Authors: Israel Finkelstein,Neil Asher Silberman
As to the presumed western border of the kingdom of Judah at the time of Josiah, the prize find for the maximalists was Mesad Hashavyahu—a small site on the coast about fifteen miles south of Tel Aviv. This modest building, which has been identified as a fort (hence the name in Hebrew,
mesad,
or “fort”), yielded two exciting finds. First, the pottery assemblage, which is well dated to the seventh century
BCE
, included imported Greek pottery. Second, a number of ostraca found at the site were written in biblical Hebrew. They mention Yahwistic names with the ending
yahu:
Hoshayahu, Obadiahu, Hashavyahu. The site was therefore interpreted as a fort built by Josiah on the coast, with the aim to give Judah access to the sea. It was staffed with a Judahite commander and Greek mercenaries who served in the Judahite army, in a capacity similar to their role in the Egyptian army of the time. Contemporary ostraca found at the Judahite fort of Arad in the Beersheba valley seemed to support this idea. They mention allocation of food provisions to people named Kittim, a term that was interpreted
as meaning “Greeks”—that is, a Greek mercenary contingent in the Judahite army.
The discussion of the border of the kingdom of Josiah in the south concentrated on the two great seventh century forts—Kadesh-barnea and Haseva—excavated by the Israeli archaeologist Rudolph Cohen in the desert far to the south of the southern line of Judahite cities in the Beersheba valley. Kadesh-barnea commands the largest oasis on the important trade road from southern Palestine to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and, farther south, to Arabia. According to the excavator, a series of Judahite forts was built at the site. The last of the series was built in the days of Josiah and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586
BCE
. This last structure was identified as a Judahite fort because of a certain resemblance to the Judahite forts in the Beersheba valley, because a few Hebrew ostraca were found there, and because the general historical evaluation of Josiah’s reign suggested the likelihood of Judahite expansion into this area. At Haseva, about twenty miles to the south of the Dead Sea, a massive square casemate structure, about two and a half acres in size, with an elaborate four-chambered gate, was dated to the ninth–eighth centuries
BCE
. It was succeeded by a somewhat smaller fort in the late seventh century
BCE
, related to the activities of Josiah. A hoard of smashed Edomite cult vessels buried in a pit near the fort was also ascribed to the seventh century and connected with the cult reform of Josiah.
Despite these seeming archaeological indications of Josianic expansion, there were some scholars who believed that certain geographical material in the Bible clearly indicates that Josiah’s territorial gains were minimal. The most important source is the lists of tribal towns in Joshua 15–19, several of which the German biblical scholar Albrecht Alt suggested should be dated to the seventh century. In particular, he suggested that the town lists of Judah, Benjamin, Dan, and Simeon reflect the administrative division of Judah in the time of Josiah. At that time the kingdom was divided into twelve districts, which encompassed the area from the Beersheba valley in the south to the plateau of Benjamin in the north, including the eastern Shephelah. Another indication came from the lists of those who returned from the Babylonian exile, which appear in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These lists apparently include places that were within the borders of Judah before the destruction of 586
BCE
.
The Israeli biblical historian Benjamin Mazar added that the description of the geographical limits of the religious reform of Josiah in 2 Kings 23:8 also discloses the borders of his state: “And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba.” Mazar identified this Geba with a site located about fifteen miles north of Jerusalem. The meaning of all this was apparently that Josiah’s expansion in the north was minimal and included only the area of the much-hated cult center of Bethel.
Indeed, the archaeological finds that were used by the maximalists may be interpreted in a very different way. To start with Megiddo in the north, there is no evidence whatsoever to attribute the fort of stratum II to Josiah. Not a single Judahite item of the seventh century (which we shall describe below) has ever been found at Megiddo. We can safely accept the alternative view, that stratum II at Megiddo represents a peaceful takeover by the Egyptians. The Assyrian palaces probably continued to serve the Egyptian administration, and a fort was constructed on the eastern edge of the mound. This interpretation raises a somewhat similar problem, in that stratum II at Megiddo did not produce Egyptian finds. But the Egyptian rule in Palestine in the seventh century was very short—between ten and twenty years—and did not leave many finds even in the southern coastal plain.
