David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition

by Finkelstein, Israel

FORTIFICATION WALLS AND PALACES

  Yadin’s ingenious theory was haunted by a major problem: the gates were attached to different kinds of fortifications. Two types of city walls were constructed at various times in the Iron Age. One type is a solid stone or brick wall with insets and offsets; the other is composed of a linked series of chambers and is known as a casemate wall. The problem was that at Hazor and Gezer the six-chambered gates were connected to a casemate wall, while the Megiddo gate was connected to a solid wall—thus calling into question the theory of a single Solomonic master plan. Convinced that the earlier Megiddo excavators had missed an underlying casemate wall (presumably the original fortification built with the gate), Yadin decided to go to Megiddo with a new excavation team in order to recheck the archaeological stratigraphy.

  Yadin chose an area to the east of the gate where the University of Chicago team had uncovered one of the sets of “stables” linked to the solid city wall, which was in turn connected to the gate. Under the stables and solid wall, he discovered a beautiful palace built of large ashlar blocks, with a row of rooms on both sides. It was built on the edge of the mound and although the outer row of rooms was much different in shape from the typical casemate walls of the Iron Age, he interpreted it as the “missing” casemate wall that was originally (at least according to his theory) built with the six-chambered gate.

  With the discovery of this edifice, Yadin turned his attention to a roughly similar palace, also built of beautiful dressed blocks, uncovered by the earlier Oriental Institute team on the southern side of the mound. This palace too lay under the city of the “stables” and thus Yadin believed that he had identified yet another of Solomon’s magnificent palaces at Megiddo—an apparent manifestation of the grandeur of the Solomonic state.

  This city of palaces was destroyed in a conflagration, which Yadin attempted to link with a specific historical event: the military campaign of Pharaoh Shishak in Palestine in the fifth year of King Rehoboam—the son of King Solomon (supposedly 926 BCE). This campaign (which we analyzed in chapter 2) is mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 14:25–26) and recorded on one of the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak in Upper Egypt. Megiddo is specifically mentioned in the Karnak list, and indeed, a fragment of a stele that was erected by Shishak at Megiddo was discovered at the site (unfortunately not in a stratified or dated context).

  So archaeology seemed to fit the biblical testimony perfectly. The Bible recounts the building activities of Solomon at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer; surely, the similar gates discovered at the three cities revealed that they were built together, on a unified plan. The Bible says that Solomon was an ally of King Hiram of Tyre and that he was a great builder; indeed, the layout and masonry of the magnificent Megiddo palaces seemed to show northern influence, and were among the most beautiful edifices discovered in the Iron Age strata in Israel. The Bible says that Pharaoh Shishak campaigned in Israel and Judah right after the death of King Solomon; and lo and behold, Solomon’s city at Megiddo was destroyed in an intense conflagration and a stele of Shishak was found at the site. From that moment on, the entire reconstruction of the history and material culture of the Solomonic state rested on these finds.

  Yet this harmonized archaeological image of a golden age of the united monarchy did not last long. Two decades after Yadin demonstrated an apparently perfect match between Bible and archaeology, the various elements of the theory started to crumble, one by one.

  A QUESTION OF DATING

  The first to go down were the gates. A detailed study of the Megiddo gate by David Ussishkin showed that it was built later than the gates of Hazor and Gezer. In addition, similar gates were found in much later periods and at clearly non-Israelite sites, among them Philistine Ashdod. Even the basis for the dating of the Solomonic levels was shown to be the result of circular logic: the pottery and other artifacts found in the gate levels were dated to the tenth century BCE because of the association of the gates with the biblical verse about the building project of King Solomon. Later ardent defenders of the “Solomonic grandeur” theory simply forgot about this circular reasoning when they argued that the biblical verse (and the great Solomonic kingdom) must be historical, since the gates and other impressive structures were found in levels dating from the tenth century BCE!

