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It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today's episode, the latest in our Old Testament miniseries, where it is all about the rise and fall of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Now, this is a kingdom that supposedly emerged in the southern Levant in the late 2nd millennium BC and is central to some key names from the Old Testament, kings such as Saul, David, and Solomon.
Most, if not all, of the information about this kingdom comes from the Hebrew Bible. There is also archaeology, but as you'll hear, how this archaeology has been interpreted in the past to try and prove the existence of this kingdom... Well, it is very problematic. Today, we're going to explore both the biblical account and the archaeology for the Hotsley-contested topic that is the Kingdom of Israel.
To talk through all of this and more, I headed to the Palestine Exploration Fund charity in Greenwich to interview the archaeologist and author Felicity Copping. Felicity, she has been on the podcast once before to explain all about Jericho. its many layers of archaeology dating back 10,000 years to the Stone Age, and of course, the biblical story. That was a really great episode, so be sure to check it out after you've listened to this one. I really do hope.
you enjoy. Felicity it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast today. Thank you very much for having me back. You're more than welcome. And it is quite a topic we are talking about today. The Kingdom of Israel. Now, first off, what do archaeologists and biblical scholars, what do they mean? when they say the kingdom of Israel? Well, in the first instance, they're referring to the period in the Bible after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites.
when the united monarchy under David is founded. So you have this period of conquest of the introduction, let's say, of the Israelites into the land of Canaan. You have the... Reign of Saul, who's an interesting character, I think it's fair to say. As we're going to explore, yeah. And then you have the apex of the storyline in the founding of the kingdom proper under...
David, and then emerging butterfly-like into the wonderful empire of Solomon. That is the biblical account, I should stress. That is what the biblical account says. And in terms of date, well, this is a question. Most people would put these events. Between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the emergence of the Iron Age, so between the late 12th and the late 10th, early 9th centuries BC.
And in the storyline of the Old Testament, and I know it's much more complicated than just a linear narrative, the Old Testament, but this is following the death of Moses atop Mount Nebo. The last chat we did together was all about Jericho and the archaeology of Jericho. exploring the biblical story of Joshua. And so this follows all of that in the account, isn't it? This is where it's all leading to. This is the whole point of that entire narrative, right from...
The beginning, right from Abraham onwards. This is where this narrative is leading to. And we're going to be exploring the whole, the kingdom of Israel, looking at the literature, and then really interestingly, the archaeology, what is known of the archaeology.
But you mentioned the biblical account. Is this our main literary source, our only literary source for the story of the kingdom of Israel? Oh, yes, absolutely. It is our only source. So we don't have another version, unlike the flood epic, of course, which we know. now has quite a history and goes back an awfully long way. This is our only account of this story. And the version that we have is one which I think is
one that was touched on in the episode on the Exodus. This was a conglomeration which was written down at some point. after those events, possibly quite a long time after any events. And so, you know, it's not like a straightforward historical account. It's not like BBC News. It's a looking back.
at something rather than an eyewitness account. And before, of course, because when this is set, this is before the Hebrew language, the Hebrew is written down. So is it like an oral tradition that they're building upon kind of thing? Well, when the...
Writing the alphabetic script, which we know as West Semitic script emerges, is something that's really interesting and it's actually around for quite a long time. The first... bit of evidence we have goes all the way back to the middle bronze age oh wow yeah and it's some clever canaanite writing something and instead of the cuneiform tablets which are terribly terribly
cuneiform script, which is syllabic in construction. So every sound has to have another sign. So shesho, shi, shashu all have to have separate sounds. This is based on the consonants that you make. And then you add back a few little indicators to indicate the vowels. So instead of she, she, she, she, you have sh. And you reduce the number of signs down to...
About 26, funnily enough. Well, thank you for clarifying that for me straight on the off. And it was also very great hearing your answer just then, the references to... a fantastic episode with Irving Finkel on Noah's Ark and the Flood, and with Dylan Johnson on Moses and the Exodus. So you've definitely done your homework for this. I have indeed, yes. And so we've highlighted that the Bible and the Old Testament is our main source for the Kingdom of Israel.
But talk to me a bit about the archaeology. Is there archaeological evidence from the ancient kingdom of Israel that we can use to add a bit more to this story? The problem is that people assumed... When they went out to excavate in 19th century and 20th century Palestine and Israel, Jordan, they went out assuming that they would find the remnants of this narrative in the soil.
as they dug through it and as we've heard that that isn't always the case and that assumption is for some people an assumption and when that didn't happen it was like okay that's not what we're getting never mind this is we're getting something else for some people it's a need and so there is a problem with the way in which archaeology has often been carried out, particularly for the archaeology of this period, because they have a narrative that they want to prove, and so they excavate.
and interpret having already decided what they're going to find. It's a bit circular. It's like Catch-22. You have... a site, which you excavate a large building, which is obviously post-late Bronze Age. We'll talk a little bit more about the chronology later. And it's a large building, therefore it must be Solomonic.
And so you've already decided, you've already given an interpretation without allowing the archaeology itself a chance to reveal its true nature. And this is a problem which has become so embedded. in the way in which the archaeology has been interpreted, that we now have a massive Gordian knot to unpick.
