The 23-dunam (5.7-acre) site is surrounded by a casement wall and fortifications.

Garfinkel suggests that it was a Judean city with 500–600 inhabitants during the reigns of David and Solomon.

Dig directors Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor identify Khirbet Qeiyafa with Biblical Sha’arayim, Hebrew for "two gates" (Joshua 15:36; 1 Samuel 17:52; 1 Chronicles 4:31)—a fitting name for the site. The two monumental four-chambered city gates at Khirbet Qeiyafa are located on the western and southern sides of the site and measure approximately 35 feet wide and 42 feet deep into the city. The western gate controls access to the road going west toward Philistia, while the southern one opens down to the Elah Valley that eventually connects to ancient Jerusalem.

circa 950 BCE

Western Gate
The 'western gate' or 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 Western Gate of Khirbet Qeiyafa represents a critical diagnostic feature in the archaeological assessment of the site’s tenth-century BCE strata. Characterized by its four-chambered design, the gate is integrated into a unique casemate wall system, where the chambers of the gate align precisely with the residential and defensive architecture of the settlement. This configuration is historically significant as it provides the primary evidence for identifying the site as Biblical Shaaraim—a name translating to "Two Gates"—owing to the discovery of a second, identical gate on the city's southern perimeter.

Unlike many Iron Age Levant sites where gates stand as independent bastions, this gate is physically bonded to the casemate wall, suggesting a centralized urban plan. The structure utilizes massive megalithic limestone blocks, some weighing several tons, indicating a high degree of communal labor and administrative organization. The gatehouse measures approximately 10.5x11 meters, featuring a central passage flanked by recessed rooms likely used for administrative or commercial activities.

Radiocarbon dating of olive pits found within the destruction layers associated with the gate confirms a narrow occupational window between 1020 and 980 BCE.

circa 950 BCE

Southern Gate
The Southern Gate of Khirbet Qeiyafa serves as a pivotal architectural anomaly within the context of Iron Age IIA urbanism, distinguishing the site from other contemporaneous Judean settlements which typically featured a single points of ingress. Located at the terminus of a topographically significant approach, the gate follows a four-chambered plan, constructed from massive megalithic stones. Its presence is the primary catalyst for the site’s identification with the biblical city of Shaaraim (Hebrew for "Two Gates"), as the dual-gate configuration is virtually unique among fortified cities of the period.

The Southern Gate is an exact architectural parallel to the Western Gate, integrated directly into the casemate wall system. This symmetry suggests a highly deliberate and sophisticated level of centralized urban planning. Excavations within the gate's chambers have yielded evidence of controlled storage and social activity, indicating that the structure functioned not only as a defensive bastion but as a locus for administrative and judicial oversight. While the Western Gate faces the Philistine territory of Gath, the Southern Gate faces the interior of the Judean Hills, facilitating trade and communication with the hinterland.

The discovery of the Southern Gate fundamentally shifted the archaeological discourse regarding Khirbet Qeiyafa, as it remains the only Iron Age city in the Levant discovered to date with two identical, four-chambered gates.

circa 950 BCE

Stable?

circa 1000 BCE

Proto-Canaanite Ostracon
The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon is a trapezoid-shaped potsherd, with five lines of text, discovered during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2008. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was the longest Proto-Canaanite text ever found. Carbon-14 dating of olive pips found in the same context with the ostracon and pottery analysis offer a date circa 3,000 years ago (10th century BCE). In 2010 the ostracon was placed on display in the Iron Age gallery of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

circa 1000 BCE

Portable Shrines
Three small portable shrines were also discovered. The smaller shrines are boxes shaped with different decorations showing impressive architectonic and decorative styles. Garfinkel suggested the existence of a biblical parallel regarding the existence of such shrines (2 Samuel 6). One of the shrines is decorated with two pillars and a lion. According to Garfinkel, the style and the decoration of these cultic objects are very similar to the Biblical description of some features of Solomon's Temple.

circa 1000 BCE

Išbaʿal son of Beda inscription
In 2012 an inscription in Canaanite alphabetic script was found on the shoulder of a ceramic jar. The inscription read "ʾIšbaʿal [/Ishbaal/Eshbaal] son of Beda" and was dated to the late 11th or 10th century BCE (Iron Age IIA).

circa 950 BCE

Storage Jars
These three storage jars were recovered during archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Judean lowlands. The majority of storage vessels from the site exhibit a finger impression on at least one handle, a feature interpreted by archaeologists as an administrative marker indicating incorporation into an organized governmental system. This practice is widely regarded as a precursor to the later Judean lmlk (“belonging to the king”) handle inscriptions of the Iron Age II. The jars are manufactured from locally sourced clay from the Elah Valley and were intended for the storage of foodstuffs. Their relatively modest size indicates that they were designed to be lifted and transported while filled, suggesting use within systems of collection, redistribution, or provisioning.

One of the storage jars bears an incised inscription reading “Ishbaal, son of Beda”. This inscription belongs to the very limited corpus of epigraphic material from Israel/Palestine securely dated to the 10th century BCE. Although the vessel cannot be associated with Ishbaal, the son of King Saul mentioned in the biblical tradition (1 Chronicles 8:33), the inscription provides independent evidence that the personal name “Ishbaal” was in active use during the 10th century BCE. In subsequent periods of Israelite history, personal names incorporating the theophoric element “Baal” fell out of favor, likely reflecting changing religious and ideological developments.