As for Mesad Hashavyahu on the west, the Greek pottery that was found there is now known from a number of sites in the southern coastal plain and the Beersheba valley. The question is, should this pottery be understood as representing the physical presence of Greek merchants or mercenaries, or just the product of trade relations with the West? In general, the answer to a question like this depends, among other factors, on the quantity of this pottery found at a given site. The relatively high ratio of this pottery at Mesad Hashavyahu may indeed indicate the presence of Greeks. And if the site was indeed a fort, then we may be dealing with mercenaries. The next question would be, in which army did they serve? The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that Greek mercenaries served in the army of Psammetichus I, king of Egypt, and that they were stationed in his border fortresses. This has been confirmed in excavations in Egypt, including a dig of one of the places specifically mentioned by Herodotus. We can therefore quite safely accept the theory that Mesad Hashavyahu was an Egyptian coastal outpost staffed by, among others, Greek mercenaries.
But is it not possible that Greek mercenaries served also in the Judahite army? It is worth noting again in this connection the Kittim, who are mentioned in some of the late seventh century ostraca that were found in the southern Judahite fort of Arad. The commander of the fort was instructed to supply them with food provisions. Based on the Bible, which identifies Kittim with Greeks or Cypriots, and on the Greek pottery found in Mesad Hashavyahu (which was supposed to have been a Judahite fortress from the time of Josiah), Aharoni, the excavator of Arad, proposed that the Kittim were Greek or Cypriot mercenaries who served in the Judahite army. But other explanations are no less logical. Nadav Naaman suggested that the Arad ostraca should be understood as orders given to the Judahite commanders to provide supplies to Greek mercenaries in the Egyptian army, which at that time dominated Judah. Another biblical historian, Anson Rainey, proposed that the Kittim were not mercenaries but, rather, merchants who originated from the town of Kition in Cyprus. In any event, regarding Mesad Hashavyahu, there can be little doubt that Egypt, which expanded in the late seventh century along the coast of the Levant, was strong enough to prevent Josiah from building an isolated fort in the middle of an area in which Egypt had strong strategic interests.
If Mesad Hashavyahu was an Egyptian fort, we should ask what Judahites—that is, people carrying Yahwistic names—were doing there. The book of Jeremiah (44:1; 46:14) tells us that in his time Judahites lived in several places in Egypt, and from the finds at the island of Elephantine in the Nile, in Upper Egypt, combined with the references in the Bible to Syene (Aswan), we may assume that Judahites served as mercenaries in the Egyptian army as early as the late monarchic period. It is therefore quite reasonable that the unit stationed in the Egyptian fort of Mesad Hashavyahu included Judahite mercenaries. Naaman suggested that some of these Judahites may have been corvée workers who were sent there as part of Judah’s obligation as a subordinate of Egypt. There is thus no reason to stretch the territory of Josiah as far west as the coast.
Now to the south. The two seventh century forts in the deep south—Kadesh-barnea in the west and Haseva in the east—were identified as Judahite according to some pottery types and (in the case of the former) a few Hebrew ostraca, but mainly according to the idea of the great expansion of Judah in the time of Josiah. But there is a no less appealing alternative,
which was proposed by Naaman, that both were built in the early seventh century under Assyrian auspices with the assistance of the local vassal states—Judah (of Manasseh) and Edom—and that they were manned with local vassal troops. He further proposed that the ostraca written in Egyptian hieratic script found at Kadesh-barnea hint that in the late seventh century the site passed to the Egyptians. Indeed, the two forts, especially the huge fort of Haseva (which probably dates to the seventh century), look somewhat different from the Judahite forts in the Beersheba valley.
So far for the negative evidence. But do we have positive clues, that is, archaeological finds that can help us delineate the borders of Judah at the time of Josiah? The material culture of Judah in the late seventh century had several clear characteristics that are relatively easy to trace in the archaeological record. They represent various aspects of seventh century life in Judah—trade, cult, administration, and daily life. If we plot their distribution on a map we may be able to identify the borders of Judah. Though some of them appeared for the first time a few decades before Josiah’s reign, they must have continued to be in use, and their popularity peaked in the late seventh century. In other words, we may speculate that if Josiah extended the borders of Judah, the typical Judahite finds must also have gradually expanded to the new territories.