This is so-called selective archaeology, isn't it? It really is. It hinders the discipline. Oh, yes. And I have a colleague who calls it text-impeded archaeology. And I get where they're coming from. And Felicity, a couple more background questions before we really delve into the rise and fall of the kingdom of Israel. First off, the whole name Israel, do we know where it comes from? What's the story? Okay, well, in the Bible...
Jacob, who is one of the patriarchs, is renamed Israel by God. And Israel means one who prevails with God. El is the Hebrew word for God. Right. And do we know when that word is first mentioned in the surviving archaeology? The first mention we have on it is on a... a remarkable object called the Monepta Stela, sometimes also called the Israel Stela because it contains this reference to Israel. It's an incredibly passing reference. It's actually not the main point of the whole inscription.
And this is a large stone inscription, a stela, standing stone, which was discovered by William Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, so a long time ago. Right, yes. And it's dated to around 1209, 1208 BCE, during the reign of the pharaoh Manepta. And it's talking about... his overseas campaigns against various troublemaking people elsewhere, mainly actually in Libya. That's the main focus for the subject. But he also talks in passing right at the end.
about a campaign in Canaan. And he kind of talks about various cities that he's laid to waste, Ashkelon, Geza, and Yanoam. And right at the end, there is a reference to Israel, and it says... Israel is laid waste, his seed is not. don't know what this means, what kind of entity is there for Israel, because it seems always personal. Rather than a city, some people believe that it's a reference to a people, a collective of some description.
But there's no firm... knowledge about the kind of polity if such a thing or what kind of form that collective takes exactly there's no mention of a kingdom at that time is there exactly and so this is right at the end of the 13th century bc the late bronze age i've done interviews in the past
about the Bronze Age collapse. So Felicity, set the scene for us. What does the world, this Near Eastern Levantine world, look like at that time? Okay, well, it's building up to a bit of an apocalypse. So what happens is that... I mean, the Late Bronze Age is generally characterized by the age of empires, I suppose you could say. You've got the Hittite Empire in the north from Anatolia and into northern Syria and southern Syria, actually. And then you have also...
the Mycenaean Empire in the Aegean and you have the Egyptian Empire which is controlling parts of North Africa, Libya and also into Canaan and down into the Sudan as well. So you have this age of... big stonking empires, and they're controlling pretty much everything. And all the local people just kind of have to fall in with this reality. Things start to disintegrate. I think it's fair to say.
in the 12th century. And the reasons for that are complex and discussed often. Is there an element of climate change? Was there some catastrophic event somewhere that meant that... There were basically really cold, nasty summers that meant that crops didn't grow. All of these places, in terms of their environment, it only takes a few bad harvests to push people right to the edge. And what seems to happen is that during the course of the later part of the late Bronze Age is that...
these very stable systems start to come under this immense strain, people start to move. And they move, first of all, you find them... a group of people called the Sea Peoples, who appear as mercenaries in the Egyptian army. That's a little bit earlier. But then... Something happens and it's no longer just the mercenaries kind of hanging around. It's their families and they're bringing everybody. They're bringing the kids and everybody. They're leaving.
their own homes and wanting to move somewhere else. And these sea peoples are really quite mysterious. We don't know that much about them.
They have all sorts of really cool names like the Equestian, the Shekeleshian, the Shardana, and the most famous of all, of course, yes, the Peleset. And these are mentioned on the... victory stealers of and reliefs of pharaohs like rameses the third he has a big battle they he he says that he destroys them but actually i let them have this little bit of land on the coast yeah right okay they basically
are the catalyst for the destruction of all of these empires. They destroy cities all up and down the Levante coasts, not all of them, we might come back to that. They get inland as far as Meskene, Amar, which is on the Euphrates, and they destroy it. So... This movement of people has an absolutely catastrophic effect on all of these empires, and these empires basically come to an end.
They come to an end, oh, they have to transform, don't they, as well? Well, they withdraw. They withdraw. It takes several centuries for quite a few of them to be able to kind of revive in a different kind of form, as we see. But that's kind of going outside of the area today. Yeah, that's right. however is it ceases you know and yeah dribbly but it does cease and so how does this all
correspond to then having the emergence of this new kingdom in the land of Canaan, the kingdom of Israel? What is first of all the biblical account regarding the creation? And then what might the archaeology suggest? Okay, so in the biblical account... You have the conquest. You have Joshua coming in with his army and the population of the Israelite nation.
coming into Canaan and laying waste to all these cities. And, you know, I mean, it must have been horrible. If it really did happen, then it was horrible because they kill a huge number of people.
That isn't what the archaeology suggests. That kind of destruction would leave a trace, and you would see an evidence of that. The archaeology suggests something else is happening. You don't need a conquest to... explain the change in society that is going on once the Egyptian empire and its structures and so on has kind of moved to one side, let's say.
What you can see more of is what I would describe as a transitional period. You don't have this administrative, wealth-generating engine of an empire to be part of anymore. Things have changed quite radically. Things go back to a much more basic local level operation. And we don't really know what that looks like. That's really important to say.
archaeology has excavated in the past. We've imagined that we would find the evidence of this united monarchy and so on and so forth. And so we've built kind of interpretations that include this. united monarchy. The problem with that is that it doesn't necessarily reflect what's actually being found. And so we have a problem because we have to unpick a previously constructed interpretation. to try and understand the archaeology that we really do have.
