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Date of Pottery Assemblage of Khirbet Qeiyafa and Establishment of Judean Kingdom: A Reply to L. Singer-Avitz

Hoo-Goo Kang 1

1서울장신대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The period of so called “United Monarchy” became one of the most debated periods in biblical archaeology ever since Israel Finkelstein and his colleagues advocated “Low Chronology (LC)”. The Iron Age IIA, the archaeological period was challenged to be considered as a humble and poor and accordingly the Judean kingdom in the period was denied. An archaeological challenge to “LC” advocators occurred from Khirbet Qeiyafa which revealed a fortification system with two gates and a casemate city wall, epigraphic evidences, a pillared storage house, a government house and a rich pottery assemblage, all dated to the early Iron Age IIA by the excavators. The advocators of “LC” accordingly negated their dating and re-dated it to the late Iron Age I. This paper tries to reply to Singer-Avitz’s argument (2010, 2012, 2016) in seven points: (1) surface treatment, (2) krater, (3) base of storage jar, (4) black juglet, (5) Ashdod ware, (6) geographical analysis, (7) transitional period in archaeology. None of her arguments was not based on sound data and analysis, seemed to try to fit archaeological results from Khirbet Qeiyafa to main argument of “LC”. 4.1% of bowls are hand burnished on red slip; some krater types are continuous from the Iron Age I whilst the other are newly appeared in the Iron Age IIA; Khirbet Qeiyafa revealed flat as well as bases of storage jars; black juglets are mainly uncovered in the Iron Age IIA and later, while those found at Tel Beth Shemesh are attributed to Level 4 (1050-950 BCE), probably to last phase of the level; Ashdod ware was found together with the Philistine Bichrome in the Iron Age I sites in the Shephelah whilst Khirbet Qeiyafa revealed Ashdod ware without any Bichrome; in comparative analysis with 1182 cases from 62 sites excavated in ten different regions, parallels are found from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age IIB and the most paralleled period is the Iron Age IIA. All in all, Khirbet Qeiyafa in which archaeological evidences for establishment of kingdom were uncovered is reasonably dated to the early Iron Age IIA, attributed to the period of King David.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.