown to be faulty. One of his students, G.E. Wright, popularised his findings and led to the public belief that archaeology confirmed the truth of many biblical events.
It was only after the Second World War that this verdict began to be challenged at length. Kathleen Kenyon arrived at Jericho to develop a new method of studying tels. The older, "architectural method" consisted of analysing different architectural components such as floors and walls and so required destructive large-scale exposure and digging. Kenyon designed a less intrusive layered excavation such that each layer was examined in small 5-metre squares, and so differing time periods could be analysed at a specific site. Thus a consistent verification of layers could be made and analysed. This method was adopted by many, but also ran into problems—many of the complexities of habitation could not be fully understood, and Kenyon was also found to have made mistakes because of her neglect of areas around the site. Several methods are now used today, but the shortcomings of each must be recognised since excavation is always a destructive and permanent act.
Recent developments
Finally in the 1970s, regional surveys began to be conducted which attempted to match strata from one site with that of another. It is here that one looks if one wants to dispute the Joshua's invasion of Canaan. A systematic overview of Palestine across several locations was attempted to give a fuller review of the life and culture of the ancient Israelites and their neighbours. William G. Dever, spurred by shifts in North American archaeology, began to criticise the older generation of biblical archaeologists for failing to incorporate work from other disciplines, remaining altogether too narrowly within a theological angle of vision. The field began to move toward a more interdisciplinary approach—archaeologists began working alongside sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, historians, and others (though not necessarily at the digs!) to work at constructing the bigger picture. It is also during this time that the minimalists (sometimes refered to as the Copenhagen school) started disputing the connections with the Bible. T.L. Thompson in 1974, published a devastating work demonstrating the circularity of much of Albright's synthesis in biblical scholarship, ironically, in conjuction with Dever's assault from the archaeological viewpoint, as they were to later clash acrimoniously in the 1990s. We will return to this later in the series.
Work of course, continues today. Vast amounts of discoveries have been made since its unscrupulous beginnings, and many assumptions have been overturned by new theories, and those replaced by yet newer ones. But fieldwork is always complicated by political factors. Excavation at Jerusalem, probably the most important city, is greatly hampered by the sensitive religious nature of many of the sites, particularly the old quarter. Obviously, terror and violence and political conflict do not help the situation. Much of the possible finds remain tantalysingly out of the grasp of archaeologists, perhaps sitting under the Muslim Dome of the Rock or the Jewish Wailing Wall. Perhaps some of the most intriguing archaeological remains will remain forever out of our grasp.
With this briefest of introductions to history and method, we'll get to more interesting things next. In the few pieces, we will cover a brief overview of the different periods (what exactly is the difference between Iron Age II and Iron Age IIA?), some key finds (no, not the James ossuary), some theories of Israelite emergence (just what is wrong with Albright anyway?), and the main disputes (minimaximalism at last!). Stay tuned.
Revised July 2nd, 2004
[1] Other books I will use throughout the series to varying degrees (in no particular order) are:
- A. Mazar, 1990, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000 - 586 B.C.E., New York: Doubleday
- E. Stern, 2001, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods (732 - 332 B.C.E.), New York: Doubleday
- A. Negev & S. Gibson, 2001, Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, New York: Continuum
- P.R.S. Moorey, 1991, A Century of Biblical Archaeology, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press
- M.D. Coogan (ed.), 2001, The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- D.B. Redford, 1992, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton: Princeton University Press
- Z. Zevit, 2001, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, New York: Continuum
- W.G. Dever, 2003, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?, Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans Publishing
- I. Finkelstein & N.A. Silberman, 2001, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, New York: Touchstone
- N.P. Lemche, 1998, Prelude to Israel's Past: Backgrounds and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers
[2] Laughlin, 2000, p.10-16 has further discussion, while a definitive critique can be found in K.W. Whitelam, 1996, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History, London: Routledge.
[3] N.K. Gottwald, 2001, The Politics of Ancient Israel, Library of Ancient Israel, Louisville: Westminster, p.186
[4] Here we can introduce two important terms in archaeology: the terminus post quem and terminus ante quem. The terminus ante quem places the upper date of a find—an object discovered in Stratum III cannot date to Stratum IV, for example. The terminus post quem marks the lower limit for dating—the artifact cannot date to Stratum II either.
For example if a tel was dug with the following layers identified:
| STRATUM IV: 600B.C.E. |
| STRATUM III: ?? B.C.E. |
| STRATUM II: 700 B.C.E. |
The terminus post quem for the object found in Stratum III would be 700 B.C.E., while the terminus ante quem for the object would be 600 B.C.E. In this way, relatively precise dating of finds is possible. Many disputes in archaeology are actually seemingly mundane—being fought over a particular stratum's date—but with larger implications for when a practice, innovation, or invasion may be dated. Don't get too discouraged by differing dates—it is more important to understand the terminology and become conversant with the arguments. On a final note, this ante/post quem terminology has made its way into many other fields related to archaeology, but its origins are from stratigraphic analysis.
The Ascendance and Decline of Israel and Judah
Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 4:
The Ascendance and Decline of Israel and Judah
by Joel Ng (2004)
As we enter the Iron Age II, we find ourselves in more of the same quandaries as we encountered in the last piece. As we saw in the last piece, the ethnic division between "Israelites" and "Canaanites" was impossible in the Iron I, and we continue to be plagued with similar problems. Whatever their origins, the inhabitants were beginning to form their own identity, one that would last to this day. According to the Bible, this is the period of David and Solomon, whose empire was the heyday of Israel. Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence is less than overwhelming. Nothing of any confidence has been connected with David (though we shall look at the Mesha stele later), and the so-called Solomonic gates' builders are the subject of raging conspiracy. Starting from 1000 B.C.E., we can divide this period into Iron IIa, b, and c, according to three important dates: 923—Shishak's campaign, 722—the fall of Israel, and 586—the final fall of Judah. The Iron IIa is sometimes known as the "Solomonic" period, although it should not be mistaken as proof of his existence, merely an accepted convention.
By now, Egypt's decline was complete, and the vassals in Palestine were free. Likewise, the Philistines and other Sea Peoples were rapidly assimilating into the local population, and by the end of the Iron II, all that would be left of them would be the name they bequeathed to the region. A number of states were also rising both in the period before and now: Samal, Cicilia, Gurgum, Carchemish, and Hamath were neo-Hittite cities in northern Syria (though the ethnic relation to Hittites is unknown, they used a Hittite script). Further south, the Aramaeans were developing cities along the Orontes River, Coele-Syria, Hamath, Geshur, and Damascus. While present in the Bronze Age, their rise at this time was unhindered by other powers in that region. Their West Semitic tongue, though distinct from Phoenician, and Canaano-Hebrew dialects, would eventually become the lingua franca of Jesus' day.
Material Evidence in the 9th century
During the Iron IIa, the expansion of the population that began earlier continued apace. Sites that had been abandoned in the last millennium were reinhabited and in some cases, large fortresses were built. An urban culture was once again developing as cities grew once again after the turmoil of the previous period. At the same time, relatively few inscriptions and figurines have been recovered from this period, suggesting perhaps that the land of Israel was really an aniconic culture as described in the Bible. Unfortunately, this also makes it difficult for archaeologists to make definitive statements about the time.
The "Solomonic" Gates
A number of "six-chambered gates" of remarkably similar designs have been discovered at Megiddo, Gezer, Ashdod, Hazor, Beth-Shemesh, and Lachish. Yigal Yadin believed that these were direct evidence of a centralised building project at the time of Solomon (1 Kings 9:15-17). Each had four gates, and 6 chambers (for guards?), with the ones at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer including projecting towers and a passage 4.2 metres wide (almost exactly 8 Egyptian cubits). The building of these varied, with Megiddo having high quality ashlar stone (as were the palaces there), Hazor's built from fieldstones, and Gezer using ashlars for its facade. However, these gates have been the subject of intense debate since. One problem is that they may not be associated with the right stratum. Yadin dated the Megiddo Stratum IVA to the Omrides, while VA-IVB were Solomonic, based on correlation with the other gates elsewhere. Meanwhile, David Ussishkin argued that the gates should be placed in Stratum IVA, and therefore after Solomonic times.
Israel Finkelstein (co-director of the Megiddo dig with Ussishkin, alongside Baruch Halpern) also argues along these lines (1 Kings 16:21-28), placing the layers in the 8th century B.C.E. He notes the similarity of the palace at Megiddo with that of the one at Samaria, and concludes that they were built at the same time (see below on Megiddo).
A wider problem Finkelstein identified was the over-reliance on the biblical record (Yadin had written that 1 Kings 9:15-17 had "clinched" the date for him) in establishing an absolute chronology. Revising all this would provide a problem for other chronologies (particularly Shishak's campaign, where destruction layers attributed to him comes after the construction of the stratum), so we shall see what Finkelstein has to say about that later on. At the same time, one wonders about Finkelstein's use of 1 Kings 16:23-24, 21:1 that establishes the Omrides as the builders of Samaria.
Jerusalem
Jerusalem which, according to the Bible, was David's capital that he conquered from the Jebusites, has proven to be frustratingly silent in shedding any light on the period. It is important to note that while Jerusalem has a long history (well into the early second millennium BCE), it was sacked, plundered, or destroyed several times. Such famed structures as Solomon's temple remain undiscovered, though the potential site includes the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, strictly off-limits to excavation for cultural reasons. At the same time, Jerusalem during this period appears to have been a small provincial town of little interest, unlike the Biblical portrait as a grand capital of an empire.
