Biblical archaeology

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For the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history.

This article presents technical information on major excavations and artifacts relating to biblical archaeology, defined as that archaeology which concerns itself with the biblical world.

Periods in Biblical archaeology

The list of periods for Syro-Palestinian archaeology below is drawn from the definitions provided by the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, p. 55.^[1]

• Bronze age: 3,200-1,200 BCE
  • Early Bronze (EB) Age = 3200-2200 BCE
  • Middle Bronze (MB) Age = 2200–1550 BCE
    • MB I (formerly MB IIA) = 2200–2000
    • MB II (formerly MB IIA) = 2,000-1,750
    • MB III (formerly MB IIC) = 1750–1550
  • Late Bronze (LB) Age = 1550–1200 BCE
    • LB I = 1550–1400
    • LB II = 1400–1200
• Iron Age: 1200-586 BCE
  • Iron I = 1200–1000
  • Iron IIA = 1000-930
  • Iron IIB = 930-721
  • Iron IIC = 721-586
• Babylonian period: 586-539 BCE
• Persian period: 539-332 BCE
• Hellenistic period = 332-63 BCE
  • Early Hellenistic = 332-198
  • Late Hellenistic = 198-63
• Roman period: 63 BCE-324 CE

Table I: Excavations and surveys

Year	Site	Biblical name	Excavated by	Comment
1841	Survey	N/a	Edward Robinson	Robinson's Biblical Researches in Palestine, the Sinai, Petrae and Adjacent Regions, based on his survey of the Near East conducted over several years, proposed Biblical names for modern sites.
1871-77	Survey	N/a	Charles Warren	The Survey of Western Palestine, published by the Palestine Exploration Fund, reflected Warren's detailed field surveys in Palestine and especially the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Major discoveries included the foundation stones of Herod's Temple, the first Iron Age Hebrew inscriptions (jar handles with LMLK seals), and water shafts under the City of David.
1890	Tell el-Hesi	Eglon	Sir Flinders Petrie	The site was believed at the time to be the biblical Lachish, but is now commonly identified with Eglon. Petrie noticed strata exposed by waterflow adjacent to the site, and popularized details of pottery groups excavated therefrom. This marked the introduction of scientific stratigraphy to Palestinian archaeology.
1891-92	Tell el-Hesi	Eglon	Frederick J. Bliss	N/a
1898–1900	Tell es-Safi	Gath?	Frederick J. Bliss and R.A.S. Macalister	N/a
1898–1900	Tell Zakariya	Azekah?	Frederick J. Bliss and R.A.S. Macalister	N/a
1898–1900	Tell ej-Judeideh	Moresheth-Gath or Libnah?	Frederick J. Bliss and R.A.S. Macalister	N/a
1898–1900	Tell Sandahannah	Mareshah?	Frederick J. Bliss and R.A.S. Macalister	N/a
1902–3, 1907–9	Gezer	Gezer	R.A.S. Macalister	The Gezer calendar was discovered on the surface during this excavation.
1902–4	Taanach	Taanach	Ernest Sellin	N/a
1903–5	Megiddo	Megiddo	Gottlieb Schumacher	N/a
1905–7	Galilee	Galilee	Herman Kohl, Ernest Sellin, and Carl Watzinger	A survey of ancient synagogues
