ABSTRACT
The debate regarding the chronology of the Iron Age strata has been in the limelight for the last decade (see, among others, Ben-Tor 2000; Finkelstein 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2004; Mazar 1997, 1999a, 1999b). Although crucial 14C evidence for lowering the date of the Iron Age strata of some of the major archaeological sites in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Hazor, Tel Hadar, Kinrot, Megiddo, Taanach, Dor, and Gezer) by ca. 100 years has recently become available (Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Sharon 2001) the debate continues to rage (Bruins, van der Plicht, and Mazar 2003a, 2003b). During the Iron Age there are two key sites that hold the key to the chronological conundrum: Samaria, the royal capital, and Megiddo, the strategically located emporium. Together they epitomize the power of the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th and 9th centuries BCE. Before these two cities can be compared, however, it must first be established which stratathat is, which cities-in the stratigraphic sandwich correspond. Although both cities have been extensively excavated, the correct evaluation of the strata at both Megiddo and Samaria has been severely hindered by the excavation techniques employed, the pre-conceived conceptions of the excavators, and ill-founded interpretations based on circular reasoning. And until the relevant strata at both sites can be freed from the tangled thread that enmeshes them, no correlation can be made and no material at either site can be accurately compared. In short, the misallocation of
certain crucial Iron Age loci has resulted in a faulty stratigraphic picture that has caused the two salient Iron Age cities to be seriously misinterpreted and therefore an accurate understanding of the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th and 9th centuries BCE could not be achieved. Megiddo Past
Megiddo is a multi-layered site that was occupied continuously from the 3rd millennium BCE until the Persian period. Its strata form the cornerstone of any discussion on Iron Age chronology. Gottlieb Schumacher led the first excavation to Megiddo, from 1903 to 1905 (Schumacher 1908; Watzinger 1929). It was his excavation that first revealed the Iron Age strata that, until today, continue to fluctuate between the 10th and the 8th centuries BCE. The second expedition, and the one that has been at the heart of my analysis of the Iron Age strata, was launched by the prestigious Oriental Institute of Chicago (OI), between the years 1925 and 1939. The results were published in Megiddo I (Lamon and Shipton 1939), Megiddo II (Loud 1948), and two preliminary publications (Fisher 1929; Guy 1931). Unfortunately, during its early days the expedition was beset by difficulties, starting with the chronic illness, and subsequent retirement, of the expedition’s first director, Clarence Fisher, after just 18 months, during which time he excavated Strata I, II, sub-II, and III (the numbering system was later changed and Fisher’s Stratum III was, in the main, re-allocated to Stratum V). The latter stratum included many key pottery-rich loci (Fisher 1929: 67, Fig. 45). P.L.O. Guy replaced Fisher as director in 1927, although due to prior commitments initially he could spend only three days a week at Megiddo (Guy 1931: 9). Robert Lamon took over Fisher’s other function as excavation surveyor in 1928. Guy’s pioneering work using balloon photography (Guy 1932) enabled Lamon the freedom to oversee the excavation of the water system (Lamon 1935). Also employed in 1928, contrary to the wishes of the OI, was the young, untutored Geoffrey Shipton who was entrusted by Guy to keep records. Shipton was the nephew of the excavation’s administrator, Ralph Parker, who used his position to secure Shipton a job despite his total lack of training (unpublished correspondence, OI archives). The OI then insisted that a reluctant Guy make room for two other core members of staff, Robert Engberg (1930-34), and Herbert May (1931-34). However, in 1929, well before their arrival, Guy had already identified the King Solomon ‘stables’, attributing them and other major architectural monuments to Stratum IV, which he dated to the 10th century BCE. Guy’s reasoning: ‘Who else could have built the stables?’ (Guy 1931: 48). Guy’s tenure became increasingly plagued by arguments and animosity due to the conflicting personalities of the now-enlarged excavation team, and this sorry situation was further exacerbated by the continuing demands of a disappointed OI that continuously urged Guy to proceed at a faster pace. Another contributing factor was that Guy was the only archaeologist with prior archaeological experience, for both Engberg and May were theologians who had acquired their archaeological skills while excavating the very strata at the center of this chapter. It was this discordant group that was responsible for the excavation of these crucial Iron Age strata, although not for their publication. The writing of the final report, Megiddo I, which dealt with the five uppermost strata, including the bulk of Stratum V, the sole elements of Stratum IVB, and the stables of Stratum IV, was reluctantly entrusted by the OI to Robert Lamon and young Geoffrey Shipton. Guy was finally discharged in 1934 and thereby explicitly denied the opportunity to participate in the volume’s preparation (unpublished correspondence, OI archives), while both May and Engberg had already left the expedition to pursue their careers elsewhere. All this, combined with pre-conceived ideas regarding the factuality of the biblical references to Megiddo, proved a recipe for disaster, severely inhibiting until today our understanding of the Iron Age strata. It was only in the late 1960s that Yigael Yadin of the Hebrew University launched a number of small-scale archaeological forays to Megiddo (Yadin 1970, 1972). Following an earlier re-analysis by W.F. Albright (Albright 1943:
