Brian Janeway
[Hazor had been the head of all these kingdom. Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself (Joshua 11:10–11).]
Plan of Hazor, showing excavation areas.
Readers of Bible and Spade are well aware of the tale of the Conquest as recorded in the book of Joshua, especially the battles for Jericho and for Ai, the latter of which is believed to be located at Khirbet el-Maqatir. This article will deal briefly with Hazor, the third of only three sites said to have been put to the torch by the Israelites under Joshua late in the 15th century BC: Jericho, Ai and Hazor.
The excavation seasons 2001 and 2002 have not been productive ones in Israel due to continuing hostilities between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As many as 80% of the planned projects have either been postponed or cancelled, including ABR’s own at Kh. el-Maqatir. This led the author to participate in the excavations at Hazor, located in the Upper Galilee, 14 km (9 mi) north of the Sea of Galilee. Its importance as a site to our understanding of the Conquest and settlement of the Israelites is perhaps unsurpassed due to its prominence in antiquity and the relatively well-preserved stratigraphy remaining in its ruins.
First identified by J.L. Porter in 1875 with Tel el-Qeddah, Hazor was first dug by John Garstang in 1928, when he made soundings on both the upper and lower sections. Unfortunately, he did not publish his results in detail. He concluded that the 180-acre lower city, which he called an “enclosure,” functioned as a camp area for infantry soldiers and chariotry.
One of the primary objectives of the renewed excavations under Yigael Yadin in 1955 was to determine if Garstang was correct. From 1955 to 1958, Yadin uncovered evidence that the entire lower city had been thoroughly occupied during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. It was not a chariot camp at all, but rather a thriving and prosperous city that endured until its final fiery destruction at the end of the Late Bronze Age. After that, occupation was limited to the upper city. Yadin was a firm believer in the “late” date for the Israelite conquest. Therefore, the destruction of both upper and lower cities, which he dated to 1230–1220 BC, he attributed to Joshua (Yadin 1972:46, 132, n 1; Rabinovich and Silberman 1998:53, Ben-Tor 1999:28).
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Canaanite Palace Courtyard. Note the two large black basalt pillar bases standing in the foreground of the entrance to the inner “throne-room.”
Yadin, despite plans to return to the site, was able to mount only one subsequent excavation season in 1968 before his untimely death. One of his students, Amnon Ben-Tor, began renewed excavations in 1990 with the goal of rechecking his mentor’s stratigraphy and chronology, especially with respect to the Late Bronze and Iron I periods. Work since that time has been confined to the 25-acre upper city.
Ben-Tor’s results have been significant. Yadin’s chronology has been largely confirmed, notably with respect to the Solomonic gate complex and fortifications. A total of 14 cuneiform tablets have been recovered in various spots, but the long-sought archive has yet to be found. The monumental building (the “Canaanite Palace”), first discovered by Yadin in the 1950’s, on the upper city has been completely uncovered and has yielded a large number of interesting artifacts, but as of yet to archive.
Of particular interest to Bible students and historians is a tablet, found in 1992, written as a letter to a man named Ibni [-Adad?]. A king of Hazor by the name of Ibni-Adad is attested in a commercial document from Mari dating to the 18th century BC, the same date as the fragmentary Hazor text. The king referred to in these documents is likely the same individual. Ibni-Adad is the Akkadian variant of Yabni-Adad, from which is possibly derived Jabin, king of Hazor in Joshua 11:1 and Judges 4:2 (Malamat 1989:55–57; Ben-Tor 1997:125–26; Rabinovich and Silberman 1998:52). Though these texts predate the Conquest by 300 years, Jabin was apparently a dynastic name given to the kings of Hazor over a long period of time.
Late Bronze II destruction debris: It has taken special effort on the part of the excavator to preserve this small remnant of the burnt mud brick, stone, and timber which overlay the entire palace complex. This evidence of the conflagration is in the northwest corner of the building and will be protected by the soon-to-be completed modern roof.
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Middle Bronze-Late Bronze Age Walls. These walls were uncovered from the deep soundings made during the 2000 season in area A-5 east of the palace complex. The plastic sheets will cover the tops of the walls until further work is done to clarify and date them.