That's a very hard job. Yeah, it's a very hard job, and it's going to be how we kind of approach today's episode, because we can kind of go through various peoples like Saul, David, Solomon, and then look at the archaeology too, first the literature and then the archaeology. So we've covered the arrival of the... of relates, how they're mentioned in the Bible, but also what the archaeology has been suggesting. Of course, arrival is very different to the creation of
a kingdom, which of course needs a king. So if we start with the biblical account first, what's the story behind the creation of the kingdom of Israel at that time, following the demise of these great empires in the region? Well, it comes about quite slowly. And in this respect, I do wonder if there is some sort of element of a reality in the narrative, because it's, you know, trying to get the tribes together, trying to get them to...
And trying to get them to kind of coalesce a little bit more because they're all a little bit kind of out there and doing their own thing. And I do wonder whether this doesn't reflect what we're beginning to see archaeologically a little bit. And King Saul is the first appointed king of this emergent kingdom.
And he's an interesting character. And I wonder in a way, he's a bit like Uther in the Arthurian legend. You know, he's deeply flawed, but necessary for the story. You can't get suddenly to everything being wonderful without having this transitional.
Period. He does actually a lot of the hard work, but he's such a flawed personality. And I think that when you're dealing with a place in reality, which has... been depleted of many of its institutions, its structures, its resources, it's going to be messy and I think that's actually partly what's reflected in this messy narrative at this point.
biblical texts. And does the archaeology, kind of going back there, because when you mentioned the tribes of Israel, I felt I should also ask this, does the archaeology from that time, just before Saul, Does it suggest a continuation with the people who were living in that region before? Or would it affirm this idea that these Israelites, they were people who came in to this area of the world from outside?
The archaeology is very, very clear that these are the same people. These are Canaanites. Interesting. There's no material difference between them from the Late Bronze Age to this transitional period. We've decided to call them Israelites. That's really important. We actually also decided to call their predecessors Canaanites. What they call themselves have an only nose. Lost in the mists of time, I'm afraid, there.
These are the same people reacting to changed circumstances. And with the rule of King Saul, first of all, going to King Saul now, do we know much? How is he portrayed? in the biblical account. You say he's quite a flawed character. Yeah, he kind of drinks too much and he throws beers and stuff around, doesn't he?
You know, you don't necessarily want him around your kids. But yeah, he's a man who's got this huge job to do and he's not quite up to it, isn't he? That's how I think of Saul. And he's the first appointed king. And he's necessary. He adopts David. And that's his real role, is to bring the kind of one true king, going back to that Arthurian analogy, into the story.
But interestingly, he's an adopted son. He's not of the same line. And I don't know... why that's something that's important if it is important but it's an interesting little thing there and this aligns with the david versus goliath story isn't it and him beating goliath the philistine and then realizing yes i will adopt you as my successor yes
The timeframe that we're talking about, so this is following the Bronze Age collapse, I mean, with King Saul, roughly, if we're looking at the biblical narrative, would this be around the 11th century BC? Yeah, so from the middle to the latter part of the 11th century. Right.
The reason I ask that, because you've already mentioned how it seems during the reign of King Saul, he's the first king, this kind of quite complex character, an Uther-like character, and it's a time of transition. Is that reflected in the archaeology at all?
Does it look like a kingdom at this time, the whole tribes? What is the archaeology at that time in the 11th century revealing? There's nothing like a kingdom going on. I mean, actually, this is a bit of a point. How do you know you've got a kingdom archaeologically?
If you've got no inscriptions, nobody's saying, welcome to the, you know, so-and-so, and this is the kingdom of such-and-such, and what have you, and I am king, so-and-so. If you don't have any of that, how do you know? How is it different from a city-state in the previous... We don't know. What we do have is a lot of regionality. So things, it depends where you are in the land as to what's going on. And our interpretation of that at the moment is changing pretty much all the time.
And how so? So what are we thinking? Are there any kind of large scale settlements at that time? Cities that are inhabited to a large degree or is it smaller? farming settlements. I mean, what's the current thinking about the whole, the social makeup, the landscape of Canaan at the time that Saul is supposedly ruling? I think it's very, very dispersed. We have to recognise that this Saul character...
is not an historical character, okay? He's mentioned in the Bible, and that is it. We have no other evidence for Saul. And archaeologically, once you've kind of said, okay, well, maybe we shouldn't be trying to... shoehorn this material into a solomonic narrative quite so hard when you actually look at it there's nothing definitive at all and it's terribly terribly regional we don't know
what the political affiliations of people were, we don't know how they were operating. Certainly there's nothing to indicate a kingdom, there's nothing to indicate any kind of polity. that we can describe it is as fluid as that there are sometimes a bit later we get larger buildings and that's possibly suggesting that something is beginning to coalesce a little bit more But it's anyone's guess is the answer.