  New data from ongoing excavations in Israel and a reanalysis of old finds undermined the rest of Yadin’s basis for “Solomonic” archaeology. Less than ten miles to the east of Megiddo is the site of Jezreel, the location of a palace of the Omride dynasty, described in the Bible as the scene of the bloody coup that brought this dynasty down (2 Kings 9). The historical existence of the Omrides is supported by Assyrian records and the evidence of the Mesha and Tel Dan stelae. Jezreel was excavated in the 1990s by David Ussishkin and John Woodhead, who uncovered a large fortified enclosure that they readily identified as an Omride royal compound, strikingly similar in conception to the royal acropolis of Samaria, the capital of the Omride dynasty. The Jezreel compound was destroyed and abandoned soon after its construction—either due to internal political changes in the kingdom or as a result of a military attack by the Arameans on northern Israel, both of which took place, according to historical records, around the middle of the ninth century BCE.

  Surprisingly, the pottery types found in the Jezreel compound are identical to the pottery of the city of the ashlar palaces at Megiddo, which was supposed to have been destroyed by Pharaoh Shishak almost a century before the fall of the Omrides. Could it be that Yadin’s “Solomonic” city at Megiddo was in fact an Omride city, built and destroyed in the ninth century BCE, like Jezreel, long after the time of Solomon?

  Other, clear evidence points to that conclusion. The first clue comes from Samaria, the capital of the Omride kingdom, located in the highlands about twenty miles to the south of Megiddo. We have already mentioned the similarity of the Jezreel and Samaria royal compounds, but there is another architectural link. The excavations at Samaria, initially carried out in the early twentieth century by an expedition from Harvard University, uncovered the foundations of a large palace built of ashlar blocks in the center of the elevated royal acropolis. The excavators identified it as the royal palace of the Omride dynasty, constructed in the first half of the ninth century BCE.*

  There are unmistakable similarities in the building methods between the Samaria palace and at least one of the two Megiddo palaces. These similarities were first noted by the early excavators Clarence Fisher (at Samaria and Megiddo) and John Crowfoot (at Samaria) but were subsequently forgotten after the wide acceptance of Yadin’s Solomonic theory. However, Norma Franklin of Tel Aviv University has recently revived the comparison with important new evidence: the ashlar blocks in the palace at Samaria and the southern palace at Megiddo bear similar masons’ marks unknown at any other Iron Age sites in Israel. It is likely that they were built at the same time, probably by the same team of masons—working under the auspices of the Omride dynasty, not Solomon.

  Finally, in the last few years, radiocarbon dating has hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Solomonic mirage. Carbon 14 samples from major sites involved in the united monarchy debate (including Dor on the coast, Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley south of Beth-shean, Tel Hadar on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and Rosh Zayit near Akko, Hazor, and Megiddo) have been submitted for testing and analysis. The samples came from numerous grain seeds and olive stones found in levels that were traditionally linked with the Davidic conquests and the Solomonic kingdom of the tenth century BCE.

  The results were stunning. Almost all of the samples produced dates lower, that is, later, than the widely accepted dates of the conquests of David and the united monarchy of King Solomon. Destruction layers that had previously been dated to around 1000 BCE and linked to the conquests of King David provided dates in the mid–tenth century BCE—the supposed time of King Solomon if not a bit later. And the destruction layers that had traditionally been dated to the late tenth century BCE and linked to the campa
ign of Pharaoh Shishak after the breakdown of the united monarchy provided dates in the mid–ninth century BCE—almost a century later.

  Thus the conventional view on the archaeology of the united monarchy was wrong by almost a century. In historical terms, this means that the cities assumed to have been conquered by David were still centers of Canaanite culture throughout the time of his presumed reign in Jerusalem. And the monuments that have traditionally been attributed to Solomon and seen as symbols of the greatness of his state were in fact built by the kings of the Omride dynasty of the northern kingdom of Israel, who ruled in the first half of the ninth century BCE. Archaeology, therefore, far from proving the historical reliability of the biblical narratives, has forced us to undertake a far-reaching reevaluation of the nature of tenth-century society in Judah and Israel.

  Appendix 4

  King Solomon’s Copper Industry?

  ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED MONARCHY

  Between the 1930s and the 1950s the biblical references to copper smelting and production of copper vessels for the Temple led to a major effort in the search for the historical Solomon. Archaeologists who accepted the biblical description at face value tried to locate the precise sources of Solomon’s copper ores and sites connected with his smelting industry. This quest was localized around Timna, in the south of modern Israel.

  The first investigations on this subject were undertaken by the American archaeologist Nelson Glueck, who conducted large-scale surveys and excavations in Transjordan and the Negev desert. Considering that Solomon’s port of Ezion-geber (mentioned in the Bible as a major trade emporium of the united monarchy) was located at the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, Glueck focused his search for Solomon’s copper mines at Timna, only fifteen miles to the north.

  Fieldwork conducted at Timna by Glueck, and later by the Israeli archaeologist Beno Rothenberg, showed that it was indeed a major source of copper in antiquity. Copper mines and smelting sites dating to different periods, from the Chalcolithic period in the fourth millennium BCE to the early Islamic period, were discovered in the Timna Valley and its immediate surroundings. Glueck was convinced that many of these mines and installations dated to the time of Solomon.

  Glueck then examined the possible relationship to the nearby site of Tell el-Kheleifeh, a few miles to the west of the modern port of Aqaba, which was identified in the 1930s with the biblical Ezion-geber. Indeed this is the only possibility, as no other Iron Age site is known in this region and decades of intensive explorations around Aqaba in Jordan and south of Eilat in Israel have failed to yield any pre-Roman remains.

  Glueck excavated Tell el-Kheleifeh between 1938 and 1940 and uncovered much of the site. He separated the remains into five periods of activity and dated them from the tenth to the fifth century BCE, identifying each according to biblical references to Ezion-geber and Elath. Every monarch who was mentioned in relation to activities in the Gulf of Aqaba was granted a stratum. And Glueck interpreted the remains of the first period—including what he described as flue holes, air channels, hand bellows, clay crucibles, and furnace rooms—as evidence for a huge copper smelting industry in the days of King Solomon. Glueck even went so far as to dub Ezion-geber the “Pittsburgh of Palestine” and King Solomon “a copper king, a shipping magnate, a merchant prince, and a great builder.”

  This romantic image later proved to be baseless—a wishful illusion based more on the biblical text than on any real archaeological evidence. The intensive research in the Timna Valley conducted by Beno Rothenberg in the 1960s, which included surveys and excavations of smelting sites, failed to reveal any evidence for tenth-century BCE activity. There was a strong phase of mining in the time of the Egyptian New Kingdom, until the twelfth century BCE, then a gap and renewal of activity during Roman times. Nothing was found from the days of King Solomon.

  Tell el-Kheleifeh’s relation to Solomon’s copper industry also proved to be a fantasy. A thorough study of the finds for their final publication by the American scholar Garry Pratico and investigation by other scholars have found no evidence whatsoever for smelting activity at the site. The “crucibles” found at the site proved to be sherds of locally produced handmade pottery vessels; the “flue holes” were no more than holes for wooden beams that had rotted away; and there were only a few metal finds—certainly not evidence of an active smelting industry. No less important, it became clear that the site was established only in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. The elaborate stratigraphy of successive copper kings and their industrial center simply did not exist. At the time of the historical Solomon in the tenth century BCE, this place near the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba was no more than a sand dune.

  Appendix 5

  Dismantling the Shrines

  ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF CULT CENTRALIZATION IN THE TIME OF HEZEKIAH

  Biblical scholars have long debated the historicity of the Bible’s description of the reform of the Temple cult that took place during the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:3–4; 2 Chronicles 29–31). Literary studies of the texts—especially regarding the relationship between the differing narratives in Kings and Chronicles, their similarity to descriptions of the later cult reform of Josiah, and to the Deuteronomic laws requiring the eradication of pagan Canaanite cult objects—have not led to a decisive answer about the historical nature of the reported religious reform. Yet important archaeological evidence about possible changes in cultic practice during the monarchic period has come from the two southern sites of Arad and Beer-sheba and from the site of Lachish in the Shephelah (all three excavated by Yohanan Aharoni), where evidence for regional Judahite cult activity has been found.

