The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Isreal and the Origin of Sacred Texts (25 page)

Another Egyptian reference to the highlands adds to the picture. It is an inscription recording the exploits of an Egyptian general named Khu-Sebek, who led an Egyptian military campaign to the highlands of Canaan in the nineteenth century
BCE
. The inscription refers to the “land” (rather than “city”) of Shechem, and mentions
Shechem
as a parallel to
Retenu
—one of the Egyptian names for all of the land of Canaan. This seems to indicate that as early as the beginning of the second millennium
BCE
, Shechem—one of the most important centers of the kingdom of Israel—was the hub of a large territorial entity.

We have no textual information about the southern territories in the Middle Bronze Age, but there is abundant information about their extent in the next period—the Late Bronze Age. The fourteenth century
BCE
Tell el-Amarna letters confirm the partition of the central hill country between two city-states, or actually early territorial states, Shechem and Jerusalem (
Figure
19
). A number of the letters refer by name to the rulers of these two city-states—a king named Abdi-Heba who reigned in Jerusalem and a king named Labayu who reigned in Shechem—each of whom controlled territories of about a thousand square miles. These were the largest areas held by a single local ruler, for at this time the Canaanite coastal plain and valleys were divided into many tiny city-states, each ruling a small territory with a relatively dense population. Although the political units in the highlands were much larger, their population was much smaller.

Shechem and Jerusalem, Israel and Judah, were always distinct and competing territories. And there was good reason for the differences between them: north and south occupied dramatically different environmental zones.

At first glance, the highlands between the Jezreel and the Beersheba valleys seem to form a homogeneous geographical block. But the environmental and topographical details offer a very different picture. The north and south have distinct ecosystems that differ in almost every aspect: topography, rock formations, climate, vegetation cover, and potential economic resources. Judah was always the most remote part of the hill country, isolated by topographical and climatic barriers. By contrast, the northern part of the highlands consisted of a patchwork of fertile valleys nestled between adjoining hilly slopes. Some of those valleys offered enough fertile farmland to support the inhabitants of several villages. It was thus a relatively productive region, with the inner valleys and the eastern marginal land of the desert fringe cultivated mainly for grain growing, while the hilly areas were cultivated with olive and vine orchards. Though a casual traveler through this region today may find it much hillier in appearance than the south, communication and transport of agricultural produce are immeasurably easier. The slopes to the west are much more moderate and, in fact, facilitate rather than obstruct passage down toward the cities of the Mediterranean coastal plain. On the northern edge of this region lay the broad expanse of the Jezreel valley, an extremely rich agricultural area that also served as the major overland route of trade and communication between Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the east, the desert steppe area was less arid and less rugged than farther south—enabling the relatively free movement of people and commodities between the central ridge, the Jordan valley, and the Transjordanian highlands to the east.

Any territorial unit that arose in the northern highlands had a far greater economic potential than those of the south. Even though the basic process of highland settlement in both regions was similar—shifting from herding and seasonal farming to an ever greater dependence on specialized agriculture—the north had more resources and a richer climate to exploit. In the early stages of each wave of settlement, when the bulk of the highland population was concentrated in the eastern fringes of the steppe and eastern highlands valleys, they maintained a balanced, essentially self-sufficient economy. Each village community provided its own supply of both agricultural crops and animal products. But when population pressure and the temptation of economic opportunities forced expansion to the western edge of the hill country, the northerners had a distinct advantage. They were able to develop a more specialized and sophisticated economy because the western slopes of the northern hill country were less precipitous and rocky than those in the south—and far more suitable for growing olive and vine orchards on small, terraced plots on the hillsides. The initial specialization in olive and grape growing encouraged the development
of the technology to process these products efficiently into oil and wine. It also gave rise to the economic institutions of markets, transport, and exchange in order for the wine- and oil-producing villages to obtain vitally needed grain and animal products in return for their own produce.

The result was increasing complexity of the northern highland societies and, eventually, the crystallization of something like a state. Export trade to the people of the lowlands and, more important, to the markets in the great cities of Egypt and the ports of the Phoenician coast pushed things still further. Thus, in the beginning of the Iron Age, the northern highlands were poised to become richer and more populous than the highlands in the south.

The evolution of the highlands of Canaan into two distinct polities was a natural development. There is no archaeological evidence whatsoever that this situation of north and south grew out of an earlier political unity—particularly one centered in the south. In the tenth and ninth centuries
BCE
, Judah was still very thinly inhabited, with a limited number of small villages, in fact not much more than twenty or so. There is good reason to believe from both the distinctive clan structure and the archaeological finds in Judah that the pastoral segment of the population was still significant there. And we still have no hard archaeological evidence—despite the unparalleled biblical descriptions of its grandeur—that Jerusalem was anything more than a modest highland village in the time of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. At the same time, the northern half of the highlands—essentially the territories that reportedly broke away from the united monarchy—was thickly occupied by dozens of sites, with a well-developed settlement system that included large regional centers, villages of all sizes, and tiny hamlets. Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming.

