The Biblical Archaeologist - Vol.37, N.2

28 Pages·1974·3.69 MB·English

by  American Schools of Oriental Research

(
The
i'P
Biblical
Archaeologist
Publishedb y
The AmericanS choolso f Oriental Research
126I nmanS treet, Cambridge,M ass. 02139
May, 1974
VVoolluummee 3 377 NNooj. 2.3.. May, 1974
26 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
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Contents
Tel Dan, by Avram Biran ......................................................26
Publication Announcements .................................................... 52
Cover: The head of a female figurine of the Israelite period from Dan.
Tel Dan
AVRAM BIRAN
Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, Jerusalem
"When the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up
and fought against Leshem and . . . they captured it and settled in it,
renaming Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor." Thus
briefly does Joshua 19:47 refer to the conquest of Leshem (Laish) by the
tribe of Dan and the settlement of the tribe in the north of the country.
A much more detailed account of the migration of the tribe appears in
Judges 18, an account which A. Malamat relates to the story of the
Exodus and the Israelite conquest of Canaan. What was the nature of
the city of Laish? The biblical account is silent, but it must have been
a city of some importance, for it is mentioned in the Egyptian Execration
Texts, as well as in the records of Thutmose III. From the recently dis-
covered documents at Mari we also know that tin was exported to Laish,
probably for the manufacture of bronze objects.
Dan as a place name appears in the Bible in Genesis 14:14: "When
Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken prisoner, he led forth his
retainers ... and went in pursuit as far as Dan." However, in the days of
1974, 2) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 27
Abraham the name of the city was Laish; and it should be assumed that
originally this name appealed in Genesis 14:14, and that a latter-day
redactor, realizing that the name Laish was unknown, probably changed
it to Dan. Dan is mentioned many times elsewhere in the Bible and the
phrase "from Dan to Beersheba" became the accepted geographic formula
in ancient Israel. Dan became a cult center in the days of Jeroboam: "So
the king ... made two calves of gold. .... And one he set in Bethel, and
the other he put in Dan. And this thing became a sin, for the people
went to worship before the one, as far as Dan" (I Kings 12:28-30). The
city must have been of some military and administrative importance
since Ben-Hadad of Damascus thought it necessary to attack it: "And
Ben-Hadad ... sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of
Israel, and smote Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth" (I
Kings 15:20).
The identification of Dan-Laish with Tel Dan (Tell el-Qadi), situ-
ated at the foot of Mt. Hermon and on one of the main sources of the
river Jordan, has long been established. It is a fifty-acre site with steep
slopes and an unusual shape. Instead of the usual flat top found on most
mounds, the upper surface of Tel Dan is concave - it slopes inward like
a bowl. This peculiar shape gave rise to the speculation that the mound
might be an extinct volcano. An archaeological excavation was necessary
to provide an explanation. Moreover, only an archaeological excavation
could verify whether the site was inhabited during the second and first
millennia B.C., when Dan-Laish appears in written records.
The Excavation
The excavation at the site by the Israel Department of Antiquities
and Museums were begun in 1966 as a rescue or salvage operation. The
"Friends of Antiquities" (a country-wide volunteer organization serving
as the eyes and ears of the Department) reported the discovery of pottery
and artifacts at Tel Dan in the course of the digging of trenches. It was
then decided that an attempt should be made to obtain a stratigraphic
sequence of the occupation of the mound. Members of the nearby Kib-
butz Dan also urged us to begin the excavations in order to determine
whether identification of the mound with Dan was correct.
The excavations, begun in 1966 and continued in following years, re-
vealed massive fortifications of the Canaanite and Israelite periods. It
was established that the city was founded in the Early Bronze age in the
middle of the third millennium B.C., but the EB layers were reached in
only one small area. Consequently little can be said about this earliest
city. The abundance of EB pottery found during the excavations and its
range indicate that the town must have been fairly large and quite pros-
28 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
Fig. 1. Trench in the southern slope of Tel Dan, showing the stone core and the ramparts of
the period of the Patriarchs. In the foreground on the right is part of the Israelite
city gate.
perous. This is scarcely surprising, since it was located near a perennial
spring in a fertile valley and on the highway between Damascus and the
coast.
If our information on the EB period is scanty, this is not the case
with the Middle Bronze age which spans the first half of the second mil-
lennium B.C. Albright had already suggested in 1935 that the mound of
Tel Dan is a typical Hyksos site similar to Hazor and others. He did not
mention having found any MB pottery, but such was Albright's fore-
sight that, some thirty years later, archaeological evidence confirmed his
1974, 2) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 29
?--..I--.
Fig. 2. Battered stone rampart in Area Y of Tel Dan.
thesis and incidentally, confirmed the reference in Genesis 14:14 to Dan
(Laish). It is not our intention to discuss here the date of the Patriarchs
or that of the Hyksos, but it is generally agreed that theirs is the Middle
Bronze age.
30 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
The Middle Bronze Age Ramparts
The excavations on the southern slope of the mound (Area A) re-
