Where Is the Tenth Century?

By Hershel Shanks

The Wall Street Journal: Finkelstein Up in Heavy Trading By Hershel Shanks

Every archaeologist thinks his or her site holds the key to any issue that arises. Perhaps that is one reason why the focus was on Megiddo at the sessions titled "Where Is the Tenth Century?" at the Annual Meeting. Archaeologists David Ussishkin and Israel Finkelstein, the first two speakers, are codirectors of the renewed excavations at Megiddo. This is not to deny the importance of Megiddo, however; it is indeed a key site. As Finkelstein has written, "The archaeology of the United Monarchy was born at Megiddo." ¹ A second site, whose key significance is more debatable, is Jezreel, where Ussishkin is also codirector (with British archaeologist John Woodhead).

For students of the Bible, the tenth century (B.C., of course) is especially important because that was the time of King David and King Solomon, the short period when ancient Israel was united under a single monarch. (David reigned from about 1000 B.C. to 960; Solomon, his son, from about 960 to 920 B.C.) If we want to know what archaeology can tell us about this period, we have to know which archaeological discoveries–architecture, artifacts and other finds–date from the tenth century.

Until recently, we thought we knew. Now it is a matter of fierce debate. ²

Before we get into it, however, we should distinguish this debate from another, quite different discussion–namely the charge by the so-called Biblical minimalists (some call them, pejoratively, Biblical nihilists) that David and Solomon never existed. That discussion is characterized by considerable polemics, which is not true–or at least not as true–of the tenth-century debate. The tenth-century debate is in a sense preliminary to the issues posed by the minimalists: If we are to assess the nature, or even the existence, of the United Monarchy, we must first decide what archaeological materials date to that period. And in the end, the debate with the Biblical minimalists will be affected by the results of the archaeological debate regarding the tenth century. Even Finkelstein, who would move what was thought to be the tenth century down to the ninth century, concedes that if the traditional dating prevails against his own views, there will be "no difficulty in demonstrating that in the tenth century there was a strong, well-developed and well-organized state stretching over most of the territory of western Palestine," and that this state had "an advanced administration and a sophisticated system of management of manpower." ³

As already noted, in the previous consensus about what was the tenth century, Megiddo was at the center of the discussion. The site has seen four major excavations–the first by a German archaeologist, Gotlieb Schumacher, at the beginning of the century, the next by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, then by Yigael Yadin in the 1960s and 1970s, and, finally, the current excavation led by Ussishkin and Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University.

The key stratum is called Stratum VA-IVB (pronounced 5a–4b, but always written with Roman numerals). I wish it had a more easily remembered name, but it doesn't, so we're stuck with it. This is the stratum, or occupation layer, previously thought to date to the tenth century. In this stratum, the University of Chicago excavators found a huge, well-built six-chambered gate connected to an important casemate city wall, several palaces and some large tripartite buildings, all of which they attributed to the city of King Solomon.

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