  A Judahite sanctuary with altar and open courtyard was discovered in the Iron Age fortress of Arad, yet its dating has long been a matter of dispute. Aharoni dated its construction to the tenth century BCE and suggested that it went out of use in two stages: the large altar was removed in the late eighth century BCE, in the course of Hezekiah’s cult reform (Stratum VIII), and the shrine was closed and dismantled a century later, in the time of Josiah (Stratum VI), thus closely fitting the biblical description of the two most famous cult reforms in the history of Judah. The Arad excavation team later revised this historical reconstruction, suggesting that while the complex was built in the tenth century BCE, both the altar and the shrine were removed in the days of Hezekiah. The historian Nadav Na’aman proposed that the shrine continued to be in use throughout the time of Hezekiah.

  In the course of the preparation of the Arad finds for final publication, one of the expedition members, Zeev Herzog, revised the stratigraphy and chronology of the Arad sanctuary. In his opinion the sanctuary had not been founded in the tenth century BCE and continued in use over three centuries, but had functioned only for a short period of time in the eighth century BCE (Strata X–IX). According to Herzog, both altar and shrine were dismantled at the same time—in the late eighth century—and buried under a one-meter fill. Thus the fort of the very late eighth century BCE (StratumVIII)—the one conquered by Sennacherib in 701 BCE—did not have a sanctuary. It had presumably been removed in the course of Hezekiah’s cult reforms.

  Herzog presented clear evidence for his interpretation: walls and floors of Stratum VIII of the late eighth century were built over the sanctuary after it had gone out of use; the pottery on the floors dates to the eighth, rather than the seventh century BCE, and the Strata VII—VI floors in the vicinity of the sanctuary are two meters higher than the floor of the sanctuary of the shrine. Without ignoring the methodological problems related to the dig at Arad and the immense difficulties in interpreting the stratigraphy of the site, it seems to us that Herzog’s reconstruction is the most convincing and suggests an intentional change in cultic ritual at Arad during the reign of Hezekiah, in the years before Sennacherib’s attack in 701 BCE.

  The finds from Beer-sheba and Lachish seem to support this interpretation. At Beer-sheba, a large horned altar built of ashlar blocks was di
smantled, with its stones buried in the city’s fortification ramparts and reused in the pillared storehouses built in the late eighth century BCE (Stratum II). Aharoni suggested that the altar originally stood in a sanctuary. Since no such building was discovered at the site, he proposed that it had been completely and intentionally eradicated during the construction of the buildings of Stratum II. Thus Aharoni interpreted this evidence as supporting the biblical description of Hezekiah’s cult reform, since the Beer-sheba sanctuary was supposedly destroyed and the stones of its altar buried and reused early in Hezekiah’s reign.

  The biblical historian Nadav Na’aman raised objections against Aharoni’s interpretation, mainly concerning the original place of the altar. Yet regardless of the question of the location of the sanctuary, the finds at Beer-sheba seem to parallel those at Arad. An altar that had functioned in the eighth century (Stratum III) was dismantled at the very end of the century (Stratum II). This would have taken place during Hezekiah’s reign, since Stratum II was destroyed during the campaign of Sennacherib in 701 BCE.

  Lachish also provided evidence of changes of cult practice in the late eighth century BCE. Although Aharoni interpreted a stone altar and cult vessels as evidence of a Judahite sanctuary from the tenth century BCE, David Ussishkin recently reexamined the results of Aharoni’s excavations and came to utterly different conclusions. According to his analysis, the cult objects linked by Aharoni to a hypothesized tenth-century sanctuary were actually deposited in a pit that was sealed by the construction of a vast late-eighth-century courtyard (Level III). He dated the vessels themselves to the ninth and early eighth centuries BCE (Level IV) and suggested that the sanctuary from which they had come went out of use sometime in the eighth century BCE and the pit into which they were dumped was covered by structures built during Hezekiah’s reign.