vealed a construction of sloping ramparts with a stone structure 6.50 m.
(nearly 22 feet) wide serving as a core (Fig. 1). The material used for the
exterior of the rampart was amassed from the debris of previous settle-
ments on the site, from the EB and MB II ages. The builders of the
ramparts, however, (lid not raze all the occupation remains and we found
undisturbed strata from these periods at the lowest levels of the excava-
tions. On the inner side of the core, natural alluvial earth from the sur-
rounding valleys was used for constructing the ramparts which sloped
towards the center of the mound. A number of jar-burials of the end of
the MB IIB an(d MB IIC ages (1750-1550 B.C.) were found in the excava-
tion of this inner slope.
Fig. 3. A "duck-bill" axe of the 19th century at Tel Dan; it is just over four inches long
(10.5 cm.).
In Area Y, on the eastern slope of the mound, the builders of the
rampart found the stone structure that was uncovered in ,the course of
our excavation, and whose original use remains unknown (Fig. 2). The
people of the Middle Bronze IIA age placed jars, bowls and bronze ob-
jects (burials or offerings?) on and inside the stone structure (Fig. 3).
Most, if not all, of the MB II sherds found in the earth layers of the
rampart belong to MB IIA. This means that the earth used for the con-
struction of the rampart was taken from the ruins of the MB IIA settle-
ment. However, the existing battered stone structure which the builders
of the rampart used as a core for their fortification was not high enough
for them. Additional height was obtained by building a stone platform on
top of the existing core, and erecting on this platform a brick wall 1.80
m. (six feet) high and 3.50 m. (nearly twelve feet) wide, with a revetment
of unhewn stones (Fig. 4). The revetment appears to have existed on both
sides of the wall. The stone and brick structure served as a core to
support the layers of earth forming the rampart. Towards the inside,
there were alternate layers of settlement debris and riverbed soil. Towards
the outside only riverbed soil and alluvial earth were used.
1974, 2) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 31
Fig, 4. Section through the brick construction on top of the battered stone rampart in Area
Note the "batter" on the brick also.
I mom_g | WRWM_ 1; IM W M ~' I m N 4'_
Fig. 5. Jar burial of the period 1750-1700 B.C., found within the earthen rampart in Area B,
The scale at the top is twenty centimeters, or about eight inches, long.
32 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
Fig. 6. Tomb of the LB II period, in use between about 1350 and 1250, containing the skeletal
remains of some 45 persons together with Mycenean and locally-made grave gifts.
1974, 2) THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST 33
Fig. 7. Some of the fine objects from the rich "Mycenean" tomb at Dan. At top, pottery, basalt
and bronze objects; at lower left, the unique charioteer vase; at lower right, a bronze
bowl with an animal-shaped handle and a bronze lamp; at bottom, two ivory cosmetic
boxes.
34 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. 37,
The information obtained from the excavationis bf the ramparts to
the south and east enable us to conclude that the rampart was built in
the Middle Bronze age IIB, in the second half of the 18th century B.C.
These results, together with the archaeological data obtained in the other
areas of excavation - a definite MB II level with cooking pots, jars, jugs,
juglets as well as burials (Fig. 5) - indicate that at a time when Laish
is mentioned in Genesis 14:14, in the Execration Texts, and in Mari,
there was indeed an important city at our site.
,Sufficienta rchaeological evidence of the Late Bronze age was brought
to light to confirm also the reference to Laish in the records of Thutmose
III. Of special interest is the discovery of a very rich tomb, of the Late
Bronze II period, perhaps the tomb of a noble or prince or of a Mycen-
ean trader. This tomb, built of rough basalt stones, was dug into the
earthen inner rampart (Fig. 6). The floor is paved with flat stone slabs
and measures 2.40 by 2.20 m. (about eight by seven feet), while the walls,
which were built at an incline of 32 degrees, are 2.40 m. (eight feet) high.
Entrance was from above. In the tomb, remains of forty-five skeletons of
men, women, and children, were found in a state of utter disorder. It
seems that the skeletons and funerary offerings were periodically pushed
aside to make room for additional offerings and interments. The grave
gifts include imported Mycenean wares such as pyxides, amphorae, jug-
lets, flasks and a unique charioteer vase, as well as bronze objects such as
bowls, oil lamps, swords and arrowheads, ivory cosmetic boxes, and ala-
baster jug, gold and silver jewelry (see Figs. 7 and 8). A large number
of locally made vessels, stone implements and pottery imported from
Cyprus complete the repertoire in the tomb. On the ceramic evidence it
appears the tomb was used for a generation or two from the mid-14th
century to the second half of the 13th century B.C.
Before proceeding, one remark should be made. No archaeological
evidence has so far been discovered for a settlement outside the ramparts
during either the Middle Bronze or the Late Bronze ages. It appears that
the people chose to live within the ramparts, which provided maximum
security and seemed impregnable. The five Danite spies report that the
people who lived there "dwelt in security ... quiet and unsuspecting"
(udges 18:7). This false sense of security may have contributed to the
conquest of Laish by the tribe of Dan.
The Iron Age (Israelite Period)
The date of the conquest of Laish by the Danites has long engaged
the attention of biblical scholars. I do not propose to enter this discussion
here. The opinions of scholars may be found in the various commentaries
to Joshua and Judges. Here we would like to present the archaeological