I mean, what kind of archaeology is there dating to that time? Well, another question is, how do we know it dates to this time? Because we've shoehorned so much archaeology into a Solomonic narrative. Now, what does the 11th and 10th century look like? We don't actually know. That's part of the problem. It's like, okay, Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho back in the 1950s, she wasn't quite the first person to say, hmm, there might be the odd problem here.
But it was kind of like that's when the ball really got rolling. And it was like the first brick of archaeological Jenga. She took that brick out. And since then, the whole structure of this narrative has kind of fallen apart. And it means that we've got to re-look at the archaeology that's been done. That's really hard in itself. And that's at these big sites like Hatzor and Megiddo and Geza and Jerusalem.
most of all and what a lot of people are doing now and I think it's a sensible approach actually is say okay well let's just leave those big sites to one side because It's just too complicated and horrific and help. And let's start some new excavations at smaller sites to kind of get an idea about what's happening in different parts of the country.
I think we're going to explore a couple of those archaeological examples as we go along, but let's go back to the biblical account first of all, and then explore the archaeology. evidence for Saul, but he's an important figure in this whole narrative of the kingdom of Israel. And who is this figure who he adopts, who succeeds him, this true king figure that is well-known name to all of us today, King David? Now, Felicity, what is his story?
He's quite a lowly chap, isn't he? He's a shepherd. King David starts off as a shepherd boy and he is, however, a beautiful person. I think it's fair to say, in the biblical story. And he comes to the attention of Saul. He is remarkably brave. David versus Goliath. David versus Goliath, indeed. I mean, you know, that took some chutzpah, I think it's fair to say. And it's the classic story, isn't it, of somebody very modest having the power.
because they are favoured by God to overcome this great power. And that's when he comes to the attention of King Saul, and he is adopted as his heir. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, the podcast that plunges you into the ranks of the Knights Templar across ancient Egypt and behind the barricades of history's great revolutions to explore the worlds recreated in a...
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And what do we know about his rule himself? So when Sola dies and David becomes the king, because what I remember is it's him who conquers Jerusalem, isn't it? It's this kind of central part of the whole narrative. That's right. Yes. He invades what they call the Jebusite city.
And there's quite a detailed description in the Bible of how they come up through the water system into the palace and destroy. Through the systems? Yeah, yes. Well, not through the systems, through water tunnels in Jerusalem. And then he founds his capital at Jerusalem and founds, of course, that's where the tabernacle is put. And it falls to his son Solomon to build the first temple there.
This is all the biblical narrative, I should just remind everyone. So his role is really, really formative. David is the character who succeeds where Saul has failed. So he succeeds where Saul has failed as his successor. And there are all of these great stories surrounding him as he is one of the most titanic figures from the Old Testament.
And now let's go to the archaeology side of things, because I do have in my notes the Tell Dan Steeler. So do we actually have some archaeology for at least a figure perhaps called David? I mean, what's the story behind this? Okay, so the Tell Dan... inscription is something that was discovered in 1993-94. It's an inscription which was discovered
Twice in a way, because it was fragmentary and it was in a secondary context. So that means it wasn't in its original context. It was fragments of stone that had been reused in both the paving of a plaza. and in a wall. One was found in one season and another bit was found in the next season. And I mean, it was really exciting. Everybody got very excited and some people got very cross. And what's on the inscription is the description of a campaign which sees Jehoram, the son of Ahab, killed.
And he's a much later king, isn't he? That's right. Yeah. Along with Ahaziah, who is the king, and this is the important bit, king of the house of David. Right. Now. When it was discovered, of course, everybody went a bit silly. Some people said, this is proof that the biblical narrative is true. Every word is true. And other people said, nonsense, it's a fake.
And fur flu, I think it's fair to say, yeah. So it was quite controversial, but it is accepted by, I think, most people now that this is a genuine artefact. And the inscription is a genuine inscription. It's not been faked up. It wasn't put there by some scurrilous archaeologist trying to make a name for themselves. It's a genuine thing. This is a genuine reference. The question is, what does it actually mean? House of David, what does that mean? Now, the way in which...
various polities of the time refer to themselves is as House of. So in Syria, you have at the time Abit Adini, House of Adini, Abit Agusi, House of Agusi, and there are various other ones as well. So this is a possible indicator that you have a king of the house of David, that it's referring to the kingdom effectively. It's a way of referring to the kingdom.
House of David, does that mean that there was a dynastic founder called David? That's a possibility. And I think it's a very reasonable possibility. The other interpretation which has been offered by some people... is that house of David, not so much in this context, perhaps in reference to another context, is house of David could also mean a place. Because if you think about it, beat is the same word as Beth. How many places in Israel and Palestine?
Do we know with the word Beth in the front? Well, Bethlehem, of course. Bethlehem, Bethshemeth, Bethsaida, Bethheron, Bethel. You have so many. So that's not an impossibility either. It could be, yes, King David of... House of David, you know, Beit Daoud being the place it came from. So we have a range of possibilities, I think it's fair to say, as to what this reference actually means. Can it at least show us?
that, you know, kind of the name David, I mean, the word David was important at that time in whatever state. whatever form the kingdom of israel was this united monarchy whatever it was was at the beginning of the first millennium bc that the name david was important well it was important enough to be put on the dan stela which dates to around 870 750 BC. How long ago that can be put back is another matter entirely. We can't extrapolate more than that.