1907–9	Shechem	Shechem	Ernest Sellin and Carl Watzinger	N/a
1908, 1910–1	Samaria	Samaria	David G. Lyon, Clarence S. Fisher, and George A. Reisner	N/a
1911–3	Beth Shemesh	Beth Shemesh	Duncan Mackenzie	N/a
1921–3, 1925–8, 1930–3 Clarence S. Fisher, Alan Rowe, and Gerald M. Fitzgerald	Beth Shean	Beth Shean	Clarence S. Fisher, Alan Rowe, and Gerald M. Fitzgerald	N/a
1922–3	Tell el-Ful	Gibeah?	William F. Albright	N/a
1925–39	Megiddo	Megiddo	Clarence S. Fisher, P.L.O. Guy, and Gordon Loud	N/a
1926, 1928, 1930, 1932	Tell Beit Mirsim	Eglon or Debir–Kirjath Sepher?	William F. Albright	N/a
1926–7, 1929, 1932, 1935 excavated	Mizpah[disambiguation needed ]	Mizpah[disambiguation needed ]	William F. Bade	N/a
1928–33	Beth Shemesh	Beth Shemesh	Elihu Grant	N/a
1930–6 excavated	Jericho	Jericho	John Garstang	N/a
1931–3, 1935 excavated	Samaria	Samaria	John W. Crowfoot	N/a
1932–38	Lachish	Lachish	James L. Starkey	The excavation was tragically terminated when Starkey was killed by armed Arabs[2] near Hebron while on his way to the opening ceremonies of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem
1936–40	Beit She'arim	Beit She'arim	Benjamin Mazar	N/a
1948–50, 1952–5 excavated	Jaffa	N/a	Jacob Kaplan	N/a
1954, 1959–62 excavated	Ramat Rahel	N/a	Yohanan Aharoni	N/a
1955–8, 1968	Hazor	Hazor	Yigael Yadin	N/a
1956–7, 1959–60, 1962 excavated	Gibeon	Gibeon	James B. Pritchard	N/a
1961–7 excavated )	Jerusalem (City of David)	N/a	Kathleen Kenyon	N/a
1962–7	Arad	Arad	Yohanan Aharoni and Ruth Amiran	N/a
1962–3, 1965–72	Ashdod	Ashdod	Moshe Dothan	N/a
1963–5 excavated	Masada	N/a	Yigael Yadin	N/a
1964–74	Gezer	Gezer	G. Ernest Wright, William G. Dever, and Joe Seger	N/a
1968–78	Jerusalem (southwest corner of the Temple Mount)	Temple Mount	Benjamin Mazar	N/a
1969–76	Beersheba	Beersheba	Yohanan Aharoni and Ze'ev Herzog	N/a
1969–82	Jerusalem (Jewish Quarter)	Jerusalem	Nahman Avigad	N/a
1973–94	Lachish	Lachish	David Ussishkin	N/a
1975–82	Aroer	Aroer	Avraham Biran	Aroer is an Israelite town in the Negev Desert, not to be confused with the Moabite Aroer located in Jordan
1977–9, 1981–9	Timnah	Timnah	Amihai Mazar and George L. Kelm	N/a
1978–85	Jerusalem (City of David)	Jerusalem	Yigal Shiloh	N/a
1979–80	Ketef Hinnom	N/a	Gabriel Barkay	N/a
1979, 1981–2, 1984–7, 1990–1, 1993–2000	Khirbet Nisya	Ai (biblical place)?	David Livingston	N/a
1981–2, 1984–8, 1990, 1992–6	Ekron	Ekron	Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin	N/a
1989–96	Beit-Shean	Beit-Shean	Amihai Mazar	N/a
1994–2008	Megiddo	Megiddo	Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin	N/a
1996–2002, 2004–2008	Tell es-Safi (identified as Biblical Gath of the Philistines)	Gath	Aren Maeir	N/a
1997–	Tel Rehov		Amihai Mazar	N/a
1999–2001, 2005	Tel Zayit	Zeitah	Ron Tappy	N/a
2005	Ramat Rahel	N/a	Oded Lipschits	N/a
2005	Nahal Tut	N/a	Amir Gorzalczany and Gerald Finkielsztejn excavated	N/a
2007	Khirbet Qeiyafa	N/a	Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor	N/a

