Philistine Pottery. These pottery pieces from Ashkelon bear early Philistine decorations. Photo: © The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon.

The Philistines are best known from the Bible as the Israelites’ enemies, but they were much more than that. Recent archaeological discoveries help inform our understanding of their culture, economy, and even origins. In the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Daniel M. Master of Wheaton College looks at the biblical and archaeological evidence for the Philistines’ roots in “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines.”

Who Were the Philistines?

In the Bible, the Philistines are remembered as an uncircumcised people with advanced technology and a formidable military (Judges 14:3; 1 Samuel 13:19–20; Exodus 13:17). The Philistines frequently encroached on Israelite territory, which led to some battles, including the famous clash between David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine (1 Samuel 17). They were condemned for being idol worshipers (1 Samuel 5:1–5) and soothsayers (Isaiah 2:6). In short, the Philistines are portrayed quite negatively in the Bible.

They lived in the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza—the heartland of ancient Philistia on the Mediterranean Sea’s southeastern shore. Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath have been excavated in recent decades. The findings from these cities show that the Philistines had distinct pottery, weapons, tools, and houses. They also ate pork and had vast trade networks.

Philistine culture flourished during the Iron Age (12th through sixth centuries B.C.E.). Similar to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Philistines lost their autonomy toward the end of the Iron Age. They became subservient and paid tribute to the Assyrians, Egyptians, and then Babylonians, the great superpowers of the region who severely punished rebellion. For example, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed disloyal Ashkelon and Ekron and carried off many Philistines into exile.

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Where Did the Philistines Come From?

In his article, Daniel Master looks at archaeological and biblical evidence for the Philistines’ origins. He considers the accounts at Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. In the 12th century B.C.E., during the reign of Ramesses III, a confederation of tribes from the “islands” of the “northern countries” attacked Egypt—several times, both on sea and land. The Peleset, whom scholars connect with the Philistines, was named as one of these tribes.

Battle Ships. This drawing of a relief at Medinet Habu shows a sea battle between the Egyptians and people from the “islands,” who had invaded Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. Photo: Public Domain.

On the way to Egypt, the confederation had traveled through the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed numerous cities, including Ugarit on the Syrian coast. Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, had written to surrounding kingdoms for help, when the “seven ships of the enemy” had arrived to ransack his kingdom. By the time help had come, though, it was too late: Ugarit lay in ruins.

Egypt defeated the confederation, as recorded on one of the temple walls at Medinet Habu. A relief from that temple also depicts a sea battle between the island tribes and the Egyptians. In it, the islanders wear distinct headdresses, which clearly set them apart from the Egyptians. After being defeated, some of these tribes settled on the southern coast of Canaan—in what would become the land of the Philistines. Egyptian sources, thus, seem to record a migration of people from the “islands” to Philistia.

Philistine Portrait? A confederation of island tribes, including the Peleset (Philistines), attacked Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. This relief from Medinet Habu records a sea battle between the two forces. Photo: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Master also examines the evidence for Philistine origins in the Bible. The biblical authors remembered the Philistines as coming from a foreign land, from “Caphtor” (Genesis 10:14; Deuteronomy 2:23; 1 Chronicles 1:12; Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). Scholars have long drawn a connection between Caphtor and Crete. This is largely based on Egyptian inscriptions and paintings of “Keftiu” from the 15th and 14th centuries B.C.E., wherein the Keftiu are linked to the Minoan civilization, which was centered on Crete.

Migration Map. Who were the Philistines, and where did they come from? New archaeological evidence suggests that many of the Philistines originally came from Crete, called “Caphtor” in the Bible. Map: © Biblical Archaeology Society.

Excavations have shown that the Philistines had a distinct assemblage of artifacts. Master notes parallels between some early Philistine objects, especially from the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E., and Aegean and Cypriot artifacts. Elements of Philistine material culture, then, also hint at an Aegean or Mediterranean origin for the Philistines.

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New evidence from Ashkelon further supports this connection. The Leon Levy Expedition excavated at Ashkelon from 1985–2016 under the direction of the late Lawrence Stager at Harvard University; for the last decade, Daniel Master co-directed excavations. They found some infant burials from the 12th century B.C.E., as well as a Philistine cemetery with burials from the 11th through eighth centuries B.C.E. Teaming up with scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, they were able to analyze DNA from seven of these individuals. When they looked at the 12th-century infants’ DNA, they discovered that the infants had some European ancestry. Crete proved to be one of the best matches for the infants’ heritage—when considering all of their genetic material. Yet other places in the western Mediterranean, such as Iberia, also provided a good match.

Interestingly, in the later individuals from Ashkelon’s cemetery, this European ancestry had been so diluted to barely register. Master explains that, by the tenth century B.C.E., enough intermarriage had taken place between the Philistines and the local Levantine population that the Philistines looked a lot like their neighbors:

While there was some evidence of the same Western European Hunter-Gatherer genetic input, for all statistical purposes, it could not be identified for certain. The best models showed that these people [the tenth- and ninth-century individuals buried in Ashkelon’s cemetery] were descendants of both the 12th-century inhabitants and the earlier Bronze Age inhabitants. It appears from these results that so much intermarriage had taken place between the original immigrants and the people around them that the genetic makeup of Ashkelon’s inhabitants had lost its immigrant distinctiveness.

Yet Master clarifies that, at this point in history, the Philistines still thought of themselves as distinct, as evident in a seventh-century inscription from the Philistine city of Ekron. The inscription names Ekron’s king as Ikausu, which means “Achaean” or “Greek.” The name Ikausu (or Achish) also appears in 1 Samuel 21:10 as Gath’s king.