So basically, at the end of the day, kind of like Saul, King David, well, at least there's a little bit of archaeology to talk about with King David, but he is still, it's very much up for debate with the surviving archaeology and just having the biblical account as to whether he's a real figure or a mythical figure. I think that the, again, the Arthurian allusion is not a bad one in the sense that after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire in...
Britain in ancient Britain you had again a bit of a mess going on and it's not an impossibility that there was one chieftain who was a little bit less of a mess than all of the others and then from that beginning develops this incredibly elaborate tale which involves magic and the coming of a new religion and all sorts of things going on in there and I think you've got something similar happening perhaps with David that you have
You know, the empires have gone. You've got this transitional period. Perhaps there was one tribal leader who was a little bit more functional, had his, you know, head screwed on better than some of the others. begins the start of this idea of a coalescence.
Because it is so interesting. So I always, and it's like the Moses and the Exodus story or the Ark of the Covenant, all those trying to explore whether there is that kind of a kernel of truth at the epicenter of these stories that have become so mythologized. And then it's normally always there is. So it is interesting to kind of speculate.
It is, but it is speculation. And it's fun to speculate, but we should also remember that the evidence that we have it is incredibly limited. Absolutely. Well, moving on from David, who is this figure in the biblical account? who succeeds David as king of this united monarchy, of the kingdom of Israel. So this is Solomon. Solomon. Solomon's really where it's at, isn't he? I mean, you know, he's grand.
bling he's rich he can get all the ladies as the queen of sheba that's quite an interesting story in some ways in terms of the establishment of trade with on the incense trail and so on Maybe, who knows? Because she was said to before, it's either Yemen or Ethiopia, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, the Ethiopians say she was Ethiopian, but I think that most people would put the ancient kingdom in the Yemen. This is where...
links do seem to start to be emerging. It's very difficult, though, because the archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula is a bit of a closed book. It's beginning to get a little bit more furnished, but it would be great to know much, much more about that.
But Solomon in the biblical account, he's the man at the center, isn't he? He's got the wealth. He's got the looks. He's got the lavish buildings, isn't it? This is kind of like an apex time in the story of the kingdom of Israel. I bet his beard was well-oiled, you know? Yeah, he's the apex and he's the person who founds the first temple in Jerusalem. And he's known as being incredibly wise.
He's the great leader, and this is the period of the most influence and power and wealth of this united monarchy. And this is time of prospering cities as well. And this would date to about the 10th century, the beginning of the first millennium BC? Yeah, so we're now into the 10th century. So that's interesting. If the biblical account describes all of this kind of a very prosperous kingdom...
I've got to ask then, what does the archaeology reveal about 10th century Canaan, about the southeast Levant at that time? What does it show? Does it show great cities and prosperity? Well, initially, when everything was being first excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries, that's exactly what they said they were finding. Six-chambered gateways, casemate walls, grand cities.
evidence of Solomon absolutely everywhere, stables at Megiddo, all sorts of interesting and wonderful things. However, as time went on and, you know, Kathleen Kenyon pulls out her first Jenga brick, people started looking. at the material culture itself and saying hang on a minute we're finding the same material culture that we're associating with a different date somewhere else as we're associating with Solomon here. The two can't be both true.
One has to be wrong. And that really was the crunch question because pottery is kind of like your best dating tool. It changes quite frequently. It changes, you know, as... people's lives gradually change so does the pottery form change and it's a great indicator of all sorts of things where people are getting their trade from if the clay can be sourced from somewhere else but also stylistically it's how
archaeologists have really kind of pieced together a chronology. So to have a pot style associated with both King Solomon in the 10th century and King Omri in the 9th century...
is just not going to happen. It's not going to work. One of them is wrong. And the more people have excavated, the more they've realised that what people were looking is the wishful thinking of... past archaeologists imposing their desire for this narrative to be correct onto the archaeology and sometimes confusing layers of buildings together so that you would create.
structures that didn't actually exist. So your casemate wall might actually be the remnants of three or four city walls that didn't have that plan or design at all. and dating to very different periods. But because the need for the person doing the excavating and interpreting the archaeology was so great to have this narrative guiding them all the way, trowel in one hand, Bible in the other, it becomes kind of... shoved into this pre-existing story.
And you mentioned Megiddo earlier, so origins of the word Armageddon and where the end of the world is supposed to happen. Is this a good case example of that? Yeah, I mean, and there are others as well. Hatsor is a big one and Jerusalem itself.
most importantly. And so a lot of people, I mean Megiddo has been extensively excavated by lots and lots of people over many, many years. But a lot of people have kind of said, OK, well, let's back away from these sites and go and dig elsewhere to try and find out. a little bit more what's going on in the hinterland at other sites and so on. The answer is, is that we really don't know what was going on in the 10th century. This Solomonic empire has kind of disappeared.
The other thing I think it's important to say is that there's no reference to Solomon in any historical document. The Bible, again, is the only source. Now for such an important kingdom with such wealth. Such power, such influence. You'd expect to find the odd trace, wouldn't you, here and there in the Egyptian records. He marries Pharaoh's daughter, apparently. Well, you wouldn't know. Is it not mentioned in Egyptian records either?
