Impressive public buildings discovered at Tel Beit Shemesh strengthen the hypothesis that in the days of David and Solomon there was indeed a strong central government in Jerusalem
Ran Shapira
The entrance to the underground water reservoir in Tel Beit Shemesh. The supporting walls of the stair system are built of huge hewn stones weighing hundreds of kilograms
Photo: Stulman-Kessel
A corner of a monumental wall flanked by an observation tower from Sivi (Bahna); A large public building, with an area of more than 250 square meters; an underground reservoir for the time of siege, which contained about 800 cubic meters of water; and an iron processing workshop, where, among other things, dozens of arrowheads were discovered - these are some of the impressive buildings built in Tel Beit Shemesh in the second half of the tenth century and the beginning of the ninth century BC.
The wall that surrounded Tel Beit Shemesh was first discovered in excavations conducted at the site at the beginning of the 20th century by the Scottish researcher Duncan McKenzie on behalf of the British Foundation for the Exploration of the Land of Israel. McKenzie attributed its construction to the Canaanite period (XNUMXnd millennium BC), but now it becomes clear that parts of it were impressively rebuilt at the beginning of the Kingdom period in Judah.
The underground water reservoir is carved in the rock in the shape of a cross, in which there is a central space and four rectangular halls on the sides. It is plastered with thick plaster, which was repaired twice during the lifetime of the reservoir. The entrance structure to the reservoir consists of a square and deep shaft where a set of stairs wind up, some built and some hewn. The retaining walls of the stair system are built of huge hewn stones weighing hundreds of kilograms and placing them was an engineering challenge for the reservoir builder.
The iron workshop is the earliest discovered so far in the eastern Mediterranean basin. In the workshop, many blacksmiths, mouthpieces of blowers and dozens of iron items that were made or repaired there were discovered. The workshop was established in Beit Shemesh at the critical stage when iron turned from an exotic metal, the use of which was ephemeral, into an everyday metal used for the mass production of work tools and weapons. The establishment of the workshop therefore reflects the growth in the economic importance of iron technology in the tenth and ninth centuries BC and the desire of a central government to control it.
Dr. Shlomo Bonimowitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman from the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, who are managing the current round of excavations at Tel Beit Shemesh, which began back in 1990, point out that alongside all of these, a building called the "Governor's House" was also erected at the same time, a large silo and a house Warehouses. These structures were fully uncovered in the 20s by an expedition from Haberford College in Pennsylvania, which excavated large portions of the mound.
According to the researchers, the construction is not the result of a private or local initiative but bears a distinct stamp of statehood, and it transformed the settlement from a large Peroz village into an administrative city that symbolized the presence of an Israeli kingdom in the region. Thus, claim Bonimowitz and Darman, the Kingdom of Judah strengthened its position against its main rival - Philistia in its early days.
The settlement is located in the heart of the Nahal Sorak basin, a border area between two hostile populations, which witnessed many frictions between them and cultural, ethnic and political transformations that each of them caused in the other. An echo of the events in this region can be found in the Samson plots and in the story of the return of the Ark of the Covenant from its captivity in Palestine to Beit Shemesh, Israel. The establishment of the administrative city in the second half of the tenth century indicates the importance that the central government attached to strengthening the national identity of the inhabitants of the place and their firm stand against the Philistine enemy.
But more than they testify to the border city, the transformations that took place in Beit Shemesh and other cities on the border of Palestine, such as Lachish, testify to the central government in Jerusalem, say the two researchers. First and foremost, they point to its very existence, since for quite a few years there have been those who doubt the veracity of the biblical description of the kingdom in the days of David and Solomon and in the beginning of the days of the kings of Judah. The kingdom, whose existence dates back to the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries BC, is presented, according to this critical version, as the village of the image painted for it by the authors of the Bible with their great talent at the end of the royal period.
The archaeological evidence found to this day in Jerusalem seemingly strengthens the position of the kingdom's traitors. The finds from the tenth and ninth centuries BC are scarce and do not include monumental buildings or fancy tools. According to these findings, some claimed that the Jerusalem of that time was at most a small village - the capital of a magnificent kingdom that did not reside in it. A centralized kingdom arose in Israel, if at all, only about a century later than described in the Bible and Judea, in the eighth century BC.
That's why Dr. Bonimowitz and Dr. Lederman hailed the findings at Tel Beit Shemesh as finding great loot. Relying on new concepts in anthropology, which see the book regions of the states as an important social arena and a source of insight into what is happening in the political and cultural center, they offer a "view from the border" to the heart of the kingdom of Judah: even if in the heart of the kingdom, in Jerusalem, the findings are scanty, on the margins and in the border areas Like the lowland and the Be'er Sheva valley, it is possible to argue for clear signs of the existence of a central Israeli political body as early as the end of the tenth century and the beginning of the ninth century BC.
According to the researchers, we can learn about this from the sharp change in the character of the settlement at that time, as well as from the scope of a construction enterprise that was uncovered at Tel Beit Shemesh: the massive fortifications, the large public buildings, the iron workshop and the underground water reservoir could only be built by a public initiative originating in the capital, Jerusalem.
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~321170523~~~78&SiteName=hayadan