Fortifications uncovered there have proven to be either far too early (by about a millennium), or at least two centuries too late to be part of David's conquest (or building) of the city. One encouraging discovery has been a stepped-stone foundation structure dated to the Late Bronze/Iron I or possibly later (Yigal Shiloh dated it to the tenth century). Kathleen Kenyon thought it might be the millo ("fill") which David built his capital around (2 Samuel 5:9). If correct, then this could be the remnant of his palace. However, no clear link with the biblical account exists, and the conclusions remain tentative.
The Negev
An area largely unpopulated in the second millennium was the Negev highlands, south of Beersheba. During the Iron II however, towns here grew in their dozens. The Bible describes many of the patriarchal stories to have occured in this area, and perhaps this early settlement was of our mysterious Israelites. Their settlement appears to have been one of even distribution—there is no sign that they built up around strategic routes. Many of the towns here were fortified with casemate walls (25-70 meters in diameter), following the contours of the hills on which they were built. Most were destroyed at the end of this period, however, usually accredited to Shishak's (Sheshonq/Shoshenq) campaign, to which we now turn.
Shishak's Campaign
As stated previously, the ubiquitous layer of carbon and ash is often the archaeologist's best tool. It does help to explain why archaeologists of the past seemed so obsessed with the capture or destruction of cities. Here we are doubly aided by attestation from a variety of sources. Shishak was a well connected general in Egypt, who began the 22nd dynasty upon the death of Psusennes II. The records of his campaign are preserved in the temple of Amun in Karnak, and on the "Shoshenq stele" at Megiddo. The Bible records an account of Shishak taking away "all the treasures of the house of the Lord" in Jerusalem in 1 Kings 14:25-26 (though Jerusalem itself is absent from the list in Karnak—perhaps Rehoboam bribed Shishak to leave him alone, or perhaps Jerusalem was too small a town to take notice of during this time!).
The temple at Karnak bears inscriptions with a prefix hgr, which may be a transcription of the Hebrew hagar ("belt"/"enclosure"), which would then be referring to the casemate walls in the Negev. Certainly most of the towns listed in his victory stele are related to the Negev region. It appears that he moved from Gibeon and Bethel through the Jordan up to the valley of Jezreel. Then he returned via Megiddo to Gaza ("the Way of the Sea"). So many towns were destroyed in this period that archaeologists use it to fix a date for the strata around the region. Donald Redford, meanwhile, speculates that the raid may actually have taken place during the time of the united monarchy, disrespecting as it was of any putative national boundaries. Whatever the case, this last-gasp attempt to reassert Egyptian hegemony over the region appears to have been short-lived. We find, at the close of the Iron IIa, considerable evidence that the region was soon standing on its own feet again.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel
A number of important sites have been excavated in the northern half, which shed some important light on our developing kingdom. Among them, Tel Dan, Megiddo, Hazor, and Samaria have been excavated considerably. Immediately, Samaria comes into consideration—biblically, it became the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which split when Jeroboam rebelled after the death of Solomon (as an Egyptian exile though, Donald Redford has speculated that Jeroboam could just as easily have been installed as an Egyptian puppet). The Bible records Samaria's construction by Omri in 1 Kings 16:23-24, and it is the Omride dynasty which provides us the first solid references to "Israelite" ethnicity, even though the biblical portrait of them is one of heathens.
The Assyrian king Shalmeneser III's Monolith Inscription attests to tribute given by "Ahab of Israel" (Akha'abbu mata Sirla'a) as 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers (a likely exaggeration). Elsewhere in the Assyrian records, Israel was referred to as "the House of Omri". As early as 1850, Edward Hincks had argued correctly that an inscription refering to "Yua bit Humri" was in fact a reference to Jehu, son of Omri (though the Bible views him as a rebel, here the Assyrians simply equated anything that we would later call Israel as 'of the house of Omri'). This puts the Shalmaneser of the obelisk (III) a century before the Shalmaneser (V) who sacked Samaria.
Likewise, in the Mesha stele (Moabite stone), Omri is called the king of Israel, and appears to have had a relation to Yahweh (Mesha records taking Yahweh's vessels while fighting Omri). However, when we compare the biblical records with Mesha's stele, we find discomforting incongruity with both accounts. 2 Kings 3 describes Mesha as a vassal of Israel who rebelled after the death of Ahab (as well as Mesha's miraculous sacrifice of his son that caused Israel to fall back). On the other hand, Mesha (or the scribe recording the events) sees himself as being oppressed by Omri and his son (who is never named), and breaking free from the yoke of this oppression. Both versions are equally propagandistic, but we might conclude that Mesha was a vassal of Israel, that he broke free of Israel, and that thereafter, Israel no longer controlled Moab. As Niels Peter Lemche has pointed out, the eponymous "Omri" in the Mesha stele is really the symbol of Bet Omri, "the House of Omri", and his "son" would be any successor of Omri's (whether Ahab or Jehoram), just as in Shalmaneser's inscriptions. Thus both versions of the account are fictional, even if we can attempt to gleam some potential snippets of information out of them.
Samaria
Samaria itself was one of the largest cities in Palestine of the time, attesting to the strength and prosperity of Israel. Elaborate stone capitals (the supports at the top of a column) of a proto-Aeolic style were also discovered here (thus called because of their resemblance to the later Greek Aeolic style), as well as at Ramat Rahel, Megiddo, and Jerusalem. The acropolis alone, at 89 by 178 metres, was the size of many of the towns in the rural areas. The artificial nature of its construction (rather than a city evolving over hundreds of years) is shown by the large retaining walls that had to be built into the hilly slopes of the hill on which the city stood, in order to support the rather flat architectural plans of the city's buildings. Perhaps the reasons for this were that they were Phoenician in origin (as the Bible describes), and thus unused to building on such terrain.
Pottery with writings on them (called "ostraca") have also been recovered in Samaria though the date ranges are not agreed upon. Most of them seem related to trade or taxes (or both) as records of who was giving what to whom. Because biblical names are theophoric—that is, they attest to the god of their fathers—we have an interesting hint of the religious beliefs of these northerners. In contrast to the suffix -yahu in Judah (as in "Yahweh"—Yahu was the name used for Yahweh in some inscriptions, if a little unfortunate), we see many names with -yw (similar to -yahu, Yaw was sometimes the name of the Yahweh) and -bl (think of Jerubaal a.k.a. Gideon). These perhaps attest to a more pluralistic religious practice, but it is important to note that theophoric names of themselves cannot tell us about the religious beliefs of the people. Also discovered in these inscriptions were towns such as "Yasith", "Yashub", and "Qosoh", none of which receive mention in the Bible.
Tel Dan
One of the largest fortifications of the area lies at Tel Dan, with a large structure (about 96 by 58 feet) comprising its four-chambered city gate (distinct from the six-chambered gates mentioned above). On the right side of the outer gate, 5 standing stones known as massebot have been discovered alongside oil lamps, incense bowls, and other pottery remains. While we cannot discover the nature of the deity involved, it is almost certain that this structure had some cultic significance. The biblical record sometimes speaks of these positively (Genesis 28:18, 22; 31:13, 45; 35:14) and at others negatively (Deutoronomistic authors make associations with Baal worship (2 Kings 10:26; 17:10, Deuteronomy 16:22; Hosea 10:11). The city itself was well-planned and thoroughly urban Although some similarities have been pointed out with the palace at Megiddo, Mazar disagrees that it is an example of the bit hilani palace model. For him, the "courtyard palace" resembled the four room buildings of the lesser residences.
More recently, Avraham Biran discovered a controversial inscription at Tel Dan. The translation is tricky, although it mentions King Hadad of Syria, but without any context (Hadad was also the head of the Aramaic pantheon). Also found are rm br and yhw br which possibly attest to "Jehoram son of..." and "Azariah son of..." (note that yhw was a common suffix for Judahite names, as mentioned above). Another section of the inscription refers to k.bytdwd, taken to mean "[kin]g(?) of the House of David". If correct, it is our first correlation of the term "House of David" found outside of the Bible. However, as George Athas has pointed out, this is old Aramaic, and not Biblical Hebrew. Because of the lack of word dividers that are found elsewhere in the inscription, he believes it must be understood as a single word, such that the meaning is lost. Like the Assyrian examples of Yua bit Humri, we may be dealing with an initially unclear meaning of these terms and of course the context of the usage is absent. Subject to much controversy, it is certain that the final word on this has not been said.
Megiddo and Chronological Problems
Megiddo, as mentioned earlier, is the site of a fabulous palace that display the riches of the Omride dynasty. Termed as "bit hilani" palaces, they are an Akkadian name for palaces which featured colonnaded entrance porches to the throne room. Thus the design had a "hall of pillars" and similar structural features to Solomon's palace described in 1 Kings 7:1-11. Starting around the 9th century B.C.E. (at least outside Palestine), their form exemplifies the standards of that region, using many similar features like ashlar stone for their facades. The bit hilani designs are attested in Syria as Neo-Hittite palaces, though slightly later than the ones in Palestine, if Mazar's dating scheme is followed (contemporaneous if following Finkelstein's).
In pushing the bit hilani palaces into the 8th century, this causes some potential problems at places like Hazor, where the strata may span a mere quarter century each. While Finkelstein's downward chronology does compress the strata into a small number of years at some places, it is unclear why he should be criticised when there are similar problems elsewhere. The number of strata identified is related to the quality of the dig and care in classification of finds. At the same time, a decompressed strata can become too big, for example, Megiddo IVA lasting for a century and a half. The debate on this is far from settled, but no consensus seems forthcoming.