2-3), Yadin attributed the (post-Albright) now-amalgamated strata, Stratum VA-IVB, to the 10th century BCE (the period of Solomon) and the following strata, Stratum IV (consequently renamed Stratum IVA) to the 9th century BCE and the period of the Omride dynasty. Thus, until now the conventional view has been that Stratum V and Stratum IVB, now known as Stratum VA-IVB, must be dated to the 10th century BCE, and Stratum IV, now known as Stratum IVA, be dated to the 9th century BCE. It is these crucial strata that fashion our comprehension of the historical development not only of Megiddo but of the Northern Kingdom of Israel as a whole, during the Iron Age. Samaria Past
Unlike Megiddo, Samaria is not a multi-layered tell; rather, it is a rocky hill-top site whose primary architecture is Iron Age. Samaria also played an important political role during the Herodian period, when the site was rebuilt and renamed Sebaste. The later monumental buildings ploughed through the Iron Age strata to the bedrock, destroying stratigraphic connections and thereby blurring the chronological picture. Gottlieb Schumacher, the original excavator of Megiddo, served initially as the temporary director (in 1908) of the Harvard Expedition, which operated from 1908 to 1910. However, before long, the experienced archaeologist George Reisner took over the directorship and Clarence Fisher (who later became the first director of the OI’s expedition to Megiddo) was appointed excavation architect. They published their results in two volumes: The Harvard Expedition to Samaria I and II (Reisner, Fisher, and Lyons 1924). Intent on revealing the city founded by Omri in the 9th century BCE, they concentrated their excavation on the highest part of the summit. There they revealed a monumental building that they immediately identified as the 9th century BCE ‘Palace of Omri’, as it was clearly the earliest building founded on bedrock at the very summit of the hill (Reisner, Fisher, and Lyons 1924: I, 35, 60-61). Luckily, the actual palace building had been partially preserved due to the Herodian-period fill below the Temple to Augustus. The remains of other contemporaneous buildings west of the palace were merely hinted at by rock-cut foundation trenches and truncated walls. A large casemate wall system surrounded the palace and extended the available building area. However, it was considered to have been built after the ‘Palace of Omri’, although the latter continued to be used. This caused the Harvard Expedition, despite other clues to the contrary, to condense the possible timeframe. The deciding factor was the discovery of a large rock-cut basin located approximately 40 meters north of the ‘Palace of Omri’, adjacent to the northern stretch of the casemate wall. The basin was immediately identified as the ‘Pool of Samaria’, mentioned in 1 Kings 16.23-24 in reference to Ahab (Reisner, Fisher, and Lyons 1924: I, 112-13). Therefore, the (seemingly) adjacent casemate wall system was also attributed to Ahab, and the entire casemate complex was identified as the ‘Palace of Ahab’. Strangely, the fact that the ‘Pool of Samaria’ was buried ca. 4 meters below the plaster courtyard that abutted and co-existed with the casemates was overlooked. This error and others were aggravated by the obligation to excavate using the ‘strip’ system, namely, filling in each succeeding excavation strip with the dump from the previous strip. This meant that the architectural elements were exposed piecemeal, reburied, and never viewed in their entirety. Thus, both the ‘Palace of Omri’ and the ‘Palace of Ahab’ were attributed to the Omride dynasty"a fact that has remained unchallenged until today. The second expedition to Samaria, the Joint Expedition (1931 to 1935), was led by J.W. Crowfoot as overall director, while Kathleen Kenyon was responsible for the Iron Age (and later) remains on the summit. The stratigraphic results were published in The Buildings at Samaria (Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik 1942). The expedition attracted a great deal of attention and was
touted as an exemplary excavation, even though it, too, had to adhere to the inhibiting strip system. The Joint Expedition adopted, on the whole, the stratigraphic picture presented by the Harvard Expedition, and they did not reinvestigate the areas already excavated. The Joint Expedition agreed that there was no monumental architecture prior to the ‘Palace of Omri’, which they renamed Building Period I, while they renamed the ‘Palace of Ahab’ Building Period II (Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik 1942). Crowfoot noted that these remains resembled the recently exposed ‘Solomonic’ stratum, Stratum IVB (VA-IVB) at Megiddo (Crowfoot 1940). They thus maintained that Building Periods I and II at Samaria must have been built some short time after Megiddo IVB (VA-IVB). This theory also strengthened the concept that Building Period II followed Building Period I within a very short time period. The scenario was adjusted slightly following Yadin’s reappraisal of Megiddo, and scholars adopted the conventional view that Building Periods I and II were built at the same time as Megiddo Stratum IVB (VA-IVB). Secure Stratigraphy is Paramount
