Khirbet Qeiyafa

 ( Populated Places Established In The 10th Century Bc ) 

Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa began in 2007, directed by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and continued in 2008. Nearly of an Iron Age IIA city were unearthed. Based on pottery styles and nighteen burned olive pits tested for carbon-14 at Oxford University, Garfinkel and Ganor have dated the site to 1050–970 BCE, although Israel Finkelstein contends evidence points to habitation between 1050 and 915 BCE.

The initial excavation by Ganor and Garfinkel took place from August 12 to 26, 2007 on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology. In their preliminary report at the annual ASOR conference on November 15, they presented a theory that the site was the Biblical Azekah, which until then had been exclusively associated with Tell Zakariya. In 2015 a plan to build a neighborhood on the site was cancelled, to enable the archaeological dig to go forward.

In 2017, Garfinkel claimed that Joseph Silver, the chief funder of the excavation, while walking around the exterior of the city wall in the SE part with Garfinkel and Ganor, identified features in the city wall similar to the features found by Garfinkel and Ganor in the western gate, and stated that it was a second gate.Garfinkel, Yosef, Saar Ganor, and Joseph Baruch Silver, (January-February 2017). "Rejected! Qeiyafa's Unlikely Second Gate", in: Biblical Archaeological Review, Vol.43, No.1, pp.37-43, 59. This claim was challenged. In November, with volunteers from the Bnai Akiva youth organization, the area was cleared and an excavation and reconstruction organized by Garfinkel and Ganor "yielded" the existence of that second gate. It was thought that the identification provided a solid basis for identifying the site as biblical Sha'arayim ("two gates" in Hebrew).

Also in 2017, citing publications from 2012 and 2015, Garfinkel lowered the chronology of Khirbet Qeiyafa (Stratum IV) to ca. 1000–975 BCE, considering the site as belonging to Early Iron Age IIA (ca. 1000–930 BCE).Garfinkel, Yosef, (2023). "Early City Planning in the Kingdom of Judah: Khirbet Qeiyafa, Beth Shemesh 4, Tell en-Naṣbeh, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, and Lachish V", The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, p. 100: "The early Iron Age IIA (ca. 1000–930 BCE) is characterized by the low quantities of red-slipped and irregularly hand-burnished pottery decoration, Cypriot white-painted vessels, early Ashdod Ware, and archaic (Canaanite) script. Khirbet Qeiyafa IV, Khirbet al-Ra‘i, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, Beth Shemesh 4, Arad XII, and Tel Sheva VII are dated to this phase."

Archeologists, Yosef Garfinkel, Mitka R. Golub, Haggai Misgav, and Saar Ganor rejected in 2019 the possibility that Khirbet Qeiyafa could be associated with the Philistines. They wrote: "The idea that in this chronological phase the knowledge of writing should be associated with the Philistine city state of Gath can now be rejected. While the various sites in Judah present an impressive assemblage of inscriptions, all we have from the intensive twenty-year excavations at Tell es-Safi (Gath) is one poorly executed inscription of seven letters. Indeed, the city state of Gath, like all other Philistine city states (Ashkelon, Ashdod, Eqron) and all the Canaanite Late Bronze Age city states, managed their administration without the use of writing. On the other hand, the rise of a nation state required the intensification of social, administrative and economic networks and increased the need for communication".

Yehuda Dagan of the Israel Antiquities Authority also disagrees with the identification as Sha'arayim. Dagan believes the ancient Philistine retreat route, after their defeat in the battle at the Valley of Elah (), more likely identifies Sha'arayim with the remains of Khirbet esh-Shari'a. Dagan proposes that Khirbet Qeiyafa be identified with biblical Adithaim (). Nadav Na'aman of Tel Aviv University doubts that Sha'arayim means "two gates" at all, citing multiple scholarly opinions that the suffix -ayim in ancient place names is not the dual suffix used for ordinary words. The fortifications at Khirbet Qeiyafa predate those of contemporary Lachish, Beersheba, Tel Arad, and Timnah. All these sites have yielded pottery dated to early Iron Age II. The parallel valley to the north, mentioned in Samuel I, runs from the Philistine city of Ekron to Tel Beit Shemesh. The city gate of the Elah Fortress faces west with a path down to the road leading to the sea, and was thus named "Gath Gate" or "Sea Gate." The site is surrounded by a Casemate wall and fortifications.