The Fall of Israel
In 745 B.C.E., an Assyrian civil war resulted in the ascension of Pul, a general who we know as Tiglath-Pileser III. His strategic and organisational skills enabled the rise of Assyria as an empire, and began a march on the Levant. He immediately defeated the kingdom of Urartu (biblical Ararat) and several cities in northern Syria. Turning south, he drove a wedge between Israel and Syria (who according to the Bible, had formed an alliance against him), reaching the Phoenician coast and capturing its cities. He then proceeded through the Philistine territories where he erected a victory monument at Gaza. Egypt was of little assistance as they faced their own troubles from the south—a Kushite expansion around this time preoccupied them, and by 711 B.C.E., had taken control of Egypt. The archaeological evidence is unequivocal: Hazor, Dan, Megiddo, Dor, Chinnereth, Qiri, Shiqmona, Jokneam, Accho, Keisan, Beth-Shean, 'En Gev, Tel Hadar, Kedesh, and Bethsaida were all sacked, the last five to be abandoned for several years after. Although Tiglath-Pileser died around 727 B.C.E., Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal would continue the Assyrian expansion.
Any of the cities that were rebuilt after that showed significant Assyrian influence in both architecture and material remains. On the other hand, the Assyrian presence is not overwhelming, and instead we find Phoenician and Greek ostraca beginning to appear alongside (for example, at Megiddo Stratum III, which was a provincial capital). This attests to the mass deportation practices recorded in the Bible and elsewhere. If we were beginning to recognise Israel in the Iron IIb, it was lost once again to us. Perhaps large swathes of Israelites moved into Judah, fleeing the Assyrian deportations, but such is conjecture. Then, as quickly as it started, the Assyrian hegemony was thwarted by internal turmoil and a failed campaign in Egypt (the Kushites were certainly a tougher adversary than the small Palestinian states), and their 80-year empire was over. The time was ripe for the rise of Babylon.
Judah
Judah began to flourish from the 8th to 6th century B.C.E., benefiting from the collapse of its more illustrious neighbour in the north. If the Biblical accounts are correct—that it emerged around the time of Shishak's campaign, and continued till its fall in 586 B.C.E., then it is one of the longest running monarchies of all of the Ancient Near East. Pretty good for a small provincial state. Although a number of sites were sacked by the Assyrians in 701 B.C.E., they recovered quickly. During this time, cities such as Jerusalem, Lachish, Tell en-Nasbeh (Mizpah), Tell el-Ful (Gibeah), Beersheba, and Khirbet Rabud (Debir) grew and flourished, and we have now excavated these to some extent. Here we find a large number of inscriptions, including lamelech jar handles, named because of the stamp on them bearing lmlk ("belonging to the king") with unique beetle and solar symbols marked on them. It is argued that perhaps the four-winged beetles were a symbol of Israel, and the two-winged ones that of Judah, but more likely, both were symbols of the Judahite monarchy.
Jerusalem Again
When we return to Jerusalem 2 to 3 centuries later, we find that much has changed—in Mazar's words, it was at "the peak of urban development" in the 8th and 7th centuries. By now, a great wall had been built on the eastern slope. Yigal Shiloh estimates that between the tenth and eighth centuries, Jerusalem grew from 25,000 to about 40,000 people. Spanning about 150 acres, it would have been a bustling and crowded city, perhaps a reason for the construction of a separate palace at Ramat Rahel. At the "Bullae house", so named because of the large number of bullae, or seal inscriptions, discovered there, 82 names have been found, including the biblically significant Gemaryahu (Gemariah) son of Shaphan (Jeremiah 36:10, 25), and Azaryahu (Azariah) son of Hilqiyahu (Hilkiah—I Chronicles 9:10-11). However, again the illusive temple has not yet been discovered, possibly because of rebuilding works and lack of access (as is the Ophel, a region between the "City of David" and the Temple Mount).
Another remarkable achievement of ancient engineers was the construction of the Siloam tunnel, also known as "Hezekiah's Tunnel" because of the account in 2 Kings 20:20. It was discovered in 1880, winding under Jerusalem to the Gihon spring, where it is said Hezekiah prepared for its construction to counter the Assyrian threat. A famous inscription inside records the meeting of the two groups of diggers such that they could hear the voices of their colleagues before they broke through "pick against pick".
Lachish and Sennacherib
Judah's growth was always delimited by the greater powers on either side, and we see the effects of this in great detail at Lachish (Tell el-Duweir). Prior to the 8th century, it was partially built and unfortified, but like Jerusalem, was now fully fortified with inner and outer walls. Although 2 Chronicles 11:9 attributes the building of the walls to Rehoboam, Ussishkin believes the fortifications reflect a much later period, possibly assigned to Asa or Jehosaphat. However, these defenses eventually failed in 701 B.C.E. to the Assyrian assault of Sennacherib. In his palace at Kuyunjik (Nineveh) lies a great relief depicting the siege in fine detail, from the positioning of archers and sling-men to the execution of captives and deportation of exiles. At Lachish itself, an Assyrian siege ramp was discovered—a straightforward earthen ramp to breach the city walls. Even more fortuitously, a counter-ramp on the inside of the walls was discovered. At the base of the ramp and wall, hundreds of arrowheads, sling stones, and heavy stones (presumably thrown from the city wall) have been discovered alongside charred wood, giving us a vivid picture of the struggle to take the city. While the city was eventually taken, it would soon recover (though not as resplendent) until the arrival of the Babylonians.
Some Conclusions
As we have seen there are multiple points of disagreement on several issues. Such is the nature of archaeology. Whatever the case, some provisional conclusions can be taken. For one, the Israel of Omri is all we have from the archaeological record, and it is not clear if it correlates with the Biblical record. External sources, while unquestionably important, lead us to wonder what actually may be confidently reconstructed when they both contradict each other and affirm each other at various points. The rise of Judah seems to be related to the decline of Israel, and the vacuum that arose as Israel and then Assyria were to come into decline. Jerusalem continues to refuse to yield its mysteries. As Assyrian power waned, a neo-Babylonian empire was emerging, one that would leave an indelible mark on the course of Judaism's history. As we move on, we will take a short break to observe the rise of Israelite monotheism in the next piece, and the polytheistic context in which it emerged.
Notes
[1] Finkelstein's case for a low chronological revision derives from the absence of Philistine monochrome ware at Lachish Stratum VI and Tel Sera Stratum IX. Normally dated to around 1175-1150 B.C.E., Finkelstein believes the Philistine arrival only begins with the withdrawal of the Egyptian presence, and not in the twilight years of their presence, as the traditional picture presents. Thus this monochrome ware should be revised to around 1135-1100 B.C.E., and the later bichrome ware pushed from the late 12th/early 11th to the late 11th/early 10th and so on. This cascades into our Iron Age and pushes everything later, in some cases filling in the gaps (possibly at Ashdod, Tell Beit Mirsim, Tel Haror, and Tel Mor), but in others leading to conflicts. His case is still the subject of debate, and his is by no means a majority view. Amihai Mazar criticised his rejection of the possibility that Egyptian and Philistine settlements could co-exist, and also pointed out the expected lack of Philistine pottery outside of the Philistine pentapolis (the initial 5 cities the Philistines built). Finkelstein's views can be found in "The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan", in Tel Aviv, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 213-239, 1995, and Mazar's critique in "Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein", in Levant Vol. 29, pp. 157-167, 1997.
[2] Interestingly, the designs recorded of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 5:16-6:38 and 2 Chronicles 4) are startlingly similar to Middle Bronze Age temples at Ebla, Megiddo, and Shechem, as well as an 8th century B.C.E. temple at Tell Tainat (Northern Syria).
[3] As general, he commanded all the army, but his family connections were possibly more important. His uncle through marriage was the high priest of Memphis, his oldest son Osorkon was married to the Pharoah's daughter, another son married into the family of the family of the fourth prophet of Amun, and another the commander at Herakleopolis. Certainly he was skilled at both military and political maneuvering!
[4] The towns in which destruction layers in the Iron II have been associated with Shishak include Timnah (Tel Batash), Gezer, Tell el-Mazar, Tell el-Hama, Tell el-Sa'idiyeh (these three in the Jordan Valley), Megiddo, Tell Abu Hawam, Tel Mevorakh, Tel Beth Shean, Tel Dor, Tel Michal, Tell Qasile, Tel Amal, as well as most of the minor fortifications in the Negev. Megiddo probably escaped complete destruction as the chambered gate remained in use into the Iron IIb.
The Rise of Israel
Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 3:
The Rise of Some People or Other
by Joel Ng (2004)
This section will probably be the longest and most difficult to follow. Attempts to depict a historical rise of ancient Israel in the Late Bronze/Iron I intermediary have been frought with bitter quarrels, polemics, and name-calling, much of which clouds the issues in which the scholars do closely agree upon. While scholars like William G. Dever, Amihai Mazar, and Lawrence Stager all believe that Israel or proto-Israel may be attested very early in the archaeological record, others like Israel Finkelstein and the various "minimalists" disagree, pushing that date much later. As always, I continue to follow Laughlin's outline in Archaeology and the Bible (2000) although I will try to go further to illustrate the similarities and divisions in contemporary debates.
The Amarna Age
When we last left off, we had just witnessed the demise of the Hyksos at Sharuhen and Avaris, and a century later Egypt rose to power in what we now call the "Amarna Age" based on hundreds of Akkadian tablets found at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt. Several contain correspondence between the pharoah and various petty rulers of Egypt bringing to life a rich but troubled time in Palestine. As we have seen earlier, there is little here that corresponds with the biblical portrait of the era, probably contemporaneous with Joshua and Judges. Instead, we see petty rulers squabbling (and seeking assistance from the Egyptians) over border disputes, rivalries, raiding parties, and the ever-scorned Hab/piru. Could the Hab/piru be the ancestors to our Israelites? Scholars have long noted its similarity to the word "Hebrew" ('ibrî or 'ivrî) and of a people active in Egypt called 'pr.w.