The full excavation of the monumental building in the upper city, the Canaanite Palace, has provided additional evidence relating to the destruction of the city. Statues found in the rubble were seemingly intentionally decapitated and disfigured. Who where the most likely candidates for such actions? Would it have been the Egyptians who campaigned in the region under Seti I around 1300 BC? Or perhaps Ramses II, who traveled through the region enroute to battle the Hittites at Kadesh in 1275 BC? The evidence points instead to the Israelites, in Ben-Tor’s view (Ben-Tor 1997:123; Rabinovich and Silberman 1998:53).
No textual document other than the Bible explicitly states who destroyed Hazor. Would the Egyptians have gone out of their way to deface statues? Would other Canaanites, who shared the same polytheistic pantheon, and who were likely too weak to destroy Hazor? The event is too early and the site too far inland to have been invaded by migrating Sea Peoples. And to date no Philistine pottery has been found at the site. That leaves the Israelites as the most logical candidate. Moreover, key passages allude to how Israel was to dispose of foreign cult items:
This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altar, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire (Dt 7:5).
When the Philistines defeated the Israelites at Ebenezer and captured the Ark of the Covenant, they subsequently placed it in their temple of Dagan in Ashdod. According to 1 Samuel 5:4, when the Philistines arose the second morning, the cult statue of Dagan had fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. The destruction of cult figures at Hazor betrays just this pattern.
Canaanite Palace Interior. Cedar beams nearly 4, 000 years old are still intact in the wall section on the left. One the right is a reconstructed section using pine wood planks.
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How well does the date of the destruction match with the Biblical chronology? Yadin, as discussed above, dated the end of the Late Bronze Age city to 1230–1220 BC. Interestingly, the ruins of the Canaanite palace remained visible for some time after its razing. Structures were never built over it even after other parts of the upper city underwent extensive reconstruction throughout the Iron Age. Could this have been the result of an imposed ban on building such as occurred at Jericho? (Jos 6:26; cf Yadin 1972:104; Ben-Tor and Rubiato 1999:27–28; Ben-Ami 2001:167–68).
Nonetheless, Ben-Tor now believes that the destruction could very well date earlier, as early as the late 14th century. He says, “If it were somewhat earlier it could still be Israelite, but the earlier you go the less the chances of that” (Rabinovich 1998:53). The earlier dating of this destruction creates a problem for “late-daters,” but not if the Israelites had been in the land for some time, as held by early-date proponents. Is this evidence of the burning of Hazor by Joshua, or could Deborah and Barak have been responsible during the period of the Judges? The latter would accord better with Biblical data.
There is also, however, evidence of an earlier destruction. In Area A, just north of the Canaanite palace, a “royal temple” was excavated in the 1968 season. It is of the migdol fortress type and is paralleled by buildings at Megiddo VII and Shechem. The structure was destroyed “at some time in the Late Bronze I” and never again restored (Yadin 1972:103; Ben-Tor 1993:604). Additionally, in Area M, the plateau area that joins the lower city to the upper city, a “huge pit,” whose function is unknown, revealed another Late Bronze destruction. In the excavator’s view, “it is so far the only clear indication of an earlier destruction, still in the Late Bronze Age, pre-dating the final destruction of the city” in ca. 1300 BC (Ben-Tor 2000:248–49). The excavator attributes this destruction to Thutmose III (ca. 1483 BC). Could the earlier destruction be assigned to Joshua and the later one to Deborah and Barak? It would seem like a tenable solution.
The 2002 season consisted of work in several areas: A-2, A-4, A-5, and the Canaanite Palace restoration. A-2 lies directly north of and next to the Palace. Private dwellings from the ninth-eighth centuries occupied this area. It was in this area that a stone statue of a seated deity (?) from the Late Bronze Age was found, similar to two found by Yadin in the lower city. What is most unusual about these domestic structures is that they seem to have been built in such a way as to consciously avoid contact with the palace walls, which evidently were still visible. (Ben-Tor 2002:254–56; Hazor website).
Canaanite Palace Interior: A completed section of the reconstructed throne-room shows the replacement pine beams and partially restored mud brick wall above them. The cracking visible in the lower basalt foundation resulted from the intense heat generated from the 13th century BC conflagration.
