Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

The Date of the Beginning of Iron II

In 1996, Israel Finkelstein proposed a significant lowering of dates in the Iron I-II periods in Israel.

This sparked a debate which has often been heated in part because Finkelstein’s conclusions entail a virtual elimination of the United Monarchy as described in the Bible. This is the result of Finkelstein’s dating of the end of the Iron I period, with its poor material culture and lack of monumental construction, to the time after David and Solomon lived.

In an article published in 2008, Amihai Mazar released the results of Carbon 14 studies at four sites where “it is agreed by all that these four destructions mark the end of the Iron Age I.” He reports the results as follows:

After eliminating clear outliers, we reached the following results (all in 68% probability) (see Fig. 3, upper line, for combined averages from these four sites):
End of Qasile X: 1039-979 B.C.E.
End of Megiddo VIA: 1010-943
End of Yoqne‘am XVII: 1045-997
End of Tel Hadar: 1043-979

Just to get a better handle on the matter, I pulled out my calculator to determine the middle of the range for each site: Qasile: 1009; Megiddo: 976; Yoqneam (Jokneam): 1021; Tel Hadar: 1011. So it’s safe to say, based upon these results, that the Iron I ended and Iron II began about 1000 BC.

With the calculator still handy, I tabulated the average of the four dates. It came out to 1004 BC.

That’s a familiar number to students of biblical history who know that (1) Shishak invaded Israel in 926 BC, the fifth year of the rule of Rehoboam, such that (2) Solomon died in 931 BC, after forty years on the throne following (3) David who died in 971 and ruled for 33.5 years in Jerusalem, or 1004 BC. This 1004 BC date was acknowledged by the Municipality of Jerusalem which celebrated the 3000th anniversary of the city in 1996 (mistakenly, because of the missing year “0”).

The Carbon 14 numbers provide nothing more than ranges, with varying amounts of probability, but I thought it curious that the average date of the numbers for the beginning of Iron II just happened to be the year that David began ruling in Jerusalem.

The above quotation is from page 114 of Amihai Mazar, “From 1200 to 850 B.C.E.: Remarks on
Some Selected Archaeological Issues,” pp. 86-120 in Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.). Volume 1. The Archaeology, ed. L. L. Grabbe.

A recent article that reveals the lack of precision in Carbon 14 dating is “The Four Pillars of the Low Chronology,” by Daniel A. Frese and Thomas E. Levy, pp. 187-212 in Historical Biblical Archaeology and the Future.

Tagged 10th Century, Analysis

Weekend Roundup

More photos and a video of the gold treasure from Apollonia have been released. The value of the coins is now given (in at least one article) as $500,000.

The “Egyptian Antiquities’ Renaissance Project” has been launched in order to turn archaeology into a major source of income in Egypt.

The Museum of the Bible, featuring the collection of the Steve Green family, will open not in Dallas and not in New York, but in Washington, DC.

I wonder if you could name 6 Christian Sites in Rome You Should Know About.

Shmuel Browns describes and illustrates the newly opened archaeological site on Mount Gerizim.

Joe Yudin visits “Genesis Land” in the Judean wilderness.

The owner of a bed-and-breakfast in Sepphoris was convicted of damaged antiquities when carrying out renovations on his property.

“Israel’s Tourism Ministry is planning to upgrade the hotel strip area at the southern end of the Dead Sea….The Dead Sea was the most crowded leisure destination in Israel in 2011, with some 857,000 visitors during the year.”

Itzhak Beit-Arieh, Associate Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, has passed away.

HT: Daniel Wright, Jack Sasson

Dead Sea from the northwest
(photo source)

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Judah, Samaria

Updates from the Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavation

Luke Chandler is volunteering at the excavations on the northern side of the Elah Valley and he briefly notes a few items of interest:

An early Iron Age inscription has been discovered.
This may be the final season of excavating Khirbet Qeiyafa.
The excavators have identified the next site they wish to excavate.
Chandler has also has posted a series of photos from the first week of the dig.

Don’t miss his great photo of a sling stone!

Excavations near western gate of Khirbet Qeiyafa
(photo source)

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Shephelah

Wednesday Roundup

The scaffolding and construction material inside the Dome of the Rock have elicited an emergency petition by the Temple Mount Faithful to Israel’s Supreme Court.

In The Washington Post, Hershel Shanks describes how the Biblical Archaeology Society became caught in a dispute between the two halves of Cyprus.

Wikipedia wins: Photography is now allowed in the archaeology wing of the Israel Museum.

The first summer survey at Abel Beth Maacah was a success.

The finds keep popping out of the ground at the Philistine city of Gath. Aren Maeir is providing daily updates and photos.

The plaster at Ramat Rahel is being studied for traces of pollen in order to understand the character of the ancient royal gardens at the site south of Jerusalem.

“Scientists have used a new x-ray technique to produce spectacular 3D images of Roman coins that were corroded inside pots or blocks of soil.” The article includes a brief video.

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit formerly at New York’s Discovery Times Square and currently at the
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is moving to the Cincinnati Museum Center in November.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Tagged Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Museums, Technology, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

The Search for the Tomb of the Maccabees

Matti Friedman has written a mini-history of the search for the famous tomb of the Maccabees, concluding with today’s best hope for finding the remains:

All of which has led [IAA archaeologist Amit] Reem and other modern scholars back to the same site that drew the interest of the French diggers all those years ago.
Though Clermont-Ganneau conclusively established that the structure at Sheikh el-Gherbawy was Christian – the mosaic cross left no doubt about it – his finding might actually strengthen the possibility that the tombs are there, Reem said.
Early Christians saw the Maccabees as martyrs and would certainly have venerated their graves, he believes: In this version, the structure could have been constructed atop the lost tombs to mark their place.
In 2009, Reem made an effort to clean and investigate the site. Many of the remains the Frenchmen had seen all those years before had been long since looted, but the team used radar to peer under the ground and detected massive walls and subterranean chambers of considerable size.
The site, he noted, has remains of monumental construction; proximity to al-Midiya, which has the best claim to be ancient Modi’in; and a clear sightline to the sea. In other words, it would seem to match the criteria from the ancient writings.
Since then, Reem has been trying, without success, to drum up funding that would allow the site to be properly excavated for the first time.
“Neither I nor my colleagues are saying that this is the site of the tombs, but it’s the leading candidate,” he said. “Only a large, methodical excavation would prove or disprove the idea and solve the riddle of this place.”

The full story is here.

The modern city of Modi’in (photo source)

Tagged Excavations

Gold Coin Cache Discovered in Apollonia

A university student has discovered 108 gold coins valued at more than $100,000 in excavations of a Crusader castle about 25 miles north of Tel Aviv. From Haaretz:

A gold cache, one of the largest ever found in Israel, was discovered last week in a dig in the Apollonia National Park, near Herzliya, heads of the archaeological project said.
The 400-gram gold stash, unearthed by a joint Tel Aviv University and Nature and Parks Authority team, is currently valued at over $100,000.
The excavation began three years ago as part of work to prevent the collapse of the cliff on which the Crusader fortress in the Apollonia park stands. Since then the diggers have discovered numerous findings shedding light on the Crusaders in general and on the last days of the 13th century fortress in particular.
Findings include hundreds of arrow heads and catapult stones from the battle in which the Mamluks conquered the castle from the Crusaders. In a landfill dug at the site diggers found shards imported from Italy and rare glass utensils.

The full story is here. The Hebrew edition includes three photos.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Apollonia Crusader castle (photo source)

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Israel's Coast