Garfinkel suggests that it was a Judean city with 500–600 inhabitants during the reign of David and Solomon. Based on pottery finds at Qeiyafa and Gath, archaeologists believe the sites belonged to two distinct ethnic groups. "The finds have not yet established who the residents were," says Aren Maeir, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist digging at Gath. "It will become more clear if, for example, evidence of the local diet is found. Excavations have shown that Philistines ate dogs and pigs, while Israelites did not. The nature of the ceramic shards found at the site suggest residents might have been neither Israelites nor Philistines but members of a third, forgotten people." Evidence that the city was not Philistine comes from the private houses that abut the city wall, an arrangement that was not used in Philistine cities. There is also evidence of equipment for baking flat bread and hundreds of bones from goats, cattle, sheep, and fish. Significantly, no pig bones have been uncovered, suggesting that the city was not Philistine or Canaanite. Nadav Na'aman of Tel Aviv University nevertheless associates it with Philistine Gath, citing the necessity for further excavations as well as evidence from Bet Shemesh whose inhabitants also avoided eating pork, yet were associated with Ekron. Na'aman proposed identification with the Philistine city of Gob, whereas Garfinkel wrote that the site may actually point to the biblical Azekah, owing to its proximity to Socho and the valley of Elah that separated the two sites.

Yigal Levin has proposed that the ma'gal (מעגל) or "circular camp" of the Israelites which is mentioned in the story of David and Goliath () was described this way because it fitted the circular shape of the nearby Khirbet Qeiyafa. Levin argues that the story of David and Goliath is set decades before Khirbet Qeiyafa was built and so the reference to Israel's encampment at the ma'gal probably does "not represent any particular historical event at all". But when the story was composed centuries later, the round structure of Khirbet Qeiyafa "would still have been visible and known to the author of ", who "guessed its function, and worked it into his story". Garfinkel and his colleagues have suggested that the identification with the ma'gal is unconvincing as the term is used to refer to a military camp/outpost, whereas Khirbet Qeiyafa was a fortified city.Garfinkel, Yosef & Igor Kreimerman, Peter Zilberg. Debating Khirbet Qeiyafa: A Fortified City in Judah from the Time of King David, Israel Exploration Society (2016), pg. 190

Benyamin Saas, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv university, analyzed the dating, ethnic and political affiliation of Khirbet Qeiyafa as well as the language of the ostracon. "A dating in the Iron I–II transition, the mid 10th century, assuming the alphabet has just begun its move out of Philistia then could just make a Jerusalem link and Judahite Hebrew language possible for the ostracon. On such a background Qeiyafa may even be considered Davidic. With the oval plan of its casemate wall crowning a summit, Qeiyafa could be assumed to emulate Jerusalem." Saas concludes.The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon in its Setting Benjamin SASS P:102

At the center of the upper city is a large rectangular enclosure with spacious rooms on the south, equivalent to similar enclosures found at royal cities such as Samaria, Lachish, and Ramat Rachel.

On the southern slope, outside the city, there are Iron Age rock-cut tombs.

The site, according to Garfinkel, has "a town plan characteristic of the Kingdom of Judah that is also known from other sites, e.g., Beit Shemesh, Tell en-Nasbeh, Tell Beit Mirsim and Beersheba. A casemate wall was built at all of these sites and the city’s houses next to it incorporated the casemates as one of the dwelling's rooms. This model is not known from any Canaanite, Philistine or Kingdom of Israel site."

The site is massively fortified, "including the use of stones that weigh up to eight tons apiece."