The Philistines remembered their foreign origins

Master concludes that the new DNA evidence, coupled with the biblical and archaeological testimonies, suggests that the Philistines originated in Crete. That is not to say that the Philistines were a homogenous group, all coming from the Aegean world, but it seems that many Philistines did indeed migrate from there, bringing with them vestiges of Minoan culture. Learn more about this ancient people in Daniel M. Master’s article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines,” published in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines” by Daniel M. Master in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on March 23, 2022.

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Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines

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The post Who Were the Philistines, and Where Did They Come From? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

The TAU researchers analyzed multi-spectral images of 16 Hebrew inscriptions, which were written in ink on ostraca (broken pottery pieces), using a computer software program they developed. The ostraca, which date to 600 B.C.E., according to the researchers, were excavated from the Judahite fortress at Arad in southern Israel.

When was the Hebrew Bible written? Ostraca with Hebrew inscriptions excavated from the Iron Age fortress at Arad in Israel may provide clues, say researchers from Tel Aviv University. Photo: Michael Cordonsky, courtesy Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The researchers say they were able to identify at least six different handwriting styles on the inscriptions, which contained instructions for the movement of troops and lists of food expenses. A TAU press release notes that “the tone and nature of the commands precluded the role of professional scribes.”

“The results indicate that in this remote fort, literacy had spread throughout the military hierarchy, down to the quartermaster and probably even below that rank,” state Faigenbaum-Golovina, Shausa and Sober in their paper.

“Now our job is to extrapolate from Arad to a broader area,” explained TAU Professor of Archaeology Israel Finkelstein, who heads the research project, in the TAU press release. “Adding what we know about Arad to other forts and administrative localities across ancient Judah, we can estimate that many people could read and write during the last phase of the First Temple period. We assume that in a kingdom of some 100,000 people, at least several hundred were literate.”

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So when was the Hebrew Bible written? What does literacy in the Iron Age have to do with it?

Scholars have debated whether the texts of the Hebrew Bible were written before 586 B.C.E.—when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, razed the First Temple and exiled the Jews—or later on, in the Persian or Hellenistic period. If literacy in Iron Age Judah was more widespread than previously thought, does this suggest that Hebrew Bible texts could have been written before the Babylonian conquest?
The Tel Aviv University researchers think so, based on their study of the ostraca from Arad.

Not quite, says epigrapher Christopher Rollston, Associate Professor of Northwest Semitic languages and literatures at the George Washington University. In a lengthy blog post analyzing the TAU study, Rollston contends that there is not enough information from these ostraca to make estimates about the literacy of Iron Age Judah. Rollston points out that, according to a publication by Yohanan Aharoni, the original excavator at Arad, the 16 ostraca came from different strata dated across the seventh and early sixth centuries—and therefore do not all date to 600 B.C.E. Moreover, we cannot tell how many of these inscriptions were written at the Arad fortress and how many came from elsewhere.

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“Rather than arguing on the basis of 16 ostraca (that ended up at Arad) that we have a ‘proliferation of literacy,’” Rollston says, “I would simply conclude that we have some readers and writers of inscriptions at Arad. That’s all we can say.”

Rollston notes that he and others have argued, however, that there is enough epigraphic evidence from ancient Israel to conclude that “already by 800 B.C.E. there was sufficient intellectual infrastructure, that is, well-trained scribes, able to produce sophisticated historical and literary texts.”

“Additional detailed, sophisticated and substantive scholarly arguments for the early dating of the Torah have been made by William Schniedewind, author of How the Bible Became a Book, and Seth Sanders, in The Invention of Hebrew,” observes Candida Moss, Professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame, in The Daily Beast.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on April 15, 2016.

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The post When Was the Hebrew Bible Written? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Base of Phoenician Iron Age steatite scarab seal found at Nuraghe Ruinas in Sardinia, Italy. Courtesy Soprintendenza Sassari e Nuoro.

A small object with a big story has emerged from the excavations at Nuraghe Ruinas in Sardinia, Italy. The Superintendency of Archaeology for the Sassari and Nuoro provinces in Sardinia reported on Facebook that, during recent archaeological work in the area, archaeologists uncovered a remarkable Iron Age artifact—a scarab seal. Likely originating from ancient Phoenicia (modern day Lebanon), this small but significant object provides tangible evidence of the commercial and cultural networks at work in the biblical world.

The scarab found at Nuraghe Ruinas is made of steatite and is engraved with hieroglyphic characters. The team has not yet described the inscription or iconography, but the hieroglyphs strongly suggest eastern Mediterranean craftsmanship or influence. Further, the discovery is not isolated. Similar scarabs have been found at S’Arcu ’e Is Forros, about 5 miles from Nuraghe Ruinas, and at Nuraghe Nurdole, between Orani and Nuoro. Taken together, these finds suggest sustained interaction between the ancient inhabitants of Sardinia (the Nuragic civilization) and Phoenician traders operating across the Mediterranean basin.

What Are Scarabs?

Scarabs are small ancient artifacts modeled after the dung beetle. These objects, which connoted status, were typically made of stone or faience. While sometimes worn as jewelry or amulets, scarabs primarily functioned as seals. The tops were carved to resemble a beetle and their flat undersides were often inscribed with symbols or names, pressed into clay to stamp documents and goods.