Table II: Artifacts

Item	Date of artifact	Provenance	Description
Foundations stones of Herodian Temple	N/a	Identified during topographic surveys carried out by Charles Warren in the 1860s under the sponsorship of the Palestine Exploration Fund.	N/a
LMLK seals	8th century BC?	Found under controlled conditions at sites throughout Iron Age Palestine.	Seal-impressions bearing the letters LMLK on jar handles, associated with the reign of the biblical king Hezekiah of Judah.
Water shafts under the City of David	9th century BC?	Discovered during Charles Warren's survey of Jerusalem in the 1860s.	N/a
Nag Hammadi library	N/a	Discovered by peasants near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt.	A collection of early Christian Gnostic texts also known as the "Gnostic Gospels".
Dead Sea Scrolls	c.350 BC - 68 AD	Discovered in caves near the Dead Sea between 1947–1956.	The Scrolls comprise some 800 documents in tens of thousands of fragments. Written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, they contain biblical and apocryphal works, prayers and legal texts and sectarian documents.
Ketef Hinnom scrolls	Immediately prior to 586 BC	Found under controlled conditions by Gabriel Barkay during the excavation of an ancient burial chamber.	Two small silver scrolls containing texts similar to, although not identical with, the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers and parallel verses of Exodus (20:6) and Deuteronomy (5:10 and 7:9). These are the oldest biblical fragments yet found.
Gibeon pool (at el-Jib)	N/a	N/a	N/a
Hezekiah tunnel under Jerusalem	N/a	N/a	N/a
Walls of Jericho	1550 BC (destruction of)	N/a	Excavated by John Garstang in the 1930s and dated to around 1400 BC; re-excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s and redated to around 1550 BC. Bryant Wood's 1990 proposed reversion of Kenyon's dates to Garstang has not been supported by subsequent studies.
Siege ramp of Sennacherib at Lachish	N/a	N/a	N/a
Pool of Siloam	N/a	N/a	N/a
Western/Wailing wall	1st century BC	N/a	The wall was originally a retaining wall for the Herodian temple complex.
Shechem temple	Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age	N/a	Cf. the "House of (the god) Baalberith" in Judges 9.
19 tumuli located west of Jerusalem	Iron Age	N/a	The 19 tumuli dating to the Judean monarchy possibly represent sites of memorial ceremonies for the kings as mentioned in 2 Chronicles 16:14, 21:19, 32:33, and the book of Jeremiah 34:5
Boundary markers for Gezer walls and city gate.	N/a	N/a	1st century BC Hebrew inscriptions found engraved on rocks several hundred meters from the tel read "boundary of Gezer."
Nehemiah's wall.[3]	N/a	N/a	N/a
Arad ostraca	N/a	N/a	A collection of ostraca (inscribed pottery fragments) from Arad.
Signet bullae (rings engraved with the owner's name, or impressions left by these rings)	9th-4th centuries BC	Found in both controlled and non-controlled conditions	The bullae feature many names known from biblical texts.
Balaam texts	N/a	Found during controlled excavations at Deir Alla, Jordan.	The texts (painted in ink on a plastered wall and painstakingly reconstructed) describe the visions of seer named Balaam (cf. Numbers 22–24)
Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III	N/a	N/a	The obelisk depicts Jehu, son of Omri, king of Israel, and also mentions Hazael of Aram/Damascus/Syria (cf. 2 Kings 8–10)
Caiaphas (Qafa) family ossuaries	N/a	N/a	N/a
Ebla tablets	4th millennium BC	N/a	The tablets are the royal archives of the ancient kingdom of Ebla in what is now Syria.
Ekron inscription	N/a	N/a	N/a
"Goliath" ostracon	N/a	Discovered under controlled conditions during excavations by A. Maeir at Tell es-Safi (biblical Gath)	The ostracon (pottery fragment) is incised with nine letters representing two names (אלות and ולת) etymologically related to Goliath (גלית).
Herod's tomb at Herodium	N/a	N/a	N/a
Tel Dan Stele	N/a	Discovered as a surface find during a controlled excavation at Dan, a city marking the northern boundary of the ancient kingdom of Israel.	The stele contains an inscription by an Aramean king describing his victory over two other kings, one of them the king of Israel, the other a king described as being of the "House of David", although this is disputed. This represents the earliest known instance of this phrase from an archaeological context.
Izbet Sartah ostracon	1200–1000 BC	Found in the silo of an unfortified village (possibly biblical Eben-Ezer, 2 miles east of Philistine Aphek at Antipatris) occupied from 1200–1000 BC	5 incised lines of 80–83 letters (readings of epigraphers vary), the last line being an abecedary.[4]
Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets	6th century BC	Excavated from Babylon during 1899–1917 by Robert Koldewey, stored in a barrel-vaulted underground building consisting of rows of rooms near the Ishtar Gate[5]	The tablets describe the rations set aside for a royal captive identified with Jehoiachin, king of Judah (Cf. 2 Kings 24:12,15–6; 25:27–30; 2 Chronicles 36:9–10; Jeremiah 22:24–6; 29:2; 52:31–4; Ezekiel 17:12). The texts are: Babylon 28122: "...t[o] Ia-'-u-kin, king..." Babylon 28178: "10 (sila of oil) to ...Ia-'-kin, king of Ia[...] 2½ sila to [...so]ns of the king of Ia-a-hu-du" Babylon 28186: "10 (sila) to Ia-ku-u-ki-nu, the son of the king of Ia-ku-du, 2½ sila for the 5 sons of the king of Ia-ku-du"
Lachish ostraca	Late 7th century BC	N/a	The ostraca (inscribed pottery fragments) describe conditions in Judah shortly before the first Babylonian invasion. Letter #3 mentions a warning from the prophet; letter #4 names Lachish and Azekah as among the last places being conquered (cf. Jeremiah 34:7); letter #6 describes a conspiracy reminiscent of Jeremiah 38:19 and 39:9 using phraseology nearly identical to Jeremiah 38:4.
Nabonidus cylinder	N/a	Found in the Temple of Shamash in Sippara	The cylinder names Belshazzar as the son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon
Nebo-Sarsekim Tablet	N/a	Sippar	The tablet mentions a Babylonian official (Nebo-Sarsekim) who may be an identical with Sarsekim, an official mentioned in Jeremiah 39:3.
Pim weights	First specimen found by R.A.S. Macalister at Gezer; many others found since.	N/a	Inscribed with a previously unknown word that facilitated a better translation of 1Samuel 13:21
Lachish reliefs	N/a	Found during excavations of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh	The reliefs depict the Assyrian conquest of Lachish.
Pontius Pilate inscription	1st century AD	Found in secondary use in a stairway of the Roman theater in Caesarea	The threeline inscription (eroded portion in brackets is speculative but undisputed) reads: TIBERIEUM [PON]TIUS PILATUS [PRAEF]ECTUS IUDA[EA]E "The prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, erected the Tiberium (in honor of Tiberius Caesar)"
Sargon II's Conquest of Samaria inscription (ANET 284)	N/a	Found at Khorsabad (modern Iran) in 1843 by P.E. Botta	The inscription reads: "I besieged and conquered Samaria, led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it. ... The town I rebuilt better than it was before and settled therein people from countries which I myself had conquered." (Cf. 2 Kings 17:23–24).
Tiglath-Pileser III's inscriptions	N/a	Found at Nimrud by A.H. Layard	ANET 282: "I received the tribute of ... Jehoahaz of Judah" (incident not mentioned in the Bible); ANET 283: "As for Menahem I overwhelmed him ... I placed Hoshea as king over them." (Cf. 2 Kings 15:19 and 17:3)
Zayit Stone	10th century BC or earlier.	Discovered during controlled excavations at Tel Zayit by Ron Tappy	Limestone boulder incised with an abecedary and remnants of other inscriptions in a South Canaanite development of the basic Phoenician script common to the Palestinian Levant. The wall in which the boulder was found was sealed by a destruction layer dated to the 10th century BC, but the inscription pre-dates the destruction layer and may belong to the early-mid 11th century BC.
Elephantine papyri	N/a	Upper Egypt. The papyri are not from controlled excavations but their authenticity is undoubted.	The papyri are from a Jewish community living in Egypt during the Persian Empire. They record, among other matters, the relationship of this community with the Temple in Jerusalem.
Kurkh Monolith	N/a	Discovered by J.E. Taylor at Diyarbekir, Turkey, in 1861.	This monolith of Shalmaneser III mentions "2,000 chariots, 10,000 foot soldiers of Ahab the Israelite"
Merneptah Stele	c.1200 BC (commonly dated to 1207 BC)	Egypt	The stele (monumental stone inscription) of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah contains the earliest reference to a people called Israel.
Mesha stele	N/a	Discovered at Dhiban, Jordan (ancient Moab), in 1868.	The stele, erected by the Moabite king Meshe, mentions the Israelite king Omri and records vessels of YHWH received as tribute.
Siloam inscription in the Hezekiah tunnel, Jerusalem.	N/a	The tunnel was documented by Robinson in 1838,but the inscription (near the centre of tunnel, where the two work-gangs met) was not discovered until 1880. It was removed from Jerusalem the same year, and is presently in the Archaeological Museum at Istanbul.	The inscription records the completion of the tunnel, intended to bring water into the city.

