The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Isreal and the Origin of Sacred Texts (53 page)

Moreover, recent studies have revolutionized the dating of Philistine pottery. In recent decades, many major sites have been excavated in the southern coastal plain of Israel, the area of strong Egyptian presence in the twelfth century
BCE
, and the region where the Philistines settled. These sites included three of the cities mentioned in the Bible as the hub of Philistine life—Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron (Tel Miqne) as well as several sites that served as Egyptian forts. The latter disclosed information about the Egypto-Canaanite material culture in the last decades of Egyptian hegemony in Canaan. Their finds included Egyptian inscriptions related to the imperial administration of Canaan as well as large quantities of
locally made Egyptian vessels. Some of the inscriptions date from the reign of Ramesses III—the pharaoh who fought the Philistines and supposedly settled them in his forts in southern Canaan.

The surprise was that the strata that represent the last phases of Egyptian domination in Canaan under Ramesses III did not reveal the early types of the decorated Philistine vessels, and the earliest Philistine levels did not reveal any sign of Egyptian presence, not even a single Egyptian vessel. Instead, they were completely separated. Moreover, in a few sites, Egyptian forts of the time of Ramesses III were
succeeded
by the first Philistine settlements. In chronological terms this could not have happened before the collapse of Egyptian domination in Canaan in the mid–twelfth century
BCE
. The implications of this revelation for the archaeology of the united monarchy create a sort of domino effect: the whole set of pottery styles is pushed forward by about half a century, and that includes the transition from Philistine to the post-Philistine styles.

Another kind of evidence comes from stratum VIA at Megiddo, which represents the last phase of Canaanite material culture in the north. This stratum has always been dated to the eleventh century
BCE
and was believed to have been destroyed by King David. This assumption fitted the biblical ideology perfectly: the pious King David annihilated the last remaining stronghold of Canaanite culture. Since this stratum was violently destroyed by fire, hundreds of complete pottery vessels were crushed by the collapse of the walls and roofs. Indeed, a large number of vessels were uncovered by the Oriental Institute excavations and more recent Tel Aviv University dig at Megiddo. Yet no examples of the decorated Philistine style were found. It is therefore impossible to date this city to the eleventh century, a period of time in which the decorated Philistine pottery is common all over the country, including neighboring sites in the Jezreel valley. Indeed, there are Philistine vessels at Megiddo itself, but they all come from the previous stratum. This means that the last city at Megiddo featuring remnants of Canaanite material culture cannot have been destroyed by King David around 1000
BCE
. Both the ceramic and carbon-14 evidence suggests it was still in existence several decades later—well into the tenth century
BCE
.

Yigael Yadin argued that the identification of the Solomonic cities was based on stratigraphy, pottery, and the Bible. But stratigraphy and pottery provide only relative chronology. It is clear, therefore, that the whole idea of the archaeology of the united monarchy, of the blueprint city planning of Solomon’s architects, and of the grandeur of the Solomonic palaces, rests on one verse in the Bible—1 Kings 9:15. We must repeat this again: the entire traditional reconstruction of the nature of the united monarchy of Israel—its territorial expansion, its material culture, its relationship with the neighboring countries—depends on the interpretation of a single biblical verse! And this verse is quite problematic, because we do not know if it is based on authentic sources from the time of Solomon or later realities. We do not even understand its exact meaning: Does “built” mean that Solomon founded new cities? Did he only fortify existing ones? Do the three cities mentioned—Megiddo, Gezer, and Hazor—merely symbolize, for the author of Kings, the three main administrative cities of northern Israel? Did the author of Kings project the great construction in these cities in later years back to the days of Solomon?

Let us start with the six-chambered gates. First, the idea that the Megiddo gate dates to the time of the ashlar palaces has been challenged, mainly because the gate is connected to the massive wall that runs
over
the two palaces. In other words, since the wall is later than the palaces and since it connects to the gate, there is good reason to believe that the gate is also later than the palaces. Moreover, recent excavations have shown that this type of gate was used outside the borders of the united monarchy and that similar gates were built in later phases of the Iron Age, until the seventh century
BCE
. So the single peg on which the whole structure hangs has also proved to be shaky. But this is not all.

The next clue comes from the nearby site of Jezreel, located less than ten miles to the east of Megiddo. The site was excavated in the 1990s by David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv University and John Woodhead of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. They uncovered a large fortified enclosure, which they identified with the palace built by Ahab in the first half of the ninth century
BCE
. This palatial acropolis was destroyed a short while after it was built. This presumably happened either in the course of the revolt
against the Omride dynasty led by the future Israelite king Jehu or as a result of the military campaign of Hazael, king of Damascus, in northern Israel. In either case, the date of abandonment of the Jezreel enclosure would be around the middle of the ninth century
BCE
. The surprise was that the pottery found in the Jezreel enclosure is identical to the pottery of the city of palaces at Megiddo. But the latter was supposed to have been destroyed by Pharaoh Shishak almost a century earlier! How can we bridge this gap? There are only two possibilities here: either we pull the building of Jezreel back to the time of Solomon, or we push the Megiddo palaces ahead to the time of the dynasty of Ahab. It goes without saying that in this case, there is only one solution, since there is no record of Solomonic occupation of Jezreel and since the Jezreel compound is similar in layout to the acropolis of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, which was no doubt built by the Omrides. The city of ashlar palaces at Megiddo was destroyed in the mid-ninth century, probably by Hazael, and not in 926
BCE
by Shishak.