Sardinia at the Crossroads of the Mediterranean

Sardinia is a large island in the western Mediterranean Sea, situated about halfway between the Italian Peninsula and the coast of North Africa. In antiquity, Sardinia was strategically located along a major maritime trade route linking the eastern Mediterranean—including Phoenicia and the Levant—with North Africa and Iberia. Phoenician contact with Sardinia intensified from the ninth to eighth centuries BCE. In the Levant, this period overlaps with the era of the Israelite monarchy and the later divided kingdoms (c. 1000–586 BCE).

Trade in the Biblical World

Sardinia—rich in copper, lead, and silver—was an important partner in Iron Age Mediterranean exchange networks. Phoenician merchants were the most renowned seafarers of the ancient world. They established trade routes and settlements stretching from the Levant to North Africa and the western Mediterranean and are even credited with standardizing and disseminating the alphabet. The same networks that carried Egyptian-style scarabs to Sardinia also connected to Levantine cities like Tyre and Sidon, both of which play central roles in the Hebrew Bible, including the supply of cedar for Solomon’s Temple. Biblical figures participated in long-distance commerce, political alliances, and cultural exchange.

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The Spread of Religious Symbols

Scarabs originated in Egypt but were widely adopted and adapted throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In Egyptian belief, the scarab symbolized rebirth, renewal, and divine protection. It was closely associated with the solar god Khepri, who represented the rising sun. Just as the dung beetle rolls a ball of dung—seemingly bringing life from decay—Khepri was understood to roll the sun across the sky each day, embodying the daily renewal of life. Both the beetle and the deity thus became powerful symbols of regeneration and cosmic order.

Over time, however, the scarab became more than a religious emblem, it was a portable cultural form. Phoenician artisans adopted and adapted Egyptian motifs, circulating Egyptianizing objects widely throughout the Mediterranean. Even without knowing the specific imagery of the Sardinian scarab, the scarab form invites discussions of Egyptian symbolism, Phoenician adaptation, and the presence of Egyptian-style artifacts in the Levant. Once conservation and study are complete, the iconography may offer more precise clues about its origin—whether Egyptian, Phoenician, or a hybrid Levantine style—further illuminating the interconnected world of the Iron Age Mediterranean.

This evidence reflects a larger reality of the ancient world: symbols migrated across cultures, often independently of the belief systems that first produced them. Cultural borrowing was normal in the Iron Age Mediterranean. Religious imagery traveled along the same routes as metals, textiles, and luxury goods. Ancient Israel existed within this shared symbolic ecosystem. During the centuries when biblical kingdoms rose and fell, long-distance trade networks connected distant coasts, moving not only commodities but also artistic forms, technologies, and ideas. A small carved scarab, carried across the sea millennia ago, is in that sense evidence of the Mediterranean system that shaped the world of the Bible.

Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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“Yahweh and his Asherah” is written across the top of this eighth-century B.C. drawing on a ceramic pithos, or storage jar, from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in the eastern Sinai. Some scholars have theorized that these figures resembling the Egyptian god Bes (on the left in the photo above) are in fact a drawing of God and his consort. Others, however, have interpreted both figures as male. The recently published Kuntillet ‘Ajrud excavation report sheds some light on this enigmatic fragment, but many questions remain. Photo courtesy Dr. Ze’ev Meshel and Avraham Hai/Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology.

Everything about it has been difficult. Located in the Sinai desert about 10 miles west of the ancient Gaza Road (Darb Ghazza, in Arabic) as it passes through Bedouin territory separating the Negev from Egypt, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud is remote and isolated from any other settlement. In 1975, Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ze’ev Meshel and a band of nine volunteers, mostly from kibbutzim and a few colleagues as staff, decided to excavate at the site.

The finds from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud were fantastic. The zingers were two large pithoi, or storage jars, that weighed about 30 pounds each. The now-reconstructed pithoi are painted with deities, humans, animals and symbols, and feature a number of inscriptions, including three that refer to Yahweh and his asherah or Asherah, depending on your interpretation. Asherah is a pagan goddess. Was she God’s wife?

Below an inscription on one of the pithoi (referring to Yahweh and his asherah) are drawings of two figures easily and unquestionably identifiable as the Egyptian god Bes, in fact a collective name for a group of dwarf deities. Is this meant to be a drawing of God (i.e., Yahweh) with his consort Asherah? The scholar who published the chapter about the drawings doesn’t think so. She interprets it as two male deities—probably just the Egyptian god Bes—and not as a drawing of God and his goddess wife. Other scholars disagree, but this much is clear: The drawing was added to the pithos after the inscription was written, so the two may be completely unrelated.

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Why has it taken nearly four decades to publish this final report? One reason is that everything about Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and its finds is so darn difficult to interpret—or even to see. The recently published report is a superb volume, and the discussion and interpretation will surely continue far beyond its pages.

Subscribers: Learn more about the site and finds at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, including the fragment with the two figures of the Egyptian god Bes that may be a drawing of God labeled “Yahweh and his Asherah,” by reading BAR editor Hershel Shanks’s review article “The Persisting Uncertainties of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud” in the November/December 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Asherah and the Asherim: Goddess or Cult Symbol?

Judean Pillar Figurines

Israelite Kings Depicted in Ancient Art?

The History of the Tetragrammaton

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in October 2012.

The post Puzzling Finds from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Nearly a century ago, French archaeologist Raymond Weill excavated what he identified to be tombs in Jerusalem’s City of David—perhaps the royal necropolis of the earliest Old Testament kings. Some scholars have since disputed this claim, but an examination of the evidence by archaeologist Jeff Zorn suggests that Weill might well have been right.

