Did the Phoenicians build this Iron Age City of Judah?

Archaeological site of Khirbet Qeiyafa 

No other archaeological site in recent years has received so much attention as the Iron Age fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa located near Jerusalem, Israel, perched above the Elah Valley, a stone’s throw away from the biblical setting for the epic battle between David and Goliath. Recent analysis of the finds at this site has raised the question: Did the Phoenicians build Khirbet Qeiyafa? Here we make the case that conscripted Phoenician builders were the architects and builders of this ancient Judahite city.

First, a detailed examination of the measurements used to build the city yielded a surprising result. The builders of Khirbet Qeiyafa used the Egyptian Royal Cubit (0.525 m) and the Egyptian Royal Palm (0.075 m) in the construction of the casemate fortifications that surround the city (Hagyo-Kovacs 2012: 58). So we can ask, who was using the Egyptian Royal Cubits and Palms in the region of ancient Israel in the late Iron I – early Iron IIa period? The answer: the Phoenicians!

Close-up of Phoenician Juglet from Tel Rehov

A team of Israeli researchers made the remarkable discovery that a unique type of pottery referred to as imported Phoenician globular jugs found in sites in ancient Israel during this same time, Iron Age I-IIa were based on the Egyptian Royal cubit. The circumference of these uniquely Phoenician jugs is derived from the Egyptian Royal cubit, which was exactly equivalent to a ½ Phoenician hekat (Zapassky, Gadot, Finkelstein, and Benenson 2012). The connection between the Egyptian Royal Cubit at Khirbet Qeiyafa and the use of the Egyptian Royal Cubit in Phoenician vessels is the first prong to support the case for Phoenician builders of Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Reconstruction of Temple of Solomon

 Second, the biblical tradition indicates that both King David and King Solomon hired Phoenicians to build their monumental architecture, palaces, government buildings, and the famous Temple of Solomon (cf. 2 Sam. 5:11; 1 Kings 5:15-24). While this is a biblical argument, not archaeological, it is important regardless of whether one believes the Hebrew Bible represents actual historical narratives and facts from the Kingdom of Judah or was composed much later as part of identity formation and consolidation in the Jewish Exile in Babylon and Persia, or both.

Further, based on analysis of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by Dr. Leen Ritmeyer, the original Pre-Herodian 500 square cubit platform covered an area from the remains of the wall at the bottom of the steps at the northwestern point of the Dome of the Rock platform, 262.50 m (861 feet) east to the eastern wall, the same south to the slight bend, west and then north to the starting point. When comparing the measurements made using the metric system from the outside of the walls, the result showed that the cubit used was the Royal Egyptian cubit of 0.525 m, exactly the same Royal Egyptian cubit as found used by the architects and builders of Iron Age Khirbet Qeiyafa (Ritmeyer 2012). The collective memory represented by the biblical text indicates that the Hebrews from the Kingdom of Judah and their descendants recognized the Phoenician influence on their culture, especially architectural forms that became the hallmark of Jewish identity: the Temple of Solomon. This is the second prong.

The third and final prong in the case for Phoenician architects and builders is presented by the excavator of Khirbet Qeiyafa himself, Yosef Garfinkel, joined by Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu. Garfinkel indicated that the Phoenicians may represent the “missing link” that connects the architectural tradition of the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah to the earlier Bronze Age architectural traditions from Mesopotamia and the northern Levant (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013: 156). Such a “delegation” of Phoenician architects and builders from the city-states on the Lebanese coast, who constructed the most prominent buildings of the capital city of Jerusalem, would likely have deeply impacted the “collective memory” of the residents of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013: 156).

While the research into the fascinating history of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel continues through the meticulous research of the discipline of Archaeology, we can tentatively conclude that what we see at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a massive fortified city from the late Iron I – early Iron IIa constructed by expert architects and builders, was built by the Phoenicians who represented the most advanced builders and architects in the Southern Levant during the time of the biblical Kings.

Sources:
 

Garfinkel, Y. and Mumcuoglu, M,

2013                Triglyphs and Recessed Doorframes on a Building Model from Khirbet Qeiyafa: New Light on Two Technical Terms in the Biblical Descriptions of Solomon’s Palace and Temple. IEJ 63:2. Pp. 135 – 163.

Hagyo-Kovacs, P.

2012                Urban Planning as Public Policy in Iron II Judah. M.A. Thesis. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. 14 June 2014: <http://www.rnkpublishing.com/authors/petekovacs/Hagyo-Kovacs-MA_thesis.pdf>

Ritmeyer, L.

2012                The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Carta. pp. 170-73.
[Thanks to  Joe Lauer, Brooklyn, NYC for the original authorship of this paragraph and source.]

Zapassky, E., Gadot, Y., Finkelstein, I., Benenson, I.

2012                An Ancient Relation between Units of Length and Volume Based on a Sphere. PLoS ONE 7:3. 19 September 2012:

<http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033895>