Unfortunately, the connection fails because so-called "Hebrews" are mentioned only in connection with King Abdi-Heba's Jerusalem, which does not correspond to the Biblical account that Jerusalem was only captured much later by King David. In the Amarna letters, they are portrayed as renegades, bandits, and perhaps a class (as Mendenhall argued, below), but are difficult to define being so eclectic. Moreover, as Niels Peter Lemche points out, the term is used identically with the Sumerian SA.GAZ (possibly following after the Akkadian saggasu, meaning "murderers"), which means that our Hab/piru start popping up all over the Ancient Near East, never confined to the hill country or Palestine for that matter. That they are trouble-makers is drawn from a literal reading of the texts (and perhaps the disturbances they caused made possible the rise of Israel later), but Dever sees them as victims, blamed for all sorts of social ills.
Whatever the case, they cannot be confidently identified as Hebrews, and what little we know of them suggests that they were not migrants (perhaps fringe dwellers). Until the 11th century B.C.E., this was to be a continuous period of Egyptian domination over the region, and not an ideal time for the Biblical Israel to emerge (and indeed there is no ideal time), though this may in fact be the time when historical Israelites (or "proto-Israelites") began to emerge, yet even this is disputed as we shall see later.
The Merneptah Stele
One tantalising hint of Israelite origins comes from the "Victory Stele" of Pharoah Merneptah dated to 1207 B.C.E.:
The princes are prostrate, saying "Mercy!" Not one raises his head among the Nine Bows. Desolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified; plundered is the Canaan with every evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer. Yanoam is made as that which does not exist; Israel (I.si.ri.ar) is laid waste; his seed is not; Hurru is become a widow for Egypt! All lands together, they are pacified.
All this of course says nothing of an Exodus or Conquest, but that a certain people termed "Israel" is already inhabiting Palestine by this point. The inscription clearly refers to a people (man + woman + 3 strokes) of Israel, whereas in reference to the others (e.g. Yanoam, Ashkelon, and Gezer), the inscription has three hills for its determinative sign (thus indicating geographical areas). While Philip R. Davies argues that the determinative sign is ambiguous it is likely that we do have here the first extrabiblical mention of Israel. William Dever goes further to argue that in fact the list is a "map" of Merneptah's conquests, with Tehenu (Libyans) west of Egypt, Hatti (Hittites) in northern Syria, Hurru (Hurrians) in Syria, and then Ashkelon, near the modern day Gaza strip, Gezer in the centre of Israel, Yanoam in the North, and therefore Israel in the central highlands, exactly where they need to be to emerge later as a fully-fledged monarchy. Israel Finkelstein disagrees with this somewhat arbitrary claim, and indeed there is no evidence to support this, only the aesthetic appeal to one's eye. It is also unclear whether this Israel is even our biblical one. We will return to the question of ethnicity later.
Models of Israelite Origins
There are three great models of the older schools of archaeologists, championed by many of the late generation of scholars that pioneered work from World War I till the 1960s. Today, none of these are accepted at face value primarily because of the simplistic assumptions, weak methodologies, and paucity of evidence available for study. It has been recognised that there was a significant change in material culture (a discontinuity) between the Late Bronze II and Iron I (circa 1200 B.C.E., ironically around the same time as Merneptah's campaign), which is the best possible time to fit in a sudden conquest, but what is the evidence?
The Conquest Model
William Foxwell Albright, the father of biblical archaeology, developed a "conquest" hypothesis of a unified Israelite push through Canaan citing evidence from his work at Tell Beit-Mirsim (he identified it as the biblical Debir, though this is disputed today), Lachish, and Bethel. Later proponents such as George Ernest Wright, John Bright, and Yigal Yadin also added Heshbon, Jericho, Eglon, and Hazor to cities which supported the conquest model with destruction layers in the Iron I age, akin to the treatment in Joshua 6-12. However, as regional surveys came to be published, this idea was found to be clearly wrong.
Firstly, many of the cities listed in Joshua were not destroyed at a time close enough for them to be carried out in a systematic campaign (Taanach, Megiddo, Kedesh, Jokneam, Dor), or were simply not destroyed (Jerusalem, Hebron, Debir, Tirzah). Others were destroyed, but by invaders who we can identify as either "Sea Peoples" (more on them later) or Merneptah, but not Israelites (Gezer, Aphek, Dor). Further evidence at Lachish has shown that the rebuilt city of Lachish VI (atop the ruins of Lachish VII) was probably an Egypto-Canaanite settlement. Finally, several were simply unoccupied or completely unlike the biblical portrait at the time (Jericho, Ai, Eglon, Arad). That leaves Bethel, and Hazor as the only cities which the Israelites could have captured, which certainly does call into question the conquest model, although a few others are as yet unidentified or unexcavated. The apologist excuse (for those are the only ones who still defend the conquest) that the Israelites simply walked into the cities killing people but not destroying anything cannot be taken seriously.
Moreover for a case to be made for mass migration, Lawrence Stager writes:
- The implanted culture must be distinguishable from the indigenous cultures in the new zones of settlement. If the intrusive group launches an invasion (as proponents of the Israelite "conquest" postulate), then there should be synchronous discontinuities, such as destruction layers, separating the previous "Canaanite" cultures from the newly established "Israelite" cultures in the zone of contention.
- The homeland of the migrating/invading groups should be located, its material culture depicted, and temporal precedence established in its place of origin. In the case of invading Israel, this should be in Transjordan or in Egypt.
- The route of migration/invasion should be traceable and examined for its archaeological, historical, and geographical plausibility. If the new immigrants took an overland route, the spatial and temporal distribution of the material culture should indicate the path and direction of large-scale migrations.
L.E. Stager (1998), "Forging an Identity", in M.D. Coogan (ed.) (1998), The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 94
This is not a case of setting the bar so high that it is impossible to prove. A similarly large migration has been shown using these standards of the "Sea Peoples" (precursors to the Philistines) from Mycenaea (southern Greece and Crete).
The Migration Model
Meanwhile, in Germany, Albrecht Alt and his students (particularly Martin Noth) were developing a different theory that ignored Joshua altogether and explained Israelite emergence in terms of pastoral nomads slowly infiltrating Canaan over a vast period of time (and fitting nicely with the slow progress in the book of Judges). Perhaps their annual route took them from the Transjordan into Canaan and some decided to settle over time. It was a completely theoretical model, based on his contact with Bedouin nomads around Palestine, and the factors that led to their sedentarisation (settling down into permanent locations).
Yohanan Aharoni later developed some evidence for this theory, locating areas which were empty in the Late Bronze, but with new settlements in the Iron I. While Alt's theory is sometimes known as the peaceful-infiltration model, Aharoni's was more of a conquest-infiltration, only with the conquest carried out over several centuries. Unfortunately, there are several alternative explanations as to why this emergence of settlements in the Iron I may have occurred, and we will deal with them later.
The problem with Alt's theory is that the idealised "nomadic" phase of many cultures is often fictitious (and Alt had been basing much of his work on the biblical accounts of the wandering patriarchs), and what we do know of nomadic cultures shows that they are notoriously difficult to settle: The Mari tablets detail the attempts to control and tax the Amorite movements in the 18th century B.C.E., largely unsuccessful. The eventual sedentarisation process of the Amorites took over 500 years! Ironically (when we look at the next theory), a different Marx, Emmanuel, showed that Bedouin nomadism is a deeply ideological value, not prone to swift transitions due to changing climatic conditions or economic factors (though this says nothing of nomads 3000 years ago). Alt's theory is rarely taken seriously today. Aharoni's theories were made obsolete by his own students with his methods of regional surveys (as we shall see below).
The Peasant's Revolt
George Mendenhall developed a new theory of Israelite origins that departed wholly from the Bible altogether. He had spotted that the Hab/piru of the Amarna were a social class around 1947, and that the city-states in Canaan had deep class divisions between the rulers (and the urban classes) and the rural peasants. Uniting under a single religion (Yahwism), they were able to overthrow the rulers of the city-states and develop an emerging nation of Israel. Perhaps the Israelites knew of Akhenaten's 14th century monotheistic revolution, or were influenced by the Shasu nomads who worshipped Yhw. Norman Gottwald, meanwhile, had independently identified sites he believed to be Israelite since being on the fringe, one could escape the closely controlled areas and urban problems (as we saw in the Amarna age), a process called "withdrawal". Many of the features identified here became marks of identification for "Israelite" culture (he believes Yahwism was a result, not a catalyst, of the revolt). The revolt for Gottwald, was in fact a revolution.
William G. Dever
Although initially rejected for its overtly Marxist formulation, William G. Dever developed this theory further based primarily on archaeological evidence (he calls it an "agrarian frontier reform model"). His proto-Israelites are seen as the direct ancestors of ancient Israel which would develop its distinctiveness under the united monarchy of David and Solomon. So, who were the early Israelites, and where did they come from? (I will discuss this in reverse.)
Firstly, as we have seen, the best possible time for Israelite emergence is marked by the Late Bronze II/Iron I transition. Secondly, older models have proven obsolete, though they may provide important insights or methods. Thirdly, we have seen the shortcomings of the biblical portrait, and must base our evidence primarily on archaeological evidence. Fourth, the evidence for indigenous, Canaanite origins of the Israelites is overwhelming, as we have seen in dealing with the "conquest" hypothesis. Finally, alongside the archaeological evidence, a multi-disciplinary enquiry must take place utilising palaeozoology, palaeobotany, anthropology, radiometric dating, linguistics, and other areas of research relating to the past. No longer can biblical archaeology stand aloft from other modes of inquiry.
