The fortress of Qeiyafa

 

The fortress of Qeiyafa has been dated by carbon dating to around 1000 BCE, which was the time of King David. It was built on bedrock, and thus was not a tell with proceeding layers of habitation. It was destroyed some 20 to 50 years after being built. The reason for this is not known. Nevertheless, archeologists love destruction, since there is a greater chance of discovering significant findings in the debris!

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In the Byzantine period, a villa was built at the site of its central Iron Age palace. However, this did not change the nature of the fortress.

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It seems very likely that this was an Israelite fortress rather than a Canaanite or Philistine one. Archeological findings also provide some intimation of religious life at the time of King David.

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Unlike the City of David, which was occupied throughout the First Temple period, there were no idols in the debris. Qeiyafa was therefore completely monotheistic. Several rooms were found which seemed to have been used for worship. One contained an altar for incense. A small model of a Temple was also found. This is of interest since its facade bears some resemblance to that of the Temple which will be built by Solomon. At the time of David there was no central shrine in the country as the sanctuary at Shilo had been destroyed by the Philistines. David did bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem but the Temple had not yet been built by David’s son Solomon.

 

No pig bones were found on the site, unlike what one would expect to find in a Canaanite or Philistine city, and the inhabitants would seem to have abided by the Jewish dietary laws.

 

This was also a place with a degree of literacy. An ostracon was found with five lines of text in proto-Canaanite script, i.e., in ancient Hebrew script. An ostracon is a shard of pottery on which was etched writing. The writing had faded after so many thousands of years, but it was possible to retrieve some of the letters using a specialized technique.

 

The exact meaning of the writing has been a matter of debate, but is something like:

 

“You shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord]

Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow]/ Judge the orph[an].

Judge the [ ] [and] the stranger/ [Pl] for the infant/ plead for the po[or and] the widow.

Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.”

(The letters in brackets are likely guesses).

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Whatever the exact meaning of these sentences, they seem very biblical in their outlook. It is unlikely that Canaanites would have been that concerned about strangers, the poor and the widow. Concern for the disadvantaged was a revolution in the ancient world that was initiated by the Torah. Jewish prophets will later rile at the breakdown of these laws, but it would seem that at the time of David they were important enough to be written down in places other than in scrolls.

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The homes within the fortress abut the walls of the fortress with a space between the two parallel walls. The space is divided into compartments or “casemates” and it is called a casement wall. It would have been used for storage and at the time of need for defensive purposes. The space could be filled with dirt and stones, which would strengthen the wall against battering rams, although this was an inferior type of wall against sophisticated armory. Casement walls are typically found in Israelite architecture from the Iron Age and are seen, for example, at Tel Beersheva, Hazor, Gezer, Megiddo and Lachish. Nevertheless, it was not an exclusively Jewish design and is found elsewhere in the Middle East, such as in some Assyrian and Hittite cities.

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The fortress is unusual in that it has two gates. One gate faces the Elah Valley and the other Azeika. The holes for the posts of the gates can be seen. The two gates raise the possibility that this the place Sha’arayim mentioned in the Bible.

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Azeika was a nearby fortress, and it is not clear why David built another one here. Both fortresses would have controlled the road to the Judean Mountains along the Elah Valley and to its main cities, such as Bethlehem. Azeika is mentioned specifically as being part of the inheritance of the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:35), although there may have been times when it passed into Philistine hands. In this instance, another fortress would have been needed to protect the Elah Valley. A more fanciful suggestion is that this was the site of Saul’s camp during the time of David’s victory over Goliath, and David built this fortress for sentimental reasons.

There is a theory in the Israeli academic archeological world, that the biblical descriptions of the early Israelite monarchy are exaggerations, and described kings such as Saul and David were no more than powerful sheiks. This theory is a reaction to early archeology in the Holy Land whose aim was prove the veracity of the Bible. This later archeology postulates that one cannot rely on the Bible, and biblical accounts for which there is no archeological proof should be regarded as suspect. This view has been promoted in particular by the archeologist Israel Finkelstein from Tel Aviv University. Nevertheless, the evidence at Qeiyafa is very convincing that the archeologist at this site Yosef Garfinel from the Hebrew University is correct and this was indeed a Jewish fortress and was elaborate enough to have been built by a functioning kingdom.