Although King David’s tomb has been erroneously identified with a location on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion since the days of the Jewish historian Josephus (first century C.E.), earlier Biblical references make it clear that David and many other Old Testament kings were buried near the southern end of the City of David in ancient Jerusalem. But where exactly? Jeff Zorn believes we may already know.

Archaeologist Jeff Zorn believes these two quarried-out tunnels in the City of David may have once held the remains of the earliest Old Testament kings of ancient Jerusalem.

Nineteenth-century diplomat and explorer Charles Clermont-Ganneau believed the circuitous path of Hezekiah’s Tunnel offered a major clue. Clermont-Ganneau suggested the looping semicircular path followed by Hezekiah’s Tunnel towards its southern end was dug to avoid disturbing the burial grounds of the ancient Jerusalem kings that lay above. Within a couple of decades, Baron Edmond de Rothschild had purchased land in this area of the City of David to test the hypothesis through excavation.

Weill directed excavations on Baron Rothschild’s City of David property in 1913–1914 and again in 1923–1924. Though the area was greatly disturbed by later quarrying, Weill discovered ancient walls, ritual pools, cisterns, a circular tower (now believed to be a columbarium) and, most remarkably, nine rock-cut features that he identified as “tombs.” Weill interpreted the three most prominent tombs (labeled T1–T3) to be part of the royal necropolis of the Old Testament kings of ancient Jerusalem.

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The parallel rock-cut tunnels Weill labeled T1 and T2 are still the most imposing of the “tombs.” T1 is about 54 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6 feet high. T2 is about 28 feet long, although evidence suggests it may originally have been much longer. While both tunnels are relatively simple and unadorned, T1 was divided into two levels, with the upper including a 6-foot-long rectangular depression at its far end that could have held the body or sarcophagus of the deceased.

So are these tunnels the remains of the royal Davidic necropolis of ancient Jerusalem?

Most scholar have remained unconvinced, pointing out that several features of the tunnels indicate they were more likely used as domestic cisterns or basements during the Second Temple period. But, as Jeff Zorn argues, even if these features were modified and reused during the Second Temple period (by which time any memory of where David and his descendants were buried had long since faded), this does not preclude the possibility of their original function as ancient Jerusalem royal tombs.

Those who reject Weill’s interpretation also point out that prominent Jerusalem families were able to commission much more elaborate First Temple period tombs, many of which have been found. Why then would Judah’s Old Testament kings have been buried in such simple, unadorned sepulchers?

Jeff Zorn argues that the plain tombs discovered by Weill are much more characteristic of the relatively simple royal tombs known from Late Bronze and early Iron Age sites throughout the Near East. As such, Weill’s tombs very well could be the tombs of Jerusalem’s earliest Old Testament kings, whose final resting places would have been made to look like the royal tombs of their contemporaries.

To continue learning about the ancient Jerusalem tombs discovered by Weill, read Jeffrey Zorn’s “Is T1 David’s Tomb?,” Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2012.

To view web-exclusive details of the site, visit “King David’s Tomb–A Closer Look”.

A version of this post first appeared in Bible History Daily in 2012.

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The post Where Were the Old Testament Kings of Ancient Jerusalem Buried? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Proposed reconstruction of the second Jerusalem temple. Illustration: Shalom Kveller, City of David.

Solomon’s Jerusalem Temple is easily one of the most central and important buildings in the Hebrew Bible. However, an archaeological discovery suggests that for much of the First Temple period (c. 1000–586 BCE), Solomon’s Temple was not the only place of worship in Jerusalem. On the eastern slopes of the City of David, just a few hundred yards away from the Temple Mount, archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority claim to have uncovered a second temple.

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A Shocking Discovery

At over 2,300 square feet and partly dug into the side of the hill, the cultic site is made up of eight rock-hewn rooms, each containing different installations, including an altar, a massebah (standing stone), an oil press, and a winepress. The oil and winepress were probably used for preparing offerings to the temple’s deity (represented by the massebah), and the altar, which included a drainage channel, might have been the site of sacrifices. According to the researchers, who published their results in the journal ‘Atiqot, the temple was most likely built in the 16th century BCE—at the very end of the Middle Bronze Age—and went out of use in the eighth century BCE, around the time of King Hezekiah.

A carved installation identified as an altar, with a channel for liquid drainage. Kobi Harati, City of David.

According to Eli Shukron, director of the excavation, “The structure ceased to function during the eighth century, possibly as part of King Hezekiah’s religious reform. According to the Bible, Hezekiah sought to centralize worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, abolishing the ritual sites scattered across the kingdom. The Bible describes how, during the First Temple period, additional ritual sites operated outside the Temple, and two kings of Judah—Hezekiah and Josiah—implemented reforms to eliminate these sites and concentrate worship at the Temple.”

Another room of the temple featured mysterious V-shaped carvings on the floor. According to the excavation team, the carvings may have been used for preparing liquids, or as the base for a loom or perhaps a tripod structure used for ritual activities. At one end of the room, a small cave was carved into the hill that contained a stash of objects dating to the eighth century. Among the objects were cooking pots, jars bearing fragments of Hebrew writing, loom weights, scarabs, stamp seals, and grinding stones. The inscriptions may have served magical purposes or had some other religious meaning. The cave was carefully sealed before the building went out of use, which may suggest it was used as a favissa, a cultic storage place.

The V-shaped floor carvings with the doorway to the favissa behind them. Courtesy Kobi Harati, City of David.

The temple itself is quite different from other Iron Age temples. “A key characteristic of this compound is its construction within rock-cut chambers,” Helena Roth, one of the report’s authors, told Bible History Daily. This is a “unique feature compared to other Iron Age cultic compounds in the region, which are typically stone-built. While some architectural elements, such as the small back chamber hosting the standing stone, align with known Iron Age temples, the lack of an apparent eastern wall raises questions about its function. It is possible that this was a ceremonial temple, open to the valley and the opposite slope.”