Several distinctive features in the hill country (our modern West Bank), as well as a population explosion in the Iron I are caused by none other than our proto-Israelites. Drawing on Israel Finkelstein's 1988 work, The Archaeology of Israelite Settlement, the highland areas show a marked population increase: Some 93% of Iron I sites surveyed did not exist in the Late Bronze, and most of these are in the hill country. In the Late Bronze, the total population of the area was some 50,000 inhabitants; by the Iron II, it was perhaps 150,000. Clearly, population growth cannot fully account for this (population explosions were never sustained prior to the last two centuries), but an influx of people is necessary to explain this explosion.
Dever argues that it was simply a quest for a new lifestyle that drove this micro-exodus, not Yahwistic belief, nor class oppression, not unlike various attempts by Quakers, Hamish, Mayflower Pilgrims, and others. He also draws on David Hopkins' work that shows how incredibly difficult to settle a hill country area unless there is previous agricultural experience in the population (accompanied by the development of hill terraces to increase the available land suitable for agriculture). However, whether cisterns and terracing show resultant innovation from living in the hill country, or were factors that made settlement possible is difficult to determine. Meanwhile, he, like Mendenhall and Gottwald, speculates that the troubled Amarna period in Canaan spurred the migration into the hills—pastoral nomads would probably have gone further. These are indirect rebuttals to Finkelstein's hypothesis, which we come to now.
Israel Finkelstein
Finkelstein's theory is that the rapid increase in population in the hill country was brought about by nomads coming from the east (modern Jordan). It does bear some similarity to Alt's model, but it is based primarily on archaeology rather than speculative extrapolation of theories about Bedouins. Finkelstein's nomads simply became farmers as they moved into the hill country, and were hardly Israelite or even proto-Israelite ("hill country settlers" according to him). In fact, this was the third time such sedentarisation had taken place in the hill country, having taken place in the Early Bronze I and Middle Bronze II.
It should be important to note, firstly, what Finkelstein and Dever agree upon. First, they both are reliant on Finkelstein's 1988 work that demonstrated the rapid increase in population in the hill country in the Iron I. Secondly, they both accept that population growth alone cannot account for the increase. Thirdly, they both agree that long-term cycles of pastoralism and sedentarisation take place, with various periods demonstrating various shifts between each lifestyle. Like Dever, he agrees that archaeological evidence must be the primary source of reconstruction, but the debate between them shows how theory-laden even "evidence" can be, and dare I say, incommensurable.
The hill country settlements have distinctive features, particularly oval-shaped buildings. Like circled caravans, Finkelstein concludes that livestock were kept in these areas at night, and show the pastoral characteristics of the people who lived here. At Izbet Sartah, a crucial site has been excavated displaying his oval pattern, although it may be somewhat conjectural. Others have argued that it may simply be a matter of following contour lines, or possibly defence, though neither of these arguments would significantly trouble the pastoral theory. Elsewhere, he has found Transjordanian Iron I sites that are identical to the hill country sites in terms of pottery and material culture, and this gives rise to the possibility of an east-west movement of pastoral nomads.
In answer to Hopkin's difficulties regarding hill country agriculture, Finkelstein notes only that they produced only enough to survive, there was little social stratification (something only surplus economies are able to produce), and little trade routes or greater administration. He also dates these settlements to late in the 12th century and early 11th, considerably later than the time most others would (and his radical chronology is not accepted by most.
Questions of Ethnicity
If Dever seems to have something of an upper hand in the debate over the rise of the hill country peoples, much of the problems are technical and deal with the interpretation of archaeological evidence. Leaving aside the question of where these hill dwellers came from, we must now ask, were these people "Israelite", "proto-Israelite", or just "hill country settlers"? We have already seen that someone called "Israelites" existed, at least, as early as the late 13th century, but what else can we say? Again, we'll follow the discussion between Dever and Finkelstein, but first, a boring discussion of the problems involved.
The sociological literature on defining "ethnicity" is complex, but we can say a little on how it is formed. Firstly, it emerges from an "us vs. them" distinction. It has two identifiers: how groups define themselves, and how others define them. Most of the labels are descent-conscious; that is, they reflect an inherited identity and broad kinship. Finally, ethnicity is to be distinguished from totemism in which differences are born out of equal relationships. Instead, ethnicity derives historically from unequal relations such as resource competition and social evolution of society (simple to complex?).
Clearly, archaeologists have long sought marks of self-identification (called "type fossils"), such as distinctive pottery styles, architectural plans, and so forth. As David Small points out, this does not even fit the definition of ethnicity, but rather one must look for assymetrical relations which are the basis for ethnic division. Secondly, in cases such as architecture or technologies, much of it may simply be environmentally constrained (perhaps Finkelstein's oval plans?) and thus fit a geographical region well, while not being a sign of ethnicity. As you can see, this discussion cannot simply be a matter of assumption and rhetoric, something Dever is prone to.
Dever's problems lie in insisting that there are both LB/Iron I continuities (hence the indigenous origins of Israelites) and significant enough distinctions to identify a new ethnic group (the shortcomings of using Fredrik Barth's 1969 definitions apparent). Israelite type-fossils include four-room (or pillared courtyard) houses, hewn cisterns (water drainage specially developed for rocky outcrops), terracing, and collar-rimmed store jars. However, all of them have been found to be located in the Transjordan or elsewhere in the Ancient Near East and across time—hewn cisterns having existed in the Bronze Age.
The type-fossils approach sets itself up for refutation (unless it can find overwhelming numbers of artifacts), nor does it even consider environmental factors. Even with respect to Philistine artifacts, some such as Philistine bichrome ware may be signifiers of wealth and social status, and hence not useful for ethnic labelling. Secondly, Dever's evidence can be selective: Iron I sites such as Tell en-Nasbeh and Bethel (not in the hill country) are materially identical to Shiloh and et-Tell, yet Dever considers the latter to be proto-Israelite, and the former not to be. A stronger methodology must come forth.
Finkelstein, admirably, has pursued such a path. He admitted that his methodology in identifying "ethnicity" in the 1988 paper was simply naive, identifying ethnicity merely on territorial and socioeconomic aspects. His rebuttal of himself includes the questioning of the historicity of the biblical texts on the united monarchy, that differentiating sedentary and non-sedentary people in the LB/Iron I for the sake of ethnic identification is "meaningless", and so forth. Likewise, the Merneptah stele cannot confidently give us a location of the early Israelites, no matter the interpretations. Finkelstein finally rests ethnicity on the issue of foodways—dietary patterns—primarily, pig bones.
However, in 1994, at a conference where Finkelstein retracted, the use of pig bones (and hence consumption) to signify ethnic lines was being questioned—in fact they were rarely consumed by people all over Palestine, and much of the Ancient Near East. The factors that provided for large-scale consumption of pork (and then people identifying themselves through nonconsumption) would only come about in Hellenistic times.
Conclusions
Because of the complexity of this particular piece, I have only dealt with the major theories, and the biggest recent debate. Plenty of other ideas have been mooted—in particular, the Shasu nomads who worshipped Yhw, and adaptations of the major models have been around us for a long time, and will continue to do so. The debate between Finkelstein and Dever over the origins of ancient "Israelites" is far from over, and much work has yet to be published. In many ways, the debates over interpretations and methods have strengthened the field considerably, though it has also been frought with acrimonious arguments.
I have not dealt much with the minimalists, since they have not actively engaged the archaeological record. Most notably, Keith Whitelam has deconstructed the approaches of several older generations of scholars (and a few current ones) in showing how the inexorable search for "Israel" has sidelined a search for other indigenous people of the period, though not specifically tackling assumptions of ethnic identity (which would have made for a much stronger work). Niels Peter Lemche views this period, not unlike Dever, as one of turmoil and strife, in which the decadence of the Canaanite city-states, suffering from the withdrawal by Egyptian forces, allowed the periphery (in his view, nomads, like Finkelstein) to overtake the centre in much the same way we saw at the Intermediate Bronze Age (between Early and Middle Bronze). Perhaps that is as far as the consensus goes. Next, we will look at even more arguments as we cover the Iron II and the Israelite monarchy.
| No. | Ancient Place-Name | Archaeological Evidence |
| 1. | Jericho | Meager LB II occupation |
| 2. | Ai | No occupation from 2250 to 1200 B.C.E. |
| 3. | Jerusalem | No destruction at end of LB II |
| 4. | Hebron | No evidence |
| 5. | Jarmuth | Continuous LB II to Iron I occupation |
| 6. | Lachish | City VII destroyed in late 13th century, City VI destroyed ca. 1150 |
| 7. | Eglon | Tell 'Aitun; LB occupation unclear |
| 8. | Gezer | LB destruction, probably Merneptah or Philistines |
| 9. | Debir | Tell er-Rabud; no destruction at end of LB |
| 10. | Geder | Khirbet Jedur; LB II and Iron I pottery; not excavated |
| 11. | Hormah | Identification unknown |
| 12. | Arad | No LB occupation |
| 13. | Libnah | Identification unknown |
| 14. | Adullam | Khirbet 'Adullam; not excavated |
| 15. | Makkedah | Identification unknown |
| 16. | Bethel | Destruction in the late 13th century |
| 17. | Tappuah | Tell Sheikh Abu Zarad; not excavated |
| 18. | Hepher | Tell el-Muhaffer; not excavated |
| 19. | Aphek | LB destruction followed by Iron I "Sea Peoples" occupation |
| 20. | Lasharon | Identification unknown |
| 21. | Madon | Identification unknown |
| 22. | Hazor | LB city Stratum XIII, destroyed in 13th century |
| 23. | Shimron-meron | Identification unknown |
| 24. | Achsaph | Khirbet el-Harbaj; LB II and Iron I pottery |
| 25. | Taanach | Meager LB II remains; Iron I village destroyed in latter half of 12th century |
| 26. | Megiddo | LB II/Iron I city, Stratum VIIA, destroyed in latter half of 12th century |
| 27. | Kedesh | Tell Abu Qudeis; Iron I settlement Stratum VIII, destroyed in latter half of 12th century |
| 28. | Jokneam | LB II settlement, Stratum XIX, destroyed in late 13th or 12th century; gap follows |
| 29. | Dor | "Sea Peoples" known as Sikils occupy city in 12th century; transition from LB to Iron I not yet determined |
| 30. | Goiim | Identification unknown |
| 31. | Tirzah | Tell el-Farah (North); LB II and Iron I occupation; no evidence of destruction |
from Stager (1998), pp.98-99.