It is very interesting because I was hoping at least there might be an archaeological site where there is concrete evidence from 10th century.
But actually when that evidence has been reviewed again, it's later or the layers have been confused. Exactly. It's very, very problematic. There is nothing there to suggest this incredibly powerful local... superpower basically do you think evidence is the impossible question because of course as you said when excavations are being done in the hinterland now in these new places that
with new techniques and less of that kind of selective archaeology focusing, that there could in future be the uncovering of archaeology that dates to that time, that can reveal more and kind of either corroborate or contrast the view depicted in the bible of this being an incredibly prosperous kingdom at that time i think what we will what is certain is that if people excavate very very carefully and very honestly and take care
not to get sidetracked down a biblical rabbit hole, let's say, that the 10th century will emerge. Of course it will. It's there. It's just we don't know how to... deal with it, how to place it, how to characterize it and how to look for it when all the previous excavations have have muddied the water so much. That's the difficulty.
But I think that if, as I say, with all those caveats, and it is a massive caveat, because people are still very much in love with the idea of a Solomonic kingdom. So yeah, in time, we'll see the 10th century emerge. So when do we start to see quite solid archaeological evidence dating to a time that we can say, ah, it was this century or that century, emerging in that period of the world, and from that archaeology getting a sense of what...
If historical, this kingdom looks like at that time. I think really you're looking at the very end of the 10th century, the beginning of the 9th century, before we're going to get a handle on anything. So Felicity, we've covered the issues with tacking this period, but let's look at the exciting part as well. I mean, what is archaeology actually starting to reveal about what...
This area did look like, let's say, the 10th century, supposedly at the time of the Kingdom of Israel. Okay, well, it's really, really interesting and becoming more interesting as more people do more really good work. And it's extremely regional, as I said earlier. So what's happening in the south at sites like Tel El Hesse is different from what's happening a little bit further north at sites like Beth Shemesh or in the Jezreel Valley.
This is, I think, crucial to understand, that one site isn't going to tell you what's happening in another part of the country. It's going to tell you what's happening at that site, and that's it. So let's look at Tel El Hesi and then Beth Shemesh further north and what the archaeology is revealing about that. So at Tel El Hesi, they have, in the 10th century, they have what looks like quite a large building. And there's a certain amount of continuity.
in terms of a sizable investment between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age periods, which is this timeframe that we're talking about. And these large buildings are... the excavators describe them as tripartite buildings and so they're not dissimilar from what was characterized at Megiddo as stables in that kind of Solomonic
biblical tradition. You think of Solomon's stables and his huge tarot army and so on. The excavators at Tel El Hesse, their interpretation of their site is that it is a kind of pastoralist hub.
And this is true in other eras as well. And it retains this kind of character throughout history. And that's because it's got some really interesting geology going on, which makes agriculture very, very difficult. Agrarian agriculture, really impossible because of the... strange um geology sorry that's going on there and so what it becomes is this place where stock animal stock is collected and the product of that animal stock is perhaps dispersed
in different parts of the country. They have also done a bit of a regional survey and they've excavated at some regional sites as well to see if there's a connection between Hesse itself. and some of these smaller sites. And one of these sites, they've revealed, has got lots of bullae there. These are little stamps and little kind of administrative notes, I suppose you could call them.
And they wonder if it's not part of a kind of way station and transferring of goods, animals, perhaps part of a postal network. But they're all very hypothetical. They also describe potential connectivity even further afield with...
The copper mines in Timna and Wadi Fainan in Jordan. Oh yes, that's not far from Petra, isn't it? That's right. And our understanding of the development of these resources in this formative period is also part of the... the story again because we were squeezing them into a narrative we didn't necessarily see them for what they are and so now we're trying to work out what's going on in this formative period
and not necessarily related to a kingdom as such, but copper mining starts to begin to emerge in the Wadi Arava, which is the region that we're talking about, the part of land that runs from the Dead Sea down to the Red Sea. these copper mines seem to begin to really kind of start making a mark. That's interesting. So although the archaeology can't really attest whether it was a kingdom, because it's difficult to identify a kingdom unless you see a palace or something like that.
What it is revealing, for instance, one thing, is how connected this area of the world was. Potentially so. Potentially so. And they don't know to what degree. The excavators call it a polity. That's how they describe it. They don't attach any more meaning. or idea about where the center of this polity was, whether Hesse was the center or whether another place was the center and Hesse is this kind of pastoral hub.
That is in a sense also because they're looking at this building and saying this is a big building and they characterize that big building as possibly a place where either a warehouse maybe or perhaps a place where. animals could be sheltered there's a problem with that interpretation though and the same reason why it didn't work as a stables and that is there's only one entrance and you know if you've got a lot of valuable stock you need more than one entrance because if there's a fire
They need to be able to be evacuated fast. So my money is on it being a storeroom. These are storerooms for wools and meats and what have you. The other... thing that they throw into the fire is again that incense trait as being another connection that may be emerging in this period and again
Is that the point of the Queen of Sheba story? It's not that there was this grand king and this wonderful queen. It's the point that there is the emergence of a relationship between these two geographical regions. So we've done Tallahassee. Now tell me what's been happening at Beth Shemesh as well. Okay, so Beth Shemesh is a bit further north and it's right on the border between the Canaanite realm and the Philistine realm. So you remember back in the...