Despite clear differences with other Iron Age temples, such as the lack of a tripartite structure, the researchers are still quite confident in their assessment of it as a cultic site. “This is indicated by the discovery of a massebah and its platform, the carefully sealed favissa, and the unique and significant artifacts,” continued Roth. “While no in situ finds were located due to the rooms being sealed after their floors were cleared, the nature of these artifacts points towards a centralized institution, possibly a temple.”

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Illustration of the carved rooms discovered in the City of David. Illustration: Shalom Kveller, City of David.

If the researchers are correct in their interpretation, the discovery of this second temple is shocking, not only because it appears to run counter to the biblical impression that Solomon’s Temple was the sole place of worship in Jerusalem, but there are also very few known temples in the whole kingdom of Judah from this time. A few notable exceptions have been discovered at sites like Arad, Beer Sheva, Lachish, and Moza. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to determine which deity (or deities) was worshiped in this newly discovered temple. However, it seems unlikely that it was a place of worship for the Israelite god Yahweh, as it would be unusual to have two temples to the same deity within such proximity. Nonetheless, the careful way in which the temple appears to have been decommissioned, with its standing stone left upright, is reminiscent of the Arad temple, which is often believed to have been dedicated to Yahweh.

This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on January 20, 2025.

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A connection between Solomon and Sheba? Is this seven-letter inscription evidence of a possible trade network? Courtesy Daniel Vainstub; all rights reserved © Dr. Eilat Mazar.

The story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is one of the more intriguing accounts found within the narrative of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 10). Yet the lack of clear archaeological or historical evidence for early trade or political connections between ancient Judah and South Arabia has led many scholars to question the account’s reliability. Now, a study published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology suggests that a small inscription from the excavations at Jerusalem’s Ophel may provide just such proof.

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Solomon and Sheba: A New Proposal

Discovered in 2012 during excavations at the Ophel by the late Eilat Mazar, the small inscription, which includes just seven letters, has puzzled scholars for years. While most have assumed the inscription is written in Canaanite, Daniel Vainstub of Ben-Gurion University now believes it is written in an Ancient South Arabian script known as Sabaic, the language of the ancient kingdom of Saba (biblical Sheba) in the area of modern Yemen.

View of the Ophel excavation area as seen from the Mount of Olives. Courtesy Nathan Steinmeyer.

Dated to the tenth century BCE—the time of the biblical King Solomon—the inscription could provide evidence of trade connections between ancient South Arabia and Jerusalem during this early period. According to Vainstub, the inscription contains three full or partially preserved words: [ ]šy ldn 5. (Vainstub believes the South Arabian letter ḫ was used to designate the number 5.) Intriguingly, the second word, which Vainstub reads as ladanum, is a type of resin possibly to be identified with onycha, one of the ingredients used to create incense burned at the tabernacle (Exodus 30:34).

Vainstub holding the inscription. Courtesy Daniel Vainstub.

The inscription was engraved below on a large Judahite-style storage jar. Although only fragments of the jar were preserved, the profile suggests it originally held around 30 gallons, or 5 ephahs, the standard volume measure in ancient Judah. According to Vainstub, this suggests that the number 5 within the inscription indicates the amount of resin that was held by the jar.

Given that the Sabaic inscription was made before the jar was fired, it was likely written by a native Sabaean, possibly even someone living in Jerusalem. As posited by Vainstub, this suggests “that a Sabaean functionary entrusted with aromatic components of incense was active in Jerusalem by the time of King Solomon.”

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Solomon and Sheba: The Linguistic and Epigraphic Debate

Not everyone is convinced by Vainstub’s reading or interpretation, however. “Which is more likely, that we have in this Jerusalem inscription the Canaanite script, which is well attested in the Levantine world, or that we have a tenth-century early Arabian script?” cautioned Christopher Rollston, Professor of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at George Washington University, in a communication with Bible History Daily. “I would suggest that even if we believe that this inscription refers to some aromatic, it still makes the most sense simply to say that it was a Canaanite inscription about an aromatic spice. After all, the Levantine world was certainly interested in incense, and this piece of pottery is a locally made pot!”

Vainstub, however, is undeterred by such criticism. “In my opinion, the inscription cannot be considered Canaanite,” told Bible History Daily. “For ten years, researchers intended unsuccessfully to read it as a coherent text in Canaanite.” As Vainstub points out, several letters are quite difficult to understand as Canaanite, while one letter (the ḫ which designates the number 5) can “by no means fit any Canaanite letter, but fits exactly the Ancient South Arabian ḫ.”

Other questions regarding Vainstrub’s reading remain. One problem is the close similarity between the Sabaic and Canaanite scripts and the fact that the Ancient South Arabian script of the first millennium BCE was born of the earlier Canaanite script. Thus, while Vainstrub’s interpretation is possible, there is little way for epigraphers to know for certain.

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Solomon and Sheba: Ancient Trade

But if Vainstub’s interpretation is correct, the small inscription—discovered just 300 yards from the presumed location of Solomon’s Temple—could offer important evidence of early trade connections between Judah and South Arabia and, therefore, the historicity of the biblical story of Solomon and Sheba.

Proposed reconstruction of the trade route. Courtesy Daniel Vainstub.