But is there any other direct evidence about the date of Megiddo’s city of palaces in addition to the domino effect we described above? In other words, is it still possible that it was
built
in the time of Solomon in the tenth century
BCE
, and only
destroyed
in the ninth century? The answer is apparently negative, for two reasons. The first clue comes from Samaria—the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was built in the early ninth century. There are clear similarities in the building methods of the Samaria palace and the two Megiddo palaces and it seems, therefore, that they were built at the same time. Here too we face two options: either to argue that the Samaria palace and royal acropolis were both built by Solomon or to argue that the Megiddo palaces were built later than Solomon. The first option cannot be accepted, because there is hardly a doubt that the Samaria palace and the entire acropolis were built by Omri and Ahab in the early ninth century.

A word should be said here about the treatment of the biblical materials. Some of our colleagues wonder how we can dismiss the historicity of one verse in the Bible (1 Kings 9:15) and accept the historicity of others—relating to Ahab’s construction of the palace at Jezreel (1 Kings 21:1) and to the construction of the palace at Samaria by Omri (1 Kings 16:24). The answer has to do with methodology. The biblical material cannot be treated as a monolithic block. It does not require a take-all-or-leave-all attitude. Two
centuries of modern biblical scholarship have shown us that the biblical material must be evaluated chapter by chapter and sometimes verse by verse. The Bible includes historical, nonhistorical, and quasi-historical materials, which sometimes appear very close to one another in the text. The whole essence of biblical scholarship is to separate the historical parts from the rest of the text according to linguistic, literary, and extrabiblical historical considerations. So, yes, one may doubt the historicity of one verse and accept the validity of another, especially in the case of Omri and Ahab, whose kingdom is described in contemporary Assyrian, Moabite, and Aramean texts.

It is not easy to pinpoint Manasseh archaeologically, that is, to identify the specific city levels built during his reign in sites throughout Judah. Although the pottery of the Late Iron II in Judah is known better than that of any other phase of the Iron Age, its dating is not yet precise enough to distinguish the styles of a specific generation. The main reason for this less-than-desired situation is that in order to date pottery assemblages in a precise way, we need to uncover destruction layers that can safely be assigned to a particular historical event. The entire pottery chronology of the last phase of the history of Judah after the fall of Israel is therefore based on one site, Lachish in the Shephelah, which twice provides this combination of an unambiguous archaeological destruction layer with rich finds and a reliable historical source. First, the Assyrian annals, the Nineveh relief, and the Bible leave no doubt that the city was devastated by Sennacherib in 701
BCE
. Second, the biblical reference to Azekah and Lachish as the last strongholds to withstand the Babylonian assault (Jeremiah 34:7), confirmed by an ostracon found at the site, provides clear evidence that Lachish was annihilated by the Babylonians in 587/6
BCE
.

These two destructions of Lachish were linked to the end of strata III and II at the site. Comparing Late Iron II assemblages that were exposed in other Judean sites to the two rich, well-dated pottery assemblages of
Lachish, scholars were able to distinguish two horizons in eighth–seventh centuries
BCE
Judah: sites that were destroyed by the Assyrians in the late eighth century
BCE
and those the Babylonians destroyed in the beginning of the sixth century.

The reign of Manasseh falls between these two horizons. Since Manasseh was a loyal vassal of Assyria there were no wars in his time; no great destructions took place. His days were peaceful times for Judah. Yet what was good for the people of Judah is, ironically, bad for archaeologists. We do not have even one stratum that can safely be dated to his days. Cities established by Manasseh survived until the final fall of Judah and therefore destruction layers feature the material culture of their last years rather than that of their early days. Hence the only way to pinpoint Manasseh is to outline the general settlement and demographic trends in Judah between 701
BCE
and the late seventh century. Bearing in mind that the reign of Manasseh comes right after Sennacherib’s campaign, and represents a significant period of economic recovery, even this very general information is of much value.

The book of Chronicles suggests that Josiah’s campaign of cultic purification and territorial conquest reached far to the north and south, into “the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali” (2 Chronicles 34:6). Accordingly, many biblical archaeologists have long taken the Chronicler’s report at face value and have believed that Josiah’s kingdom extended over most of the territory of western Palestine, from the Negev highlands in the south to the Galilee in the north. According to this view, Josiah took over large parts of the territories of the former northern kingdom, also expanding to the south and west, into areas which had never before been controlled by Jerusalem. Yet a new archaeological analysis suggests that the territorial advances of Josiah were much more limited.

The older, maximalist view regarding the northern border of Judah in the time of Josiah was based on the finds at Megiddo. With the fall of the northern kingdom, the Assyrians made Megiddo the capital of their province in the northern valleys and Galilee. They rebuilt the city in a completely new layout, with two typical Assyrian palaces and a new concept of an orthogonal city with sets of parallel streets crossing one another at right angles. This city—stratum III—is the best archaeological example of an Assyrian government center in the western provinces of their empire. It
functioned until the Assyrian withdrawal from Palestine toward the end of the seventh century
BCE
.

The following layer at Megiddo, stratum II, is, in many parts of the mound, simply a continuation of the previous city with minimal rebuilding and additions. But there are two main differences between the cities of stratum III and stratum II: in the later level, the city wall went out of use and a massive building, which was identified by the team of the University of Chicago as a fort, was erected on the eastern side of the mound. There it dominates the valley and the international highway from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Stratum II was attributed by the same excavators to Josiah “in his efforts to unite the two kingdoms,” and its partial destruction was attributed to the encounter that would ultimately end Josiah’s life.

The Megiddo fort, therefore, presumably provided the missing link to explain the showdown with Necho. It was suggested that Josiah took over the entire hill country territories of the ex-northern kingdom and then expanded farther north to Megiddo and made it his strategic northern outpost. The control over the entire region from Jerusalem to the Jezreel valley made it possible for Josiah to advance to Megiddo with his army, possibly in an attempt to stop Necho from assisting the Assyrian army against the Babylonians.