12th century, we had these Peleset, the Philistines. Well, they did settle and they formed this enclave on the coastal region of Palestine, which is probably where the name Palestine comes from. And their cities are at Gaza and Gath and Ashdod and Ashkelon and so on. And archaeologically, they are very distinctive with an Aegean origin, probably even you could say Mycenaean or elements of Mycenaean.
And there they stay. And at Beth Shemesh, what you have, what the excavators have interpreted, is really, I think, fascinating. Previous excavators saw it as a place which was dominated by the Philistines. But now they're saying, no, no, that's not what we're seeing. We're seeing a Canaanite population with its Canaanite material culture sort of kicking back. against this regional power, the Philistines, and making themselves culturally distinct from the Philistines.
And this is what becomes really interesting because they change their habits to do so. Specifically, they stop eating pork. And why is that important? Because the Philistines ate a lot of pork. So it's kind of like a marker. It's like a cultural marker. And they're saying, we're not Philistines. How are we going to demonstrate we're not Philistines? Let's change our eating habits. I don't know. Maybe they've got it wrong as well. But...
There is a sudden absence of pig bones from the records, whereas in previous periods of occupation, pigs are part of the menu. So there is a change. But everything else, the material culture otherwise, remains Canaanite. It's not like there's a new bunch of people coming in with their different set of material, cultural...
It's the same people, but they are changing their habits. So it's so interesting. And just kind of to repeat what I said earlier. So although the archaeology is not yet revealing information about a potential kingdom and figures like Solomon, it is nevertheless... revealing more about the whole landscape of Canaan at that time. And it's much, much more interesting, I think, anyway, because, you know, all sorts of different things are happening. It's a period of change, of transition.
And these are the periods which are the hardest to understand, but they're also the ones that are really exciting. Well, keeping on the change and transition, but going a bit back to the biblical account now, but still we're moving on. So we've gone on from the time of Solomon. But it was interesting you talked about that variation that there is too. So talk to me too, this great schism.
That follows Solomon. And then you do seem to get variation in kingdoms in the biblical account. It's almost like a north and a south almost. Yeah, so following the death of Solomon, there's no one ruler to take over from him. So there's a bit of a fisticuffs, I suppose you could say. And various important people kind of come out of this. And one of those is Omri, who I think was a general in Solomon's army.
So he wasn't related to that Davidic line. So yes, I mean, the biblical account is full of all sorts of characters who we have absolutely no evidence for at all. And in the divided kingdom of Israel, we have kings like Jeroboam and Nadab and Bashar and Elah and so on. And in the southern kingdom of what's called Judah, which is based in Jerusalem, We have kings like Rehoboam and Abijam, I like that one, and Asa and Jehoshaphat. And we don't have anything in any historical...
record or a historically attested document to suggest that any of these people actually ever existed. Things start to firm up a little bit a bit later with Omri in Samaria, king of the northern kingdom of Israel. And he is mentioned on the Mesha Steeler. A replica that you've got here at the Palestine Exploration Fund. I mean, talk to me through this because this is really exciting. This is when a biblical king...
is shown on an archaeological object. Talk me through it. So the Meshe Stila was, I think one can say, I hate saying discovered, it was there and the people who lived there knew about it. The West was made aware of this object in around, you know, in 1868, there was a travelling missionary called Pastor Joseph Klein.
who was with the Christian mission based in Jerusalem, and he was being extremely brave and intrepid in going to Transjordan. And his hosts, the local tribe, at a site called Deban, told him about this stone. and said it's got an inscription on that we can't decipher. Would you like to come and see it? And so they went off to have a look, and he made a quick sketch, and then told the Prussian consulate in Jerusalem about this find.
The Prussian consulate contacted Constantinople to basically lay claim to this artefact. What became clear when various people went to have a look was that there was a reference. to Omri, king of Israel, on this stela. Unfortunately, the stone got broken. It was intact, but it got broken. And so what we have now are fragments. But from what we can tell, the stela is...
was erected at Diban by King Mesha of the Moabites. And it describes... And the Moabites, that's northern Jordan today. Yeah, central Jordan. So around Moab is kind of... where Kerak is, if anyone's familiar with Jordan, Kerak, Madaba, that kind of area. The inscription details a kind of period in which the Moabites are subjugated to the Israelites, to the Kingdom of Israel.
And their god Chemosh was angry with them and so allowed them to be subjugated. But then Chemosh relented and their star came into ascendance. And so King Mesha... took his lands back from Omri. And this is what it says. So it's really exciting stuff. And people got very, very excited about it because this was the first time. that a character in the Bible was confirmed as historically real from a non-biblical source. So you have both Mesha and Omri.