Over the past decades, archaeological and textual evidence from the Sabaean kingdom has provided a great deal of new information about the ancient Yemeni civilization. According to the press release from the Hebrew University:

During the 10th century BCE, the Kingdom of Sheba thrived as a result of the cultivation and marketing of perfume and incense plants, with Ma’rib as its capital. They developed advanced irrigation methods for the fields growing the plants used to make perfumes and incense. Their language was a South Semitic one. King Solomon is described in the Bible as controlling the trade routes in the Negev, which Sabaean camel caravans carrying perfumes and incense plants passed through on their way to Mediterranean ports for export.

If such a trade network existed by the tenth century, control over this trade could have been one of the main reasons for Pharaoh Sheshonq’s (biblical Shishak’s) campaign into the southern Levant during the reign of Solomon’s son and successor, Rehoboam.

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on April 10, 2023.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Who Is the Queen of Sheba in the Bible?

Expedition Claims Evidence of Queen of Sheba Found in Ethiopia

Sheba on the Front Lines

Searching for Solomon

Solomon, Socrates and Aristotle

King Solomon at Gezer

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The Legend of Solomon and Sheba

Excavating the Land of Sheba

Solomon & Sheba, Inc.

Arabia or Africa: Where Is the Land of Sheba?

How We Know When Solomon Ruled

Solomon’s Egyptian Bride: Artful Alliance or Biblical Boast?

The post Archaeological Evidence of Solomon and Sheba? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Map of Ammon, Moab and Edom. Map by Biblical Archaeology Society.

When the kingdoms of Israel and Judah controlled the land of Canaan, the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom ruled east of the Jordan. Although the Bible offers information about these three Iron Age kingdoms, recent archaeological discoveries are bringing to light a fuller picture of them. In his article “Ammon, Moab and Edom: Gods and Kingdoms East of the Jordan,” published in the November/December 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Joel S. Burnett examines the incredible archaeological discoveries from Ammon, Moab and Edom.

Who were the Ammonites?

Ammonite king. Standing more than 6.5 feet tall and dating to the Iron Age, this statue of an Ammonite king was uncovered in 2010 at Amman, Jordan. Who were the Ammonites? In the Bible and from archaeology, a full picture of the Ammonites is emerging. Photo: Joel S. Burnett

In the Bible, they are described as being descendants of Ben-ammi, who was the son of Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and Lot’s younger daughter (Genesis 19:38). The capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Ammon was Rabbah, which is located at modern-day Amman, Jordan. Burnett describes the boundaries of Ammon: “The Ammonite heartland comprised the north-central Transjordanian Plateau encircled by the upper Jabbok … within a 12.5-mile radius of its capital at the headwaters of the Jabbok.” The Ammonites’ primary deity was the god Milcom. Depictions of Milcom have been uncovered through archaeological excavations—as have representations of Ammonite kings, such as the monumental statue uncovered at Rabbah in 2010.

Who were the Moabites?

We learn about the Moabites in the Bible and in the famous Mesha Stele. Photo: “Stèle de Mésha” by Mbzt 2012 is licensed under CC-by-3.0

In the Bible, the Moabites are said to have descended from Moab, the son of Lot and his oldest daughter (Genesis 19:37). The kingdom of Moab stretched “north and south of the Arnon River” with its capital at Dibon. The Moabites worshiped the god Chemosh, who may be depicted in the Balua‘ Stele (dated to the end of Late Bronze Age). The most famous Moabite king—from the archaeological record at least—is Mesha. The large inscription he left behind is the longest Moabite text. Dating to the ninth century B.C.E., the Mesha Stele describes how King Mesha rescued the Moabites from Israelite rule.

Who were the Edomites?

Wearing a three-horned headdress, this Edomite goddess figurine was discovered at Horvat Qitmit. Photo: “Edomite Goddess, Qitmit” by Chamberi is licensed under CC-by-SA-3.0

In the Bible, the Edomites are the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin and Isaac’s oldest son (Genesis 36). The Edomites controlled an area east of the Arabah, from the Zered to the Gulf of Aqaba. Their capital was Bozrah, which sat in the northern part of their territory. Although no name of an Edomite deity is given in the Bible, archaeologists know from inscriptions that the Edomites’ principal deity was Qaus (or Qos). Several Edomite places of worship and cultic figurines have been uncovered. One of the most notable is the depiction of an Edomite goddess wearing a three-horned headdress from the site of Qitmit, Israel.

The kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom fought with the Israelites and the Judahites over territory. The Bible presents things from the Israelites’ and Judahites’ point of view, and archaeological discoveries help show us the other side. By looking at what these ancient peoples wrote and left behind, we are able to better understand their perspective. We now have a fuller picture of their kings, gods and daily life.

To learn more about the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom, read Joel S. Burnett’s comprehensive article “Ammon, Moab and Edom: Gods and Kingdoms East of the Jordan,” in the November/December 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Ammon, Moab and Edom: Gods and Kingdoms East of the Jordan,” by Joel S. Burnett in the November/December 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on October 12, 2016.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

First Person: Human Sacrifice to an Ammonite God?

Bible Artifacts Found Outside the Trench: The Moabite Stone

The Edomite Stronghold of Sela

Where Is Sodom?

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What Ever Happened to the Ammonites?

“Rabbath of the Ammonites”

Moab Comes to Life

Why the Moabite Stone Was Blown to Pieces

New Light on the Edomites

Edomites Advance into Judah

The post Who Were the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the Bible? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Assyrian cylinder seal from Horvat Tevet. Courtesy Omer Peleg et al.

