Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in our monthly series on September 19, at 4:30 pm EDT, featuring Prof. Yosef Garfinkel. Since 2007, four sites in the Judean Shephelah were investigated: Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet el-Ra‘i, Socoh, and Lachish. Khirbet Qeiyafa and Khirbet el-Ra‘i provided sweeping and cutting-edge data on the early part of the 10th century BCE, the time of King David. The fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa was built according to the typical Judean urban plan, a plan that is not found in any city in Philistia or the Kingdom of Israel. Public buildings and large quantities of jars with impressions on their handles indicate the existence of an administration. Two inscriptions were found, suggesting increasing knowledge of reading in this period.

A stone shrine model from Khirbet Qeiyafa provided data on royal building activities in the time of King Solomon that forces us to reconsider previous theories. The stone model is a carved box (35 cm high) and the façade is elegantly profiled, with three interlocking frames around the door and depictions of wooden beams in groups of three, that support the roof (known triglyph in classical architecture). The combination of iconographic and linguistic analysis indicates that the same two architectural components are also described in the biblical text regarding Solomon’s Palace and Solomon’s Temple.

The date for the fortification of Lachish and for it becoming the second-most important city in the kingdom of Judah after Jerusalem has been heavily debated by scholars for generations. Prior the renewed excavations from 2013 to 2017, the various scholarly opinions ranged for more than 250 years, from the early 10th to the mid-8th centuries BCE. New excavations at Lachish from 2013 to 2017 uncovered a previously unknown city wall, dated by 14C to the second half of the 10th century BCE. This date fits well with the biblical tradition in 2 Chronicles 11:9, that Lachish was fortified in the last decades of the 10th century BCE by King Rehoboam.

Join us for this deep dive into some of the most exciting new finds at sites across the biblical kingdom of Judah. Prof. Garfinkel will conclude his webinar with a live Q&A session.

Yosef Garfinkel is Yigael Yadin Professor of Archaeology of the Land of Israel at the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For many years he was a prehistorian, excavating Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, including Yiftahel, Gesher, Neolithic Ashkelon, Shaar Hagolan and Tel Tsaf. He did extensive research on prehistoric dance, including the publication of articles and a book: Dance at the Dawn of Agriculture. An article on the evolution of human dance had been published recently by Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

Since 2007, he has conducted a regional project in the Judean Shephelah, excavating in Khirbet Qeiyafa (2007-2013), Tel Lachish (2013-2017), and Khirbet al-Rai (since 2015). These sites shed new light on the early phases of the Kingdom of Judah, and indicate that state formation started as early as 1000 BC, the time of David. Prof. Garfinkel has written over 200 publications, including 35 books.