It cannot be over-emphasized that the reliability of any dating technique is directly linked to the correct analysis of the stratigraphy of the site. If the stratigraphy of a site has been misinterpreted, or more precisely, if certain crucial loci have been allocated to the wrong stratigraphic horizon, then not only the absolute, but even the relative date of the stratum in question will be incorrect. At best, vital information will be lost; at worst, theories will arise that are not founded on any secure evidence. If the stratigraphic context is secure then an inscription (in situ in its primary location), which can be associated with a historical event, is the ultimate tool for providing an absolute date. Unfortunately, at Megiddo there is only the inscribed Ramses VI’s statue base, found minus its statue, buried below a Stratum VIIB wall (Loud 1948: 135 note 1), and a broken fragment of a stele of Shishak, retrieved from one of Schumacher’s minor trenches that probed only as deep as Stratum IVA (Fisher 1929: 60-61). Since Flinders Petrie’s pioneer work on ‘sequence dating’, pottery has been used to establish the relative chronology of a site. The Megiddo pottery has formed the cornerstone of Levantine Bronze and Iron Age pottery typology as we know it today. Yet the typology established for the Iron Age II period was based on the pottery excavated during the directorships of Fisher and Guy. The typology was established according to the pottery’s stratigraphic location vis-à-vis the architecture. In other words, if the stables were attributed to Solomon then the pottery was 10th century BCE as well. These pottery assemblages were later, after Yadin, downdated to the 9th century BCE. To further complicate matters, there was also an incongruity regarding the classification of the loci, and that too had a bearing on the affiliation of the pottery. For example, pottery contained in the fill below the stable courtyard (attributed to the 9th century BCE) was classified as ‘Stratum IV fill’ while the pottery contained in the fill below the adjacent courtyard (attributed to the 10th century BCE) was classified as ‘minus-Stratum IVB’. Thus, although both fills were indistinguishable, the ‘below stable courtyard’ fill was believed to be later in date. At Samaria, the Harvard Expedition recorded only the whole pottery forms associated with the earliest monumental architecture"Building Period I (their Omri Palace period) and Building Period II (their Ahab Palace period). Due to Harvard’s interpretation of the absolute chronology the pottery typology was condensed to fit the narrow time span allowed it. In addition, neither the later Joint Expedition nor the scholars that followed could differentiate between the Building Period I and Building Period II pottery (Tappy 1992, 2001).1 This was hardly surprising, since
1. the attribution of Building Period II to Ahab had no secure foundation. 2. the Joint Expedition incorrectly attributed certain Building Period II loci to Building
Period I, in particular the loci associated with Wall 161 (Franklin 2004b: 197-98). Thus, an apparent continuity of form between the pottery from Building Periods I and II was noted by the Joint Expedition and later researchers (e.g. Tappy 1992 and 2001). This fact was erroneously considered normal, especially as these two periods were supposed to encompass only the latter part of Omri’s reign and Ahab’s reign"a period of some 70 years. In short, many of the important Iron Age II pottery typological studies cannot be used in their present format (e.g. Tappy 1992, 2001; Zimhoni 1997). The pottery from both these sites cannot be used to establish a relative chronology until the stratigraphy is reviewed and a new order imposed. Megiddo Redux
In order to understand and re-establish the relative chronology of the Iron Age, the stratigraphy of Tel Megiddo from its inception had to be examined and understood. First, an analysis of the profile of the original bedrock hill of Megiddo (Franklin and Peersmann forthcoming) provided an understanding of the pre-existing terrain and this was essential for comprehending how the builders of each successive city utilized the site. This technique allowed each consecutive city to be reconstructed, eventually providing an improved understanding of the macro-stratigraphy of the city in the 8th and 9th centuries BCE, and enabling a detailed topographic analysis of the remains, with special emphasis on the surface elevations of the Iron Age II cities. Second, it soon became clear that the original premise for establishing a separate stratum, Stratum IVB, was based on an incorrect analysis of the monumental architecture in the south of the tell. This was exacerbated by the fact that the final report was not written by, or with the consultation of, the staff members responsible for the actual excavation of the area. Stratum IVB is an imaginary stratum, and therefore so is its composite successor, Stratum VA-IVB. Following an indepth re-analysis the author was now re-assigned the architecture, from the erstwhile Stratum IVB to either Stratum V or to Stratum IV (IVA). The key element is Palace 1723, which can then be seen to be the earliest monumental building founded in Stratum V. The palace’s foundations were dug deep into the burnt mudbrick debris of Stratum VI and there were no underlying Stratum V buildings. In other words, the palace belongs to the stratum that immediately supersedes Stratum VI. In addition, the plastered courtyard, originally thought to be the courtyard of the palace, in fact covered the southern part of the palace and abutted the Stratum IV (IVA) city wall. It can be clearly shown that Palace 1723 is sandwiched between Stratum VI and Stratum IV. Furthermore, Palace 1723 and its probable atrium, Platform 1728, were approached via the adjacent Sudlich Burgtor, a monumental building (excavated by Schumacher) whose foundations were also laid into the burnt mudbrick debris of Stratum VI (Schumacher 1908: 80). This building was inexplicably attributed to Stratum VII by the Chicago Expedition (Loud 1948: Fig. 410). Other important periphery buildings flanked the palace, for example, Buildings 1A and a newly re-discovered building, Building 1648. Subsequently, during the long history of Stratum V, other ‘inner-city’ buildings were interspersed in the remaining inner-city spaces. At some point later in the history of Stratum V a new monumental periphery building, Palace 6000, was erected on the north-east side of the mound (see Fig. 18.1).