And do you have then, do you have on that stela, so it says King Omri, does it also say that he is the king of Israel, of the northern kingdom? Yes, it does. And it also mentions the Israelite God, Yahweh. Aha, so there we go. So although there's no evidence of, you know, the United Kingdom, there is evidence of this northern kingdom of Israel following the division. That's right. We've got much more.
to hang some hooks on in terms of the character and nature of what's going on. And in a way, it makes sense. If you think about it in terms of just what happens, when you have... society which has been controlled by outside empires for a long time and those outside forces disappear, you're going to have a period of confusion, of transition. before anything solid sort of emerges. And so it makes sense, actually, rather than having this amazing kingdom burst into fruition from absolutely nothing.
Well, that doesn't make any sense, really, but it does make sense a little bit later for smaller kingdoms to start coalescing and emerging. And that kind of goes in the same period as the emergence of the kingdoms. in Transjordan, like Moab, like Ammon and like Edom further to the south as well. Although Edom is a little bit of a strange one, we're not quite so sure what's going on there either.
And is it the same for the Kingdom of Judah as well? So this time we're starting to see a bit more archaeology relating to these particular entities? Or is the Mesha Stele a unique example almost from this time? Well, it is a unique object. There's no doubt about it. In terms of what's going on in Jerusalem, we still don't know. There are people who think they know very clearly what's going on in Judah, in Jerusalem.
But at this particular point, we really honestly don't know. The archaeology is incredibly confusing. Probably the most confusing place in the world, I would say, at the most confusing time. So we don't have any evidence of any king. of Judah until a little bit later. So we have Jehoram on that Dan Stela a little bit later. And he's dated to around 849 to 842 BCE, roughly.
I think it's important, though, to mention that the question of whether the king, the house of David, or David is mentioned on the Meshesitele has always been a question, because the biblical account... refers to the battles between Mesha and David, not Mesha and Omri. Oh, right. So people have always been looking for it. And because it's fragmentary, of course, there's always this, you know, how are we ever going to know? Well...
Scientific methods have advanced an awful lot, particularly, you know, really kind of scientific photography methods and some extremely learned epigraphers. have been looking at the Meshe Stila, the original, along with the only copy of the complete inscription that was taken, which was done in rather a hurry before the guy got a spear in his leg.
back in 1869, thereabouts. And the copy is not great. This is the problem. It was done in a hurry. The scholars believe they have identified a reference to the House of David on that, which, if so... is really really interesting but that's all we can say about it again we have the same thing as mentioned in the dan inscription that we don't have any context necessarily for
what the house of David means, if it's a dynastic kingdom, you know, referring to a kingdom or whether it's a place or whatever.
What ultimately happens then to the kingdom of Israel? And I guess also to the kingdom of Judah, because I believe the end of those kingdoms, it's kind of interlinked. Yeah, I think it's called the Assyrians. So unfortunately, this coalition of... indigenous city-states which face the Assyrians at the Battle of Kharkur and hold them off for a while, that only lasts a few years and eventually...
Samaria finally falls to Shamanes V in 722 BCE, and it's 701 BCE that we have the fall of Jerusalem. And that's... And brutally, that is the end of the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. Sort of. They continue as a kind of vassal state. This is the way it works under the Assyrians. So you have a whole series of kings who are basically... in the pay of the Assyrians. They're client kings, much as you had in the Egyptian empire when you had city-states with client rulers.
acting before this how you do business it's how you run an empire you don't you know you don't remove everyone you keep your decent people to do the work you keep your administration in place and the guests mentioning cunair form texts and stuff like that we have their names so we have these people
And then there is a much bigger catastrophe that happens to Jerusalem, which is the siege and fall of the city to the Babylonians to Nebuchadnezzar. And that's really kind of putting the nail in the coffin. And again, it still continues as a vassal state within the Babylonian Empire, but it's not the kingdom of Judah anymore.
And it's by that time, you know, the early 6th century and a time like that, so several centuries on from this idea of the united monarchy, and then even figures like Omri and Ahab, that then they are looking back at these figures almost, you know, as... of a time before the great catastrophe. So it's no surprise that then they become the great focus of these stories at the centre of the Old Testament. Yeah, and I think it's very probable.
that the people who were writing these narratives down were the kind of scribal class of people who were taken into captivity to Babylon.
And there they had, as was described in your previous podcast, access to all sorts of resources, all sorts of traditions. And they wanted also to create a narrative that reflected them and their experience and their... people I mean well Felicity this has been absolutely fantastic it's been a massive topic so congratulations on being able to get through so much of it it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today thank you very much
Well, there you go. There was Felicity Cobbing approaching this very... complicated complex topic that is the rise and fall of the kingdom of israel the latest in our old testament hebrew bible mini series this june stay tuned we have one more episode to go
And it is a fantastic one, so you will not want to miss it. If you have enjoyed this episode and you'd like similar ones, then I would recommend that you listen to the rest of the episodes in this miniseries. We've explored the Mesopotamian origins. to the Noah's Ark story. We've looked at the Moses and the Exodus story in detail and also the mystery of the Ark of the Covenant. Those were great episodes so do definitely check those out in the Ancients Archive. Go listen on Spotify.
Last thing from me, wherever you are listening to The Ancients, make sure that you are subscribed, that you are following the podcast so that you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. That's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.