Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa (خربة قيافة), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (חורבת קייאפה), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE.

Overview

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 reign 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 Jerusalem.

Notable Stuctures

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".

circa 950 BCE

Southern Gate

circa 950 BCE

Stable?

Notable Artefacts

circa 3000 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

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 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.

Gallery

See Also

• Vallery of Elah
• Tel Jarmuth
• Horvat Midras
• Bethlehem
• Tel Beit Shemesh
• Khirbet Hanoot
• Tel Arad

References

• Rabinovitch, Ari (30 October 2008). "Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text". Reuters. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
• Na'aman, Nadav (2017). ">Was Khirbet Qeiyafa a Judahite City? The Case against It" (PDF). Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. [[Edmonton, Alberta|]]: University of Alberta. 17 (7). doi:10.5508/jhs.2017.v17.a7.
• Garfinkel, Yosef; Ganor, Saar (2008). "Khirbet Qeiyafa: Sha'arayim" (PDF). Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. 8. doi:10.5508/jhs.2008.v8.a22. ISSN 1203-1542. Archived from >the original (PDF) on October 4, 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• Catling, Chris (6 January 2009). "Elah city-fortress, Khirbet Qeiyafa". Current World Archaeology (33): 8. Archived from the original on 2015-11-26. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
• "Have Archaeologists Found King David's Palace?". Bible Gateway. 31 July 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
• "King David's Palace at Khirbet Qeiyafa?". Bible History Daily. Archived from the original on 1 August 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Fantalkin, Alexander (2012). "Khirbet Qeiyafa: An Unsensational Archaeological and Historical Interpretation". Tel Aviv. TEL AVIV, Vol. 39. 39 (1): 38–63. doi:10.1179/033443512x13226621280507. S2CID 161627736. Retrieved 20 July 2017. We cannot close this article without a comment on the sensational way in which the finds of Khirbet Qeiyafa have been communicated to both the scholarly community and the public. The idea that a single, spectacular finding can reverse the course of modern research and save the literal reading of the biblical text regarding the history of ancient Israel from critical scholarship is an old one. Its roots can be found in W.F. Albright's assault on the Wellhausen School in the early 20th century, an assault that biased archaeological, biblical and historical research for decades. This trend—in different guises—has resurfaced sporadically in recent years, with archaeology serving as a weapon to quell progress in critical scholarship. Khirbet Qeiyafa is the latest case in this genre of craving a cataclysmic defeat of critical modern scholarship by a miraculous archaeological discovery
• Fridman, Julia. Crying King David: Are the ruins found in Israel really his palace? , at Haaretz, 26 August 2013. "Not all agree that the ruins found in Khirbet Qeiyafa are of the biblical town Shaarayim, let alone the palace of ancient Israel's most famous king."
• "Israeli Antiquities Authority". www.hadashot-esi.org.il. Retrieved 2021-06-15. The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa clearly reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the late eleventh century BCE. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date.
• Selavan, Barnea Levi (August 2008). "Elah Fortress – A short history of the site". Foundation Stone. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• "Khirbet Qeiyafa Archaeological Project". Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Piasetzky, Eli (June 2010). ">Khirbet Qeiyafa: Absolute Chronology" (PDF). Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University. 37 (1): 84–88. doi:10.1179/033443510x12632070179621. S2CID 140592011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
• ">ASOR 2007 Conference abstracts" (PDF). Boston University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
• Lipschits, Oded (2014). "The History of Israel in the Biblical Period". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199978465.
• Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
• Shtull, Asaf (21 July 1993). "The Keys to the Kingdom". Haaretz. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
• Garfinkel, Yosef (May–June 2011). "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism". Biblical Archaeology Review. 37 (3). Archived from the original on 2011-09-08. Retrieved 2012-07-05.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Piasetzky, Eli (2015). "Radiocarbon dating Khirbet Qeiyafa and the Iron I–IIA phases in the Shephelah: Methodological comments and a Bayesian model". Radiocarbon, Vol 57, Nr 5.
• "Israel Antiquities Authority". Hadashot-esi.org.il. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
• "Khirbet Qeiyafa identified as biblical "Neta'im"." University of Haifa. March 4, 2010. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
• Nadav Na'aman (2008). ">Shaaraim — the gateway to the Kingdom of Judah" (PDF). Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. 8 (24). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
• "Have Israeli archaeologists found world's oldest Hebrew inscription?". Haaretz. Associated Press. October 30, 2008. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• Draper, Robert (December 2010). "David and Solomon". National Geographic. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
• Garfinkel, Yosef (2010). ">Khirbet Qeiyafa after Four Seasons of Excavations" (PDF). Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• Na'aman, Nadav (2008). "In search of the ancient name of Khirbet Qeiyafa". The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. 8. doi:10.5508/jhs.2008.v8.a21. ISSN 1203-1542. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
• Levin, Yigal (2012). "The Identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa: A New Suggestion". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 367 (367): 73–86. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.367.0073. JSTOR 10.5615/bullamerschoorie.367.0073. S2CID 163404613.
• 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.
• The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon in its Setting Benjamin SASS P:102
• Garfinkel, Yossi; Sa'ar Ganor; Michael Hasel (19 April 2012). "Horvat Qeiyafa: The Fortification of the Border of the Kingdom of Judah". Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel (HA-ESI). 124. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 1 May 2013.
• Lewis, Theodore J. (2020). The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion Through the Lens of Divinity. Oxford University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-19-007254-4. late 11th or 10th century BCE.
• Garfinkel, Yosef; Golub, Mitka R.; Misgav, Haggai; Ganor, Saar (2018). "The Eshbaal Inscription". Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 4. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. pp. 305–317. ISBN 978-965-221-119-4. Radiometric dating of the relevant layer has yielded a date of ca. 1020–980 B.C.E.
• Dever, William G. (2017). Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah. SBL Press. ISBN 978-0-88414-217-1.
• "3,000-year-old palace in Israel linked to biblical King David." NBC News, July 19, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
• Schultz, Colin (July 22, 2013). " rel="nofollow" target="_new" class="ext"Archaeologists Just Found the Biblical King David's Palace. Maybe". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 23 July 2013.