See also

• Archaeology of Israel
• Bible
• Biblical maximalism
• Biblical minimalism
• The Bible and History
• History of ancient Israel and Judah
• List of Biblical figures identified in extra-Biblical sources
• List of artifacts significant to the Bible
• Palestinian archaeology
• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
• Biblical Archaeology Review

Footnotes

1. ^ Mills and Bullard, 1990, p. 55.
2. ^ UN Archives REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the year 1938
3. ^ Etgar Lefkovits, "Nehemiah's wall uncovered", The Jerusalem Post
4. ^ See Chapter 3 of In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language (Hoffman 2004) for the linguistic importance of the Hebrew. See plates in The Text of the Old Testament (Wurthwein 1995) for a facsimile of the ostracon.
5. ^ "Documents from Old Testament Times" by D. Winton Thomas, 1958 (1961 edition), Edinburgh and Longdon: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., p. 84.

Further reading

• William F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1940)
• Anati E. Palestine Before the Hebrews: A History, From the Earliest Arrival of Man to the Conquest of Canaan, 1963
• John Bright, A History of Israel(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959).
• Chapman, and J.N. Tubb, Archaeology & The Bible (British Museum, 1990)
• Cornfeld, G.and D.N. Freedman, Archaeology Of The Bible Book By Book (1989)
• Davies, P.R., In Search of 'Ancient Israel': A Study in Biblical Origins, Sheffield (JSOT Press, 1992). A key resource in the maximalist/minimalist controversy by a leading minimalist scholar.
• Davis, Thomas,, Shifting sands: the rise and fall of Biblical archaeology (2004)
• Dever, William G., "Archaeology and the Bible : Understanding their special relationship", in Biblical Archaeology Review 16:3, (May/June 1990)
• Dever, William G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-2126-X. 
• Dever, William G. (2003). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-0975-8. 
• Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001), The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, New York: Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-7432-2338-1, http://books.google.com/books?lr=&q=Finkelstein+Bible+Unearthed+Exodus+unoccupied&btnG=Search+Books .
• Frend, William Hugh Clifford, The Archaeology of Early Christianity. A History, Geoffrey Chapman, 1997. ISBN 0-225-66850-5
• Frerichs, Ernest S. and Leonard H. Lesko eds. Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997 ISBN 1-57506-025-6 Collection of six essays. Denver Seminary review
• Hallote, R. Bible, Map and Spade: The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss and the Forgotten Story of Early American Biblical Archaeology, (Gorgias Press, 2006) Discusses American involvement in biblical archaeology before 1900.
• Herzog, Ze'ev (October 29, 1999), Deconstructing the walls of Jericho, Ha'aretz, http://mideastfacts.org/facts/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=34 .
• Keller, Werner, The Bible as History, 1955. A widely read but very outdated popular account, approximately fifty years old.
• Kitchen, Kenneth A., On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003)
• Kuntz, John Kenneth. The People of Ancient Israel: an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row, 1974. ISBN 0-06-043822-3
• Lance, H.D. The Old Testament and The Archaeologist. London, (1983)
• Mazar, A., Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (The Anchor Bible Reference Library, 1990)
• Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. SBL Academia Biblica series, no. 12. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature.
• Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2009),"Corrections and Updates to 'Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E.,' " Maarav 16/1, pp. 49–132.
• Negev, Avraham, and Gibson, Shimon, (eds.) (2003). Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land. New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group. 
• Ramsey, George W. The Quest For The Historical Israel. London (1982)
• Robinson, Edward (1856) Biblical Researches in Palestine, 1838–52, Boston, MA: Crocker and Brewster.
• Thiollet, J-P, Je m'appelle Byblos, Paris (2005).
• Thompson, J.A., The Bible And Archaeology, revised edition (1973)
• Winstone, H.V.F. The Life of Sir Leonard Woolley of Ur, London, 1990
• Wright, G. Ernest, Biblical Archaeology. Philadelphia: Westminster, (1962).
• Yamauchi, E. The Stones And The Scriptures. London: IVP, (1973).
• Biblical Archaeology Society