Appendix B: The "Sea Peoples" and Philistines
One might begin to ask, are archaeologists asking too much in order to prove the early existence of Israelites? Well in order to prove the biblical Israelites, where the Egyptian origins, migration route, and invasion are clear, we have a good comparative case study with the "Sea Peoples" who started to leave Mycenaea possibly as early as the late 14th century, and the people specifically known as the Philistines in the early 12th century B.C.E. (the anachronism in Genesis 26 notwithstanding). Their migration is so distinctive that they were the ones who gave their names to many of the Mediterranean areas: Philistines eventually gave their name to Palestine, the Sikils to Sicily, and the Sherden to Sardinia (Cyprus was renamed from Alashiya to Yadanana, although one wonders why this name didn't stick). Aegeans and Denye even correspond with Homer's Achaeans and Danaoi.
Stage I (1175-1150 B.C.E.)
The first stage of the Philistines' exodus involves their arrival in southern Canaan destroying several Late Bronze cities along the way, including areas along coastal Cilicia, Cyprus, and Palestine. This shows the route they took in finally reaching the southwestern coast of Canaan, where they finally settled. Indeed there are recorded correspondences between the king of Cyprus and the last king of Ugarit detailing the threat the "Sea Peoples" posed. Their origins are distinctive, since they arrive with pottery which we now call Mycenaean IIIC:1b, even though it is found in Palestine (but also elsewhere along the Mediterranean coast, Cyprus). It is shown to share a common tradition or style with other Aegean LB cultures, but the Philistines also bring with them new cultural traditions: "domestic and public architecture focusing on the hearth; weaving with unperforated loom weights; swine herding and culinary preference for pork; drinking preference for wine mixed with water; and religious rituals featuring female figurines of the mother-goddess type" (Stager 1998, p. 115). This is still a period of Egyptian hegemony in Canaan, so Egyptian and Canaanite garrisons in the south make desperate attempts to contain these invaders. As yet, there is little sign of infiltration of cultures, except perhaps as war booty.
Stage II (1150-1050 B.C.E.)
Egyptian hegemony collapses after the death of Rameses III (1153 B.C.E.), and the Philistines begin their second phase of expansion, and their pottery is now known as Philistine bichrome ware (that is, using two colours), and shows sign of Canaanite contact and acculturation. According to the Bible, they accepted Canaanite gods early on (Dagon and Baal Zebub as recorded in the Bible are Semitic names), but we know that they worshipped Ashdoda, an equivalent of the Mycenaean "Great Mother" at least as late as the latter half of the 12th century. On this, Finkelstein disagrees and argues that it is here that the Philistines actually arrive (thus revising the chronologies considerably), since he disagrees that they could have made an impact during Egyptian control of the region. This has ramifications elsewhere, pushing much of the period usually ascribed as 10th century B.C.E. into the 9th, filling some gaps (and devastating the period of "united monarchy"), but causing other problems elsewhere, particularly at Hazor. I will try to deal with the implications of this later in the series.
Stage III (1050-950 B.C.E.)
Aegean characteristics among the Philistines begin to diminish, though still recognisable, and complex geometrical patterns and elegant waterbird motifs have diminished into simple spirals. One might say that the Philistines began to dumb down after meeting the Canaanites, and by now they are almost fully integrated. Although maximalists argue that their defeat by King David brought about their end, the process of acculturation was also significant. Their eclecticism allowed them to assimilate rapidly but it also meant they lost their distinctiveness in equally quick fashion (the loss of language early on may be shown by the lack of Philistine inscriptions).
What we clearly see, however, is the process by which one culture migrates or invades another. In this case, the clear origins, route, and invasion by the Philistines followed by their rise and fall in Canaan are well-attested archaeologically. Their distinctive ethnicity and culture allow for easy identification, while their assimilation and disappearance attest to the complex social interactions that took place following their arrival. For our early "Israelites", no distinctive Egyptian pottery, Yahwist religion, tribal social organisation or other distinctive features show the biblical account to be fanciful and unreflective of actual events.
From Stone to Bronze
Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 2:
From Stone to Bronze
by Joel Ng (2003)
The Grand Narrative
With a brief understanding of how biblical archaeology developed and its methods, we can move on to a journey through time. Before I get to the bit where I can step on the toes in presenting the story, some explanation is in order. Underdetermination of data (that is, the theory that for any given body of empirical data, multiple theories can be constructed to account for it) is a particular problem.
Further, the underdetermination theory states that theory choice (that is, the grounds for making a decision to adhere to one of the competing theories) is subjective.
This is tied in with the idea of incommensurability—that is, that theories cannot be evaluated as "better" or "worse" because they either have different rules of evidence, or draw on different interpretations of evidence altogether. Lack of consensus in almost every archaeological matter seems to give much credence to these theories. As I quoted Gottwald in the earlier introduction, I reiterate that archaeological interpretation is a subjective field for which little remains conclusive for long.
In some sense, this can be circumvented by avoiding the historiographical implications of the Bible and archaeology, but this defeats the purpose of many who work in the field. They want to know not just how ancient people lived, but how accurately they wrote their historical works. They want to know the religions of these people, but also how closely and when the biblical account of the development of Jewish and Israelite religion follows "reality." Secondly, rules which everyone can agree upon as to what constitutes "evidence" needs to be more thoroughly debated—that is, the rules of methodology and epistemology. This is unfortunately a problem with this field, which is why many have claimed that it is still a "young" science. So what exactly do archaeologists agree on?
Rocks of Ages
The various ages embedded in sediment follow what you'd expect: There's the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age, and so on. When exactly these came about is disputed, some by fractional amounts, and others by thousands of years. We will follow the story of the rise of Israel from what we can gather of these periods, and compare it with the Biblical account where possible. Here I defer to the Archaeological Encyclopaedia of the Holy Land (eds. A. Negev & S. Gibson, 2001, New York: Continuum). Roughly, the identified ages are (and potentially useful in pub quizzes if nothing else):
| Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) | 1,400,000 - 17,000 B.C.E. | |
| Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) | 17,000 - 8500 B.C.E. | |
| Neolithic (New Stone Age) | ||
| Pre-Pottery Neolithic A | 8500 - 7000 B.C.E. | |
| Pre-Pottery Neolithic B | 7000 - 6000 B.C.E. | |
| Pottery Neolithic | 6000 - 4500 B.C.E. | |
| Chalcolithic (Copper Stone Age) | 4500 - 3500 B.C.E. | |
| Early Bronze (EB) Age | ||
| EB IA | 3500 - 3300 B.C.E. | |
| EB IB | 3300 - 3050 B.C.E. | |
| EB II | 3050 - 2700 B.C.E. | |
| EB III | 2700 - 2350 B.C.E. | |
| Intermediate Bronze Age | ||
| (EB IV/MB I) | 2350 - 2000 B.C.E. | |
| Middle Bronze (MB) Age | ||
| MB IIA | 2000 - 1800 B.C.E. | the Patriarchs? |
| MB IIB | 1800 - 1550 B.C.E. | Hyksos in Egypt |
| Late Bronze (LB) Age | ||
| LB I | 1550 - 1400 B.C.E. | |
| LB II (Amarna Age) | 1400 - 1300 B.C.E. | slavery in Egypt? |
| LB IIB | 1300 - 1200 B.C.E. | the Exodus? |
| Iron Age | ||
| Iron IA | 1200 - 1150 B.C.E. | Conquest & Judges? |
| Iron IB | 1150 - 1000 B.C.E. | Period of the Judges? |
| Iron IIA | 1000 - 900 B.C.E. | United Monarchy? |
| Iron IIB | 900 - 700 B.C.E. | Divided Monarchy |
| Iron IIC | 700 - 586 B.C.E. | Judah |
| Babylonian/Persian Period | 586 - 332 B.C.E. | |
| Early Hellenistic | 332 - 167 B.C.E. | |
| Late Hellenistic | 167 - 37 B.C.E. | |
| Early Roman | 37 B.C.E. - 135 C.E. | |
| Late Roman | 135 - 325 C.E. |
As immediately becomes apparent, the rise of civilisation is a slow and steady one, in which no invocations of deities or aliens should be necessary. The second important feature is that the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem, dated to 587 or 586 B.C.E. is a seminal moment in history (and a point where we can confidently correlate some Biblical accounts with archaeological excavations). Archaeology does not like long peaceful periods of thumb twiddling and making hay. Indeed, the easiest way to identify a layer is if there is a ubiquitous level of carbon and ash—in short, the razing of a city or town.
A Prehistorical Journey
Archaeology, however, can do far more. Let us forget the Bible for a moment, and journey back into the dawn of history (the timeline above may help). It is now evident that man has inhabited the Ancient Near East and Nile Regions for hundreds of thousands of years, and shared this land with our relatives Homo erectus and Neanderthal man. Here we shall take a brief glimpse at some of the major changes along the way. Recent discoveries in Israel have pointed to the possibility of the first use of controlled fire by humans being found here, almost 800,000 years ago. Similarly, we know some of our earliest ancestors walked through the Levant as Oldowan tools (around 2 million years old) made their way from Africa into Georgia.