In fact, Israel was well on the way to fully developed statehood within a few decades of the presumed end of the united monarchy, around
900
BCE
. By
fully developed
we mean a territory governed by bureaucratic machinery, which is manifested in social stratification as seen in the distribution of luxury items, large building projects, prospering economic activity
including trade with neighboring regions, and a fully developed settlement system.

In Israel, regional administrative centers developed in the early ninth century. They were fortified and provided with elaborate palaces built of ashlar blocks and decorated with stone capitals. The best examples are found at Megiddo, Jezreel, and Samaria. Yet in the south, ashlar masonry and stone capitals appear only in the seventh century
BCE
, in smaller sizes, showing less foreign influence, and with lesser quality of construction. There is also a great difference in the layout and development of the capital cities. Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, was established as a large, palatial government center as early as the ninth century. Jerusalem was fully urbanized only in the late eighth century.

In addition, the olive oil industry developed in Israel as early as the ninth century. But in Judah, olive oil production shifted from local, private households to state industry only in the seventh century
BCE
. Finally, we should look at the settlement history of the highlands, in which the north was settled earlier than Judah and reached much higher levels of population. In sum, it is safe to say that the northern kingdom of Israel emerged as a fully developed state no later than the beginning of the ninth century
BCE—
at a time when the society and economy of Judah had changed but little from its highland origins. All this is also supported by the historical record. In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power in the coalition that confronted the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III at the battle of Qarqar in the year
853
BCE
.

There is no doubt that the two Iron Age states—Israel and Judah—had much in common. Both worshipped YHWH (among other deities). Their peoples shared many legends, heroes, and tales about events in the distant past. They also spoke similar languages, or dialects of Hebrew, and by the eighth century
BCE
, both wrote in the same script. But they were also very different from each other in their demographic composition, economic potential, material culture, and relationship with their neighbors. Put simply, Israel and Judah experienced quite different histories and developed distinctive cultures. In a sense, Judah was little more than Israel’s rural hinterland.

Throughout all the millennia of Canaan’s human history, the northern highlands may have been richer than the southern highlands, but they were not nearly as prosperous and urbanized as the Canaanite city-states of the lowlands and the coastal plain. What made possible the initial independence of the highlands was the fact that, as we have seen, the city-state system of Canaan suffered a series of catastrophically destructive upheavals at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Whether caused by the depredations of the Sea Peoples, or intercity rivalries, or social unrest, the lowland economy was dealt a crushing blow.

In time, the Canaanite inhabitants of the lowlands again began to prosper. By the eleventh century
BCE
, the Philistines, who had previously settled along the southern coast, consolidated the power of their cities. The Phoenician successors of the coastal Canaanites occupied the maritime ports of the north. In the northern valleys, while major sites such as Megiddo suffered destruction in the course of the twelfth century
BCE
, life in the less urbanized countryside continued uninterrupted. After a few decades of abandonment even the major sites were reoccupied, apparently by the same population—the local Canaanite inhabitants of the lowlands—and some of the most important Canaanite centers were rejuvenated and continued well into the tenth century
BCE
.

Megiddo is a good example of the process. A few decades after the destruction of the Late Bronze Age city with its elaborate palace, settlement at the site was resumed in a modest way. After a few more decades there were significant signs of building and population growth, to the point that Megiddo once again became a substantial city (called stratum VIA), with almost all the features of its former Canaanite culture. The styles of pottery resembled those of the twelfth century
BCE
; the plan of the town resembled the size and plan of the last Late Bronze city at Megiddo; and most important, the Canaanite temple was still functioning. Excavations at other major sites in the valleys and the northern coastal plain, such as Tel Dor (on the coast to the west of Megiddo) and Tel Rehov (to the south of the Sea of Galilee), have revealed a similar picture of the continuation of the Canaanite city-state world, with large towns or cities dominating the prosperous countryside.

But this late blooming of Canaan was not to last long. The northern cities would be destroyed by violence and fire. The devastation was so overwhelming that they never recovered from the shock. This was Canaan’s last gasp. What happened?

Egypt, which had gone through a long period of decline and withdrawal from the international stage, was at last ready to reassert its power over the lands to the north. Near the end of the tenth century
BCE
, the pharaoh Shishak, founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty (known as Sheshonq in Egyptian inscriptions), launched an aggressive raid northward. This Egyptian invasion is mentioned in the Bible, from a distinctly Judahite perspective, in a passage that offers the earliest correlation between external historical records and the biblical text: “In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the house of the L
ORD
and the treasures of the king’s house; he took away everything. He also took away the shields of gold that Solomon had made” (
1
Kings
14
:
25
–
26
). Yet we now know that Jerusalem was hardly the only or even the most important target. A triumphal inscription commissioned by Sheshonq for the walls of the great temple of Karnak in Upper Egypt lists about one-hundred fifty towns and villages devastated in the operation. They are located in the south, through the central hill country, and across the Jezreel valley and the coastal plain.