What can a burial tell us about Assyrian administrative control over ancient Israel? Maybe a lot more than we think. Publishing in the journal Tel Aviv, archaeologists excavating at the site of Horvat Tevet in the Jezreel Valley suggest that a single grave may hold a major clue to understanding Assyrian administrative policy in the region they conquered from the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the seventh century BCE.

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Cremating a Clue

Horvat Tevet is about 10 miles northeast of the important city of Megiddo, which, during the period of Assyrian rule, was the capital of the imperial province of Megiddu. Across numerous periods, including under the Egyptians and the northern Israelite kingdom, Horvat Tevet served as an administrative hub and royal estate. However, like many sites in the strategically important Jezreel Valley, Horvat Tevet shrank in size and importance under the Assyrians, leading many archaeologists to suggest that the Assyrians neglected the region. That conclusion might now be challenged by an intriguing grave discovered at the site.

Plan and section drawing prepared by Elena Ilana Delerzon, IAA. Courtesy of Karen Covello-Paran and Omer Sergi, the Ḥorvat Tevet Expedition.

For those unfamiliar with the burial customs of the time, the grave at Horvat Tevet seems rather mundane. But when compared to other ancient Levantine burials, it is obvious that something is amiss. The burial consists of two separate burial pits, one of which is a cremation burial, a rarity in the Iron Age Levant (c. 1200–586 BCE). But even the more typical inhumation burial found alongside it was unusual, as the body was found in the fetal rather than supine position. The uniqueness does not stop there, however.

The Horvat Tevet cremains were spread across three separate urns, with a large quantity of grave goods found both inside and outside of the vessels. These included faience amulets, an alabastron, a stone weight, a cylinder seal, a glazed Assyrian bottle, various metal objects, ceramics, and nearly 100 beads. Although some of these objects were made locally, many were imported, largely from Philistia and Phoenicia but also Egypt and even Assyria.

While several features of the Horvat Tevet burial are unusual, the burial site itself is equally puzzling, at least until compared with burials known from Assyria. Indeed, many Assyrian cities and strongholds feature strikingly similar graves. Clearly, then, the grave at Horvat Tevet is connected to Assyrian burial practices, while the wealth of objects indicates the deceased came from among the higher echelons of local society.

How, then, does this relate to Assyria’s administration of the former Northern Kingdom? Although Megiddo was an Assyrian provincial capital, Horvat Tevet seems to have been less important, yet the grave is both rich and distinctly Assyrian. According to archaeologists, such a burial would have served to connect the deceased to the land around them. They suggest the individual may have lived at Megiddo, with their body transported to Horvat Tevet for burial. This connection, they argue, may help explain the apparent lack of development in the Jezreel Valley. Across other areas of Assyrian control, the Assyrians dedicated certain areas as royal agricultural territory, to be managed by local elites on behalf of the imperial administration. Under this assumption, the lack of development in the Jezreel did not reflect a lack of administrative oversight, but rather was an expression of Assyrian agricultural policy.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily

An Assyrian Letter to the King of Judah

An Assyrian Genie in First Temple Jerusalem

Uncovering a Buried Assyrian Capital

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Assyrian Palace Discovered in Ashdod

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Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death

The post Israel Under Assyrian Rule appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Hershel Shanks

Amihai Mazar (better known as Ami) is one of Israel’s most highly regarded archaeologists. He recently retired from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I remember long ago when I featured him on the cover of BAR together with his famous uncle, Benjamin Mazar, a former president of the Hebrew University and a famous archaeologist; Ami was angry. He didn’t want to be pictured with his uncle. Ami wanted to make it on his own—not because of his relationship to his distinguished uncle. Well, Ami certainly has now made it on his own.

This is by way of introducing a seminal article that he recently published that includes a critical assessment of the historicity of the United Monarchy of Israel. It is a thoroughly balanced review of the matter, considering both the Biblical text and the archaeological evidence. It is too detailed to rehearse here in detail—and, as he says, it’s “highly specialized and complicated”—but it is worthwhile just to set forth the issues and Ami’s conclusions.¹

The Biblical narratives, he tells us, although written hundreds of years after the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, “retain memories of reality.” It’s these “cultural memories … embedded in the Biblical narratives” that are sometimes captured with the help of archaeology. And the “contribution of archaeology to the study of the past ever increases.”

His conclusion is quite nuanced: “I adhere to the moderate views which, in spite of considerable variations and degrees of confidence, agree that the [Biblical] authors worked with ancient sources, including oral and written narratives, transmitted poetry, archival documents, public inscriptions, etc.” Although not written in the tenth century B.C.E. (the time of the United Monarchy), the Biblical narratives “retain memories of realities rooted in that century.”

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Let’s begin by considering the famous passage in 1 Kings 9:15–19, which tells us that King Solomon fortified Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. The great Israeli archaeologist Yigal Yadin long ago attributed the three impressive six-chambered city gates at these three major sites to the time of Solomon. For a long time, this dating was considered secure. Then Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University came along with his “Low Chronology,” according to which he extends the time of the relevant archaeological period—Iron IIA—by 80–100 years or so, long after King Solomon’s time. Thus he dates these gates to a later time in the Iron IIA, initially about a hundred years later, probably to the time of King Ahab. Ami Mazar disagrees with Finkelstein and convincingly argues that, although some time adjustment should be made in the length of the archaeological period involved, these monumental gates “cannot be dated later than the tenth century [B.C.E.],” the time of King Solomon.

Gezer. Photo: Courtesy Steve Ortiz.