Crude pear-shaped axes have been discovered (and are classified as belonging to the "Acheullian" stone age culture and probably the products of H. erectus) from the early Ice Ages. Mousterian, another stone age culture, is responsible for tools that, from evidence outside of the Near East, were the products of Neanderthals. Intriguingly, another "first" may also have occurred here, as evidence for grain milling and baking has been discovered at Ohalo, southwest of the Sea of Galilee—agriculture must then have predated agricultural civilisations considerably. This sleepy time came to a close with the end of the last great ice age some 20,000 years ago. After this, the tools grew in variety—blade making and polishing, cultural expression, and composite tools make their appearance.
Middle Stone Age
In the Epipalaeolithic, the Sebilian culture in Egypt is the witness to this transition—they seem to have got the basics of animal domestication, and have become semisedentary, that is, they are no longer permanent nomads like other hunter gatherers (because they are fortunate enough to live in the rich valley of the Nile). In Palestine, the Natufian culture has emerged, with larger social organisation (living in groups of up to 150).
There are permanent bases, from which hunters would move out to seasonal hunting grounds. They are technologically superior to their forebears in the Old Stone Age—having made good use of flint, bone, and stone to create specialised tools. At about 9000 B.C.E. our time machine blacks out, and we are left with an infuriating darkness—archaeologists do not know when the crucial transition from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agricultural societies takes place.
New Stone Age and Pottery
But when we emerge, we have reached the Neolithic (New Stone Age). Here we see a mix of agricultural techniques. Some argue that it was introduced from elsewhere, and the composite of advanced methods of farming and basic hunter gatherer lifestyles show an uneasy reception to these new techniques. Humans have not yet discovered pottery, but Jericho is already a city, built with enormous walls 3 metres wide and 4 metres tall. Defense seems to be the priority. A look at ancient words can give us a clue as to the process of sedentarisation (the process of making permanent settlements): âlu in Akkadian has its linguistic roots in the plural for "tent" while other terms for settlement are linguistically equivalent to our modern "fort." Some burial customs point to the emergence of religious belief—"skull plastering" is done over the dead to recreate lifelike human features. Perhaps we have some sort of belief in the afterlife.
Then, sometime late in the seventh millennium B.C.E., pottery is discovered. Amihai Mazar argues that it developed first through the use of clay for flooring or depressions used as basins, and perhaps a chance fire hardened it and so pottery is "discovered" rather than "invented." Laughlin (wrongly) states that Mazar attributes it to plastered fireplaces. Older theories may imagine an early human sitting down at a fire and tossing clay figurines into the fire to see what happens, and thus we could call pottery an "invention."
Whatever the case, once people discover that portable containers can be created out of this hard substance, it revolutionises our way of life. Not only that, but people decorate their new inventions with innovative cultural symbols, though we can still see interrelationships between the types of pottery, and thus early people have inadvertently taken a major step forward in helping us to understand them.
Chalcolithic Innovation
Things accelerate, and by the fifth millennium, the technology to produce copper emerges, although stone tools are not completely replaced (hence "Chalco"—copper, "lithic"—stone). The main culture of this time is called "Ghassulian" culture. It produces a flurry of copper crafts—the best example being a "Cave of Treasure" at Nahal Mishmar (just west of the Dead Sea) was discovered in 1961 where a cache of over 400 copper objects were discovered, preserved by the dry Judean desert.
Here, we have all variety of tools, advanced metalwork is evident using lost wax casting and combinations of other metals from far afield (probably Armenia). We can conclude that specialists have arrived on the scene—no longer are people just hunter-gatherers or farmers, but a new class of artisans has emerged, capable of skillfully creating figures of ivory, bone, metal, flint, and stone.
At Teleilat Ghassul (from which the name "Ghassulian" comes), settlement patterns show signs of planning with houses built along straight narrow streets. North of Nahal Mishmar is a Chalcolithic temple at En Gedi (from where it is speculated the treasure comes), which has its own inner chamber (like a "Holy of Holies" in the Biblical temple), courtyard, and possibly a living quarter. Again, another sort of specialised class—priests—have emerged, as has a religious institution alongside them.
The Bronze Age
Early Bronze I and the Coming of Cities
We could explore this region much more, but we have to move on. With earlier experimenting of mixing metals, the key breakthrough of melting tin and copper together lead to harder and more useful metals. There is a slight break in continuity between the Early Bronze I (EB I) and the previous Chalcolithic in Palestine, which has led some to conclude that EB I peoples were foreign invaders. For example, oval houses are found in several locations in the north, where the previous period favoured rectangular layouts.
However, growing consensus is that there is an evolutionary connection in pottery style between the ages, and Egyptian contact and development of the agropastoral community is enough to account for the changes in between. Perhaps imported features from Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia had a great influence as well. Whether Egyptian pottery discovered in Palestine represents Egyptian trade, colonisation, or conquest is difficult to tell. However, this period ended by EB II.
Settlements in the south seem to decrease dramatically, and Israel Finkelstein suggests that there were economic advantages of living in highlands, while others theorise a population explosion. At Hartuv, standing stones known as massebot have been discovered, which figure in Canaanite and Israelite religion. Lack of iconographic evidence (that is, religious or cultural figurines) makes it difficult to confidently ascertain their use, and in fact, temples of this period are not identified with too much certainty either.
Early Bronze II-III and Disaster
The first cities arise in the Early Bronze, most of it in EB II-III. Egypt's first dynasty, Sumer's early dynastic period, and Akkadian civilisation are all in the ascent at this point. Of course, these civilisations did not just pop out of thin air, but material conditions (agriculture, trade, etc.) made the construction and habitation of cities possible. For Egypt, a colossus is rising, and its organisational structure changes to accommodate the transition into a nation. Couriers, residents, transporters, retainers, hosts, dependents, headmen, producers and purveyors of food, and service providers are all necessary, and Egypt rises to the challenge with a fundamentally new means of organisation.
Egypt's access to Palestine is largely through the port of Byblos, where Lebanese wood is much sought after. Sumer meanwhile is influential in Syria and in particular by EB III, Ebla (Tel Mardikh) is the centre of literacy and writing. Ebla has its own unique language and writing system, and is the oldest West Semitic language known. It is a precursor to the Ugaritic language, which in turn is a precursor to ancient Hebrew. Akkad plays an influence in this region which will cause the end of the EB III.
Many prominent cities of the Bible emerge during this time, either being rebuilt (Tel Dan (Laish), Megiddo, Ai, Beth Shan, Jericho) or founded (Bethel, Beth-Shemesh, Tell Beit Mirsim, Hazor). Large fortifications are built at major cities—if there is any doubt about Jericho in the Neolithic, there is no such doubt about the purpose of fortifications at Megiddo (25 feet thick), Arad (3800 feet long), and Jericho (repaired 17 times, according to Kathleen Kenyon). Yet by the end of EB III, "the fears that led to such massive fortifications were realized." (Laughlin, p. 50) These fortifications and cities were either abandoned or destroyed by 2300 B.C.E., throughout Palestine and beyond (Ebla fell in 2250 B.C.E. to Naram Sin of Akkad).
Intermediate Bronze Age
With the destruction of these large cities, we lapse back to a quieter time in Palestine—the transition from EB IV to the Middle Bronze. Settlements are sparse, and much of what we can know about this time comes from cemeteries. The most numerous sites from EB IV are at Negev and Sinai are very small and have been called "open air museums" because of the excellent preservation.
Settlement patterns are slightly similar to EB II sites, but also resemble Neolithic sites. The sites uncovered seem to be out of touch of trade routes. Only in some regions around the Transjordan (east of the Dead Sea and Jordan River) do we see much connection with EB III pottery and culture, particularly at Khirbet Iskander where large fortifications and monumental architecture remains.
The whole period seems to be something of a mystery. It has been proposed that Syrian tribes known as the Amurru (Sumerian MAR.TU) or Amorites were the invaders (or perhaps just filled the empty space) and in fact initiated the move to the Middle Bronze. Ilan argues that connections could be found with the north in terms of sun-dried mud bricks (useful in Syria, prone to erosion in Palestine), new burial practices, multiple populations, and pottery similarities.
Another theory argued that these people were Indo-Europeans, based on the similarity in copper torques (necklaces) found in graves in Ras Shamra and Europe. Still another theory reached the same conclusion based on studies of tumuli (burial mounds) and dolmens (also tombs where a stone is laid horizontally over upright stones, and made famous in the Asterix comics), which were peculiar to Europe at this time.
William Dever's views, which are also the dominant view, is that these EB IV/MB I sites (particularly the Negev and Sinai sites) are merely continuations of indigenous culture and not a product of any foreign invasions or migrations. The urbanisation in EB III were extreme, and perhaps these rural settlements preserved their way of life from much earlier times better than most. We can at least confidently state that these people were both sedentary and nomadic. Certainly, a different mix of factors was at work here, and much work remains to be done.
The Middle Bronze Age
However, recovery from the desolation and abandonment at the end of EB III soon comes as we enter the MB II. Again, the dates for the start of MB II are hotly contested, though not particularly exciting, so I should state that the 2000 B.C.E. date (per the timeline above) is considered a "high" chronology, and perhaps a bit conservative. It is here that Albright tries to place the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), and it is the first period where a comparison with the Biblical account might be possible (it would be rather silly to try to fit the Tower of Babel into EB IV/MB I or even a local Noachian deluge (Noah's flood) into EB II/III where the Bible places them).