The first characteristic of the archaeology of Judah in the seventh century is small inscribed weights made of limestone. They were apparently used for daily, private commercial activity. They appear mainly in the heartland of Judah, from the Beersheba valley in the south to the area just to the north of Jerusalem. They were also found in large quantities in the eastern Shephelah. Outside of these traditional borders of Judah they are found in meaningful quantities only in the west, that is, in the lower Shephelah and the coastal plain. But this can be a result of strong trade activity between Judah and this area.
Another typical seventh century find in Judah is seal impressions in the shape of a rosette, found on the handles of storage jars. These seals probably played some role, which is not yet fully understood, in the administration of Judah at that time. Their distribution encompasses the highlands of Judah, from the Beersheba valley in the south to the area a bit to the north of Jerusalem, with the main concentration in the area of the capital.
Figurines of a standing woman supporting her breasts with her hands are also found in large quantities in late monarchic Judah. They can be distinguished from similar figurines that appear in neighboring regions. Almost all of them were found in the heartland of Judah, between Beersheba and Bethel. In the west they appear in large numbers as far west as the Lachish–Beth-shemesh line. Another type of figurine, depicting a horse and a rider, is also popular in the Late Iron II in the region. In this case, too, a Judahite version can be isolated. Almost all figurines of the latter type were found within the borders of Judah proper.
At any rate, these objects and typical Judahite pottery types of the late seventh century are found mainly in the heartland of the southern kingdom. Their numbers decline when one goes west and north. They still appear in meaningful quantity on the plateau of Bethel, but farther north their share in the assemblages declines.
When all these items are individually plotted on a map, their distribution is quite similar. It extends from the Beersheba valley to the plateau of Bethel north of Jerusalem, and from the Dead Sea and Jordan valley to the upper Shephelah. The question is, were these the borders of Judah, and do they indicate that there was no expansion farther to the north? Or do they represent only the core territory of the kingdom? In this case too, we must remember that if the drive to the north was short-lived, it could be under-represented in the archaeological record. But a permanent and far-reaching annexation of new territories into the kingdom of Judah is simply not suggested by the archaeological finds.
The Persian kings retained the general administrative division of the Near East that had been instituted by the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Under the Persians, the vast territories of the region were divided into satrapies, and each satrapy was further subdivided into provinces that were administered by governors. Palestine belonged to the satrapy called Beyond the River (that is, west of the Euphrates), which, according to Herodotus—the great Greek historian of the time—included the areas of Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Palestine.
The most detailed territorial data on the post-exilic province of Yehud come from the biblical text, from the list of exiles who returned from Babylonia (Ezra 2; Nehemiah 7) and from the list of the builders of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3). In the south, the boundary between Yehud and the Edomite territory passed just to the south of Beth-zur, leaving Hebron—the second-most-important town in the highlands in late monarchic times and the location of the tombs of the patriarchs—outside the territory of the repatriates. In the north, the border of Yehud conformed to the late seventh century border of late monarchic Judah, passing to the north of Mizpah and Bethel. In the east, Jericho was included in Yehud. In the west, the area of Lod in the northern Shephelah is mentioned in the list of the exiles returning from Babylon, but there is no consensus among
scholars as to whether it was included in the province. Yehud was therefore a small province, covering mainly the Judean hills approximately fifteen miles to the north and south of Jerusalem, an area not much bigger than eight hundred square miles. This was a much smaller territory even than the limited area of Judah in the late seventh century
BCE
. Unlike the latter, it did not include the southern Hebron hills, the Beersheba valley, and much of the Shephelah. The province was apparently subdivided into districts; the list of the builders of the wall (Nehemiah 3) mentions a few towns, among them Mizpah in the north and Beth-zur in the south, that served as district centers within the province of Yehud.