Archaeological excavations not far from Jerusalem are confirming the historical site for one of the earliest periods of Israel’s history.
The site is Khirbet Qeiyafa and it is located just a day’s walk from Jerusalem at the Elah Valley. The ruins had been overlooked by archaeologists until a series of excavations from 2007 to 2013 brought to light a tangible connection to the time of King Saul and King David.
This early period of Israel’s monarchy has often been dismissed as a matter of fiction. The people of Israel at this time are portrayed as a loose confederation of tribes and David, if he existed at all, a mere local chieftain. Khirbet Qeiyafa is overturning such a view and giving fresh grounds to trust the biblical record.
The Elah Valley is the place where David faced off against Goliath when King Saul was at war with the Philistines. The valley forms a narrow route from the territory of the Philistines, near the coast, to Jerusalem. In the aftermath of the battle the biblical text describes the dead as ‘strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron’ (1 Sam.17:52). Without any knowledge of the location of Shaaraim, sceptical scholars could lightly dismiss this story to the realms of legend.
Khirbet Qeiyafa is a relatively small site with two levels of occupation. One is from the period after the close of the Old Testament story. But archaeologists found, beneath those Hellenistic remains, a single but impressive period of occupation from around 1020–980BC. Carbon dating, pottery remains and associated artefacts made this a secure date. During the time of Saul and David this was an occupied, fortified settlement.
One of the most famous finds from Khirbet Qeiyafa is possibly the earliest Hebrew text ever found. On a broken piece of pottery are five lines of writing, its meaning still unclear, that seems to include the Hebrew words ‘judge’, ‘king’, and ‘widow’. In keeping with this, the site is now identified as part of the Kingdom of Judah and demonstrates some kind of central town planning at the time of Saul and David. There is a substantial ‘casemate’ wall, non-Philistine pottery (including 693 impressed jar handles) and, very importantly, an absence of any pig bones. Pork was popular among the Philistines and just a few kilometres west are ruins from the same period where pig make up 20% of the bones that have been recovered. Khirbet Qeiyafa was not a Canaanite or Philistine town.
But one of the major (and unique for the time) discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa are its two massive gateways. Gates are the weakest points in fortified walls and so these are unusual. One gate opens to the west and one to the south. The reason for the two gateways is because of its strategic position for the Israelites. One gate gave access to the road to Jerusalem; the other controls the road from Philistine territory. This unusual feature also helps us read the biblical text: the ‘Shaaraim road’ referred to in the story of Goliath (1 Sam. 17:52) uses a Hebrew word that could mean ‘two gates’. Archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel has suggested that what we call Khirbet Qeiyafa today may have been the Shaaraim of the biblical story.
One further recent find is shedding more light on the period of Israel’s united monarchy. In 2011 broken pieces of stone were found dating to the tenth century BC that seemed to be some kind of model shrine. When carefully reassembled they were found to be a model temple which had architectural features quite distinct from Canaanite temples. Details were published in 2016 in Solomon’s Temple and Palace: New Archaeological Discoveries by Yosef Garfinkel and Madeleine Mumcuoglu. With this new discovery, archaeologists may have found the earliest glimpse of the plans for Solomon’s Temple.