Again, as in EB III, large structures and fortifications are being built throughout Palestine and illustrate the rise of Canaanite city-states. Some texts written on Egyptian artifacts dated to the twentieth century B.C.E. attest (by name) to the cities of Beth Shan, Jerusalem, Laish (Tel Dan), Shechem, Hazor, and Beth-Shemesh which we have already noticed in EB II. Palaces, temples, defensive gates, and residential buildings are all identifiable in this period, some of them, such as at Megiddo, would continue to be used into the Late Bronze Age. Some 400 sites have been identified in this period, and is clearly a thriving region in contrast to the Intermediate Age before. At Mari (Tell Hariri), the discovery of over 25,000 tablets describing trade records and legal and diplomatic letters shed dramatic light on this region, and we shall hear more about it later.
The Hyksos in Egypt
An important change also takes place in Egypt. The Fifteenth Dynasty is established by a West Semitic people known as the Hyksos, who reign from the 17th to 16th centuries B.C.E.. The Egyptian writer Manetho, in the third century B.C.E. mentions them invading from the north, and he is quoted (and thereby preserved) by the first century CE Jewish historian Josephus (in Contra Apion 1.74, Josephus states that they are the ancestors of the Jews).
They controlled Egypt, and perhaps reached as far as Syria and Baghdad, and introduced such revolutionary weapons as the war chariot and composite bow. Their dominance also helps explain the organisation of Canaanite city-states, where the connections are clear: Palestinian and Phoenician pottery are strikingly similar to those of the Hyksos'. It is possible that because Egypt had a large foreign population, they took over peacefully with the weakening of the royal authority in Egypt. Surely a candidate for the Hebrew enslavement in Egypt?
Well not really. The Hyksos left behind no writings of their own (hence their name is taken from Manetho's description of them). Donald Redford notes that Kamose of Thebes, the Egyptian ruler who rebelled and eventually defeated them considered them destroyers, as did Hatsheput (who referred to them as nomads), about 50 years later. We have evidence of large scale destruction of Egyptian monuments that speak of a violent takeover and victorious reprisals. Their religion also differed from the Biblical Hebrews. They featured Anat, the bloodthirsty consort of Canaanite Ba'al, and a male mountain deity (hr) probably identifiable with Ba'al.
Whatever the case, Kamose laid siege to their capital Avaris, and defeated them (but then dies suddenly). The Hyksos fled to Sharuhen (Tell el-Ajjul), a fort south of the Gaza strip (not quite an Exodus) but Kamose's brother Ah-mose finished the defeat and established the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt. A long period of Egyptian domination of Palestine would follow soon after.
The Patriarchs in the Middle Bronze?
The Biblical chronology contains two contradictory accounts. If we are to take the Exodus as correlating to a destruction layer found around Jericho, 'Ai and other cities in the 13th century, then the 17th century fits the Hyksos period and Joseph's rule quite nicely (see Exodus 12:40, where the Israelites emerge from Egypt 400 years after arriving). 1 Kings 6:1, however, states that Solomon built his temple 480 years after the Exodus, which means that we require a 15th century date for the Exodus (and therefore, Albright's older age for the period of patriarchs in the turn of the second millennium). Elsewhere, the combined ages of the Judges conflict with the chronology given in 1 Kings. This problem is generally ignored, and dates are assigned as convenient to the debate.
Here we meet our first argument between maximalists and minimalists. Maximalists would generally assign the date for the patriarchal narratives in Genesis to the time of Solomon (10th century B.C.E.), while minimalists would probably push it further back, possibly as late as the Persian period (and of course, arguments have been made for just about every date in between as well). Much of the argument is linguistic, which we will have to leave till we study Genesis itself later in the series. The connection with archaeology is unclear, but I have included it out of possible interest of the reader. Note that nobody here is crediting the authorship to Moses.
Amihai Mazar (as a sample maximalist) argues that the similarities between MB II culture and Genesis are too close to be ignored, and that the traditions in Genesis are extremely old, having passed through oral transmission. He further draws attention to many dissimilarities between MB II and the time of Solomon, and that these could not be simply made up.
John Van Seters (sample minimalist) dates these stories to the exilic and post-exilic periods (6th-5th centuries B.C.E.). He compares them to historiographical work (or antiquities/genealogies) of Greece and Rome that write of the earliest humans and its relation to the rise of nationhood as we see in Genesis. The influence of Mesopotamian, Phoenician and Canaanite myths on Genesis raise large doubts about the age of the stories.
It is clear that establishing a plausible setting in the MB II does not necessitate its placement there. Many scholars have shown that while a story may be consistent with a certain age, it may also be consistent with a whole range of other dates. On the other hand, a late date need not mean that the stories are entirely fictional. The Bible itself lists numerous lost books from which stories have been drawn. Mazar expects too much from the correlations he has drawn, while Van Seters has no way of establishing the originals beneath the layers are late—he has no clear way of denying a pre-tenth century date for the original stories. This debate continues...
The End of the Middle Bronze
After the defeat of the Hyksos at Sharuhen, reprisals continued into Palestine, and J.M. Weinstein and many others conclude that a destruction layer found around several MB sites is limited to those under Hyksos rule, and probably carried out by Egyptians. Donald Redford, on the other hand, concludes that the experience at Avaris and Sharuhen showed that the Egyptians were largely incompetent at laying a seige (Avaris held out for several decades, and Sharuhen for 3 years). Although Redford notes the absence of Egyptian artifacts or governors in ancient lists, this may be explained by the theory that Egypt was not going in search of imperial conquests, but merely carrying out reprisals.
Redford theorises that a new Hurrian nation-state called "Mitanni" may be responsible for this destruction. It rises rapidly in the 16th century, while Babylon, lacking leadership after the demise of Hammurabi is waning, and grows to lead Hurrian culture and dominate Assyria. In fact, Kadesh on the Orontes dominates Palestine, and its rulers bear Mitanni names.
Whatever the case, the fall of the Hyksos, and a consistent destruction layer around 1500 B.C.E. mark the end of the Middle Bronze. Some cities such as Shechem show several destruction layers, and this is a tumultuous time for the inhabitants. With so many cities sacked during this period some would not return for several centuries (Jericho) or never again (Ai). However, northern cities such as Megiddo and Hazor would survive for a while later. Unlike the destruction at the end of EB III, there would be a continuity in Canaanite culture.
We will cover the Late Bronze Age, early Iron Age, and the rise of Israel in the next episode. Stay tuned.
Notes:
[1] I particularly like Larry Laudan's description of Imre Lakatos's position that, "any theory can be made to look good, provided enough bright people commit their talents to it." What Lakatos really writes is, "A brilliant school of scholars (backed by a rich society to finance a few well-planned tests) might succeed in pushing any fantastic programme [however 'absurd] ahead, or, alternatively, if so inclined, in overthrowing any arbitrarily chosen pillar of 'established knowledge.'" in Lakatos & Musgrave Criticism of the Growth of Knowledge, pp.187-8; taken from Laudan, 1996, Beyond Positivism and Relativism Westview Press, p. 19 and 249 n.31. One need only look at the usual fallguys like Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany to see that such is possible. The problems of underdetermination, however, are a problem for epistemology and the philosophy of science (see for example, Hugo's introductory series), so I must leave the debate with only the note that archaeologists can (and do) disagree about any and every thing.
[2] Others, however, argue that the enormous stone walls at Jericho were built to stop flooding or sedimentation. It is striking that Jericho would need such strong defense against enemies with primitive weapons amounting to little more than spears and clubs (and certainly no siege weapons of any sort had yet been developed).
[3] Strictly, bronze is made of copper and tin, but copper, in various combinations with tin, lead, or zinc may all be refered to as "bronzes" or "brasses" depending on the alloy content.
[4] Egyptian chronology (dates) follows according to its dynasty of kings. There is little agreement on when exactly the first dynasty (Narmer) emerged, but it is usually between 3200 and 2900 B.C.E. (with the most accepted date around 3100 B.C.E.). If you assign an earlier date, you would be assigning a "high" chronology, while if you assign a later date, you would call it a "low" chronology. The problems of this sort of dating are difficult. For example, the end of EB II follows the end of the Second Dynasty, so depending on your chronology, EB II can fluctuate accordingly, but the general consensus would be around 2700 B.C.E..
Carbon dating is used to calibrate this analysis, but there are several problems: Firstly, carbon dating has a small margin of error, which is sometimes too big for the archaeologists to be satisfied with (particularly when it comes to the emergence of the Israelite kingdom). Secondly, whether an object is EB I or II or III is sometimes a matter of interpretation—delineating the strata is difficult where there are few clear lines. Thus carbon dating may be of no use if it gives a date that allows for either period (and where the competing theories require it to be in one or the other period, the arguments can get quite acrimonious).
[5] A note for the confused here: EB IV = MB I, so the Middle Bronze Age starts here. Where MB I is used in the Intermediate Bronze, then the Middle Bronze actually starts at MB II. So don't be shocked if you read that Bietak is arguing for a MB I age starting around 1900 B.C.E.. What he is referring to is what I call here the MB II. The terminology I'm using follows Albright's older demarcation.
[6] More notes for the confused: Egyptian dynasties are a mishmash of overlapping kings and rulers. So while the 16th dynasty ruled a part of Egypt (Thebes) not controlled by the Hyksos, and were replaced by the 17th dynasty, also in Thebes. Seqenenre Ta'o, the penultimate ruler of the Seventeenth dynasty, died in combat against the Hyksos, and his recovered mummy showed damage from spears and arrows and finally an axe crushing his skull. Kamose was the last king of the 17th dynasty, and therefore Ah-mose (sometimes Ahmosis) "logically" is the one to set up the 18th dynasty. I'm no Egyptologist, so perhaps someone else can explain it better than I can.
[7] It doesn't take much effort to realise that the long ages of the patriarchs is also problematic, considering that all burial sites show a life expectancy of roughly 50 years during the EB and MB. More problems with chronology will become clear as we deal with the Late Bronze Age.
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