If Iron IIA extended into the ninth century B.C.E., Finkelstein could be right that the gates were later than Solomon’s time. But there is no doubt that it began in the tenth century B.C.E. Thus the gates could also be from the tenth century B.C.E. “The question of dating the monumental structures at Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer,” writes Ami Mazar, “remains in my view unresolved. The evidence is ambivalent, and a tenth century date for this architecture remains plausible. Thus 1 Kings 9:15–19 can still be taken as a source relating to tenth-century B.C.E. reality.” Perhaps there were two phases to Iron IIA, early and late, but “the date of the transition between these two sub-phases is not entirely clear.” (This tells you why the dating of potsherds is so important in archaeology; subtle changes in pottery could help us to distinguish early from late in the same period.)

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Next let’s go to Jerusalem. It was surely a small city in King David’s time, perhaps a bit more than 10 acres with about a thousand residents. Solomon’s annexation of the Temple Mount more than doubled the size of the city with a population of about 2,500 people. Although it was small, it was strong and not to be trifled with. The huge Stepped Stone Structure (SSS), rising to the height of a nine-story building, was there in the tenth century B.C.E., if not before. So was the Large Stone Structure (LSS) on top. Ami Mazar agrees with the following senior archaeologists who date this complex to the tenth century B.C.E. or slightly earlier: Kathleen Kenyon (who first came upon walls of the LSS), Yigal Shiloh, Eilat Mazar (who excavated the LSS), Jane Cahill, Margreet Steiner and Avraham Faust.

The Stepped Stone Structure. Photo: Zev Radovan.

“This immense complex [was] one of the largest structures in ancient Israel,” and the massive fortifications from the Late Bronze Age protecting the Gihon Spring and excavated by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, continued in use during the time of King David and King Solomon.

Eilat Mazar has also been excavating structures south of the Temple Mount that “must have been part of Jerusalem’s royal administrative complex” in the time of the United Monarchy. Enabling her to date this complex were large amounts of Iron IIA pottery. In his usual cautious way Ami Mazar concludes, “Although the excavator’s specific dating of these structures to the time of Solomon may be regarded as conjectural, the date cannot be far off, since the pottery in the fills is clearly Iron IIA, namely dated to the tenth to ninth centuries B.C.E.”

As to Solomon’s Temple as described in the Bible, its plan is known in temple architecture of the Levant since the second millennium B.C.E. and continues into the Iron Age. Although archaeology cannot determine whether Solomon was the builder of the Temple, “the Bible does not hint at any other king who may have founded such a temple.”

That there was a central government ruling the United Monarchy is shown by the recent excavation of Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a site in the Judahite Shephelah on the border with the Philistines.^a Although a small site, Qeiyafa was protected with a massive casemate wall surrounding the site and a large public building on the summit. It was occupied only briefly in the late 11th or early 10th century B.C.E., the time of kings Saul and David. As Ami Mazar observes, “There must have been a central authority that initiated this well-planned building operation. … While no Canaanite parallels are known for either the city plan or the fortifications,² these are a prototype for later Judean [Judahite] towns, such as Beth Shemesh, Tel en-Nasbeh (Biblical Mizpah), Tel Beit Mirsim and Beersheba.”

Finally, Solomon’s kingdom appears to have been backed up with an elaborate metallurgical industry. Initially the vast copper mining operation in the Wadi Feinan in Jordan^b was associated with the Edomites who inhabited the high plateau above the mines. But there is no evidence of these settlements in Edom earlier than the eighth century B.C.E. Instead, these copper mines at the base reflect an affinity with a similar copper mining and smelting operation in the Timnah Valley in the Negev of Israel.^c “It is now clear,” Ami Mazar tells us, “that large-scale copper mining and smelting industry flourished in the Arabah Valley throughout the late eleventh, tenth and ninth centuries [B.C.E. The structures in Feinan] indicate that the industry was administered and controlled by a central authority” and worked by a tribal-state of semi-nomads.

This should be enough to entice the more scholarly minded to explore the additional and often powerful details in Ami Mazar’s trenchant article, evidencing the existence and nature of Israel’s United Monarchy ruled by Saul, David and Solomon. Yes, they very likely were actual historical figures, and they had a kingdom—although not nearly so vast as the Bible describes. Much of the Biblical text is what Ami Mazar recognizes as being of a “literary-legendary nature.”

First Person: Did the Kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon Actually Exist? by Hershel Shanks was originally published in Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2017. This article was first published on BHD on September 11, 2017.

Notes

a. Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel and Martin Klingbeil, An Ending and a Beginning, BAR, November/December 2013.

b. See Mohammad Najjar and Thomas E. Levy, Condemned to the Mines—Copper Production and Christian Persecution, BAR, November/December 2011; Thomas E. Levy and Mohammad Najjar, Edom and Copper: The Emergence of Ancient Israel’s Rival, BAR, July/August 2006.

c. Hershel Shanks, First Person: Life Was Not So Bad for Smelters, BAR, January/February 2015.

1. Amihai Mazar, “Archaeology and the Bible: Reflections on Historical Memory in the Deuteronomistic History,” in C.M. Maier, ed., Congress Volume Munich 2013, Vetus Testamentum Supplements (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 347–369.

2. For this and other reasons, Ami Mazar rejects Nadav Na’man’s suggestion that Qeiyafa is a Canaanite town.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Ancient Samaria and Jerusalem

Beth Shean in the Bible and Archaeology

The Tel Dan Inscription: The First Historical Evidence of King David from the Bible

Searching for the Temple of King Solomon

Hazor Excavations’ Amnon Ben-Tor Reveals Who Conquered Biblical Canaanites

Early Bronze Age: Megiddo’s Great Temple and the Birth of Urban Culture in the Levant

The “High Place” at Tel Gezer

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