Work also concentrated on Area A-4, spanning the eastern approach to the Canaanite Palace. There a threshold and a large pillar base were discovered, the latter of which was identical in shape and size to the pair previously unearthed at the palace entrance. Only the gravel foundation remained of the matching base. Also, a group of standing stones (massebot) was revealed in the same area of the palace approach, evidence of cultic activity.
Additional sections of a massive mudbrick fortification system were revealed in Area A-5. These were probably in the area of the as-yet-undiscovered Bronze Age city gate. They stand to a height of over 3 m (10 ft) and are 7.5 m (24 ft) thick! During the Iron II period, however, a protective moat was dug along the outer face of the Solomonic casemate wall that caused “considerable damage” to the Bronze Age defense system. The dating of these walls is still uncertain, but most likely they were constructed in the Middle Bronze period and continued in use during the Late Bronze Age (Ben-Tor 2000:247–48).
Restoration of the Canaanite Palace continues, in order to make the site more appealing to visitors. This includes the manufacture of modern mud bricks to augment the remains of the ancient walls already preserved to 2 m (6 ft) in places, as well as setting modern oak beams between the stone wall substructure and the mud brick superstructure. These are being made to appear as the ancient cedar beams did, some of which are still visible. Work is being competed on a permanent roof structure that will span the entire palace to ensure its future protection from the elements.
Dr. Ben-Tor plans to be back in the field in 2003 at Tel Hazor. As work continues, Hazor is expected to yield more intriguing surprises and will undoubtedly play a key role in the ongoing debate over the historicity of the Bible.
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Director Amnon Ben-Tor tours the Canaanite Palace. This overview of the palace displays some of the fine ashlar masonry used throughout the building. The plastic was removed prior to the 2002 season in order to permit conservation and reconstruction work to continue.
Bibliography
Ben-Ami, Doron
2001 The Iron Age I at Tel Hazor in Light of the Renewed Excavations. Israel Exploration Journal 51:148–70.
Ben-Tor, Amnon
1993 Hazor: Fifth Season Of Excavations (1968–1969). Pp. 604–606 in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 2, ed. E. Stern, New York: Simon and Schuster.
1997 The Yigael Yadin Memorial Excavations at Hazor, 1990–93: Aims and Preliminary Result. Pp. 107–27 in The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present. JSOT 237, ed. N.A. Silberman and D. Small, Sheffield, England: Sheffield Press.
1999 Excavating Hazor, Part 1: Solomon’s City Rises from the Ashes. Biblical Archaeology Review 25.2:26–37, 60.
2000 Tel Hazor, 2000. Israel Exploration Journal 50:243–49.
2002 Tel Hazor, 2002. Israel Exploration Journal 52:254–57.
Ben-Tor, Amnon, and Rubiato, Maria Teresa
1999 Excavating Hazor, Part 2: Did the Israelites Destroy the City? Biblical Archaeology Review 25.3:22–39.
Hazor Website: http://unixware.mscc.huji.ac.il/-hatsor/nn2002.htm.
Malamat, Abraham
1989 Mari and the Early Israelite Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rabinovich, A, and Silberman, Neil A.
1998 The Burning of Hazor. Archaeology 51.3:50–55.
Yadin, Yigael
1972 Hazor: The Head of All Those Kingdom, Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1970. London: Oxford University Press.
Contributing Authors
Charles F. Aling, Ph.D. is currently the Chair of the History Department at Northwestern College, St. Paul MN. Dr. Aling is also the president of the Institute for Biblical Archaeology, and is the author of Egypt and Bible History.
David G. Hansen, Ph.D., is the former President of the Board of Directors of Associates for Biblical Research. A retired U.S. Army officer, he is the author of numerous article, co-author of two books, and frequent lecturer on Bible geography and Old Testament warfare. He currently teaches at Penn State University.
Brian Janeway is on the staff of the Associated for Biblical Research with a M.A. in Biblical Archaeology. He also has a M.A. degree in Syro-Palestinian Archaeology and is pursuing a Ph.D. in that field. In addition, he is a member of the core staff of ABR’s Kh. el-Maqatir dig and has participated in several other Middle East excavations.
Brad Sparks is a science writer-journalist and technical analyst working in the computer industry. He is a member of the American Research Center in Egypt, American Schools of Oriental Research, and Near East Archaeology Society, and has had training in astrophysics, radar engineering, and radiation biology.
Bible And Spade 16:4 (Fall 2003)