The Bible tells us that King Saul was killed by the Philistines and that his body (as well as those of his three sons) was hung on the wall of Beth Shean:
“The Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons lying on Mt. Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped him of his armor … They placed his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they impaled his body on the wall of Beth Shean. When the men of Jabesh-Gilead heard about it—what the Philistines had done to Saul—all their stalwart men set out and marched all night. They removed the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shean and came to Jabesh and burned them there. Then they took the bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and they fasted for seven days” (1 Samuel 31:8–13; cf. 1 Chronicles 10:8–12).
What does archaeology tell us? A fair question.
Archaeology tries to put the whole episode in context. Archaeology asks some broader questions. 035036 What were the Philistines doing at Beth Shean? And why Beth Shean in the first place? After all, Saul was killed on Mt. Gilboa. And what was the wall at Beth Shean like?
For an archaeologist, that’s only the beginning. When and why was Beth Shean settled? And by whom? The episode about King Saul and his sons is not the only Biblical reference to Beth Shean. Beth Shean was a city in one of King Solomon’s administrative districts (1 Kings 4:12).
Archaeology has something to say about all of these matters, including the wall of Beth Shean (or its absence).
Between 1989 and 1996, I conducted nine excavation seasons at Beth Shean in an effort to answer some of these questions (and many more related to the history of this site). I suspect that I will not be the last to dig there. As a matter of fact, I was not the first.
More than 90 years ago, a University of Pennsylvania expedition began digging at Beth Shean. They knew the site was important not only from the Biblical references but from the imposing tell, or mound, that dominated the intersection of two vitally important ancient routes: the north-south Jordan River Valley and the east-west route from the Jezreel Valley to Transjordan and beyond. The University of Pennsylvania expedition to Beth Shean was the first large-scale excavation in the Holy Land after World War I. The expedition extended over 12 years, from 1921 to 1933. The results were spectacular, but the publication 037 of the results left much to be desired. And in the decades that followed, archaeological method was vastly improved.
In 1983 Yigael Yadin and Shulamit Geva, on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, conducted a short three-week season on the mound in an effort to clear up some of the problems. It was obvious, however, that a major new excavation was needed. That opportunity came 16 years later when a large project was organized to excavate the dramatic and tourist-attracting Roman-Byzantine city of Scythopolis at the foot of the Beth Shean mound. The renewed excavation of the tell was tacked onto the larger project at its base. The Roman-Byzantine city at the base will feature later in this article in the discussion of whether or not there is any archaeological evidence that King Saul and his sons were actually hung from the wall of Beth Shean. I managed this dig with the assistance of Hebrew University graduate students, workers from Beth Shean and volunteers. Robert Mullins and Nava Panitz-Cohen are notable for their continued participation as staff members in all nine field seasons and in the final publication project.
The lifeline of Tel Beth Shean is long—over 6,000 years. We get a sense of the sweep of civilization from this history. It begins in the Pottery Neolithic—literally the new stone age—followed by the Chalcolithic (fifth–fourth millennium B.C.E.) and the Early Bronze Age (3600–2300 B.C.E.).
Each stratum has its own story to tell; there are more than seven of them. In the two upper strata of the Early Bronze Age Ib (c. 3300–3000 B.C.E.), we found a large mudbrick structure with a spacious hall; the roof was supported by 14 wooden pillars standing on unworked stone bases. Benches along the walls and other finds indicated that the building was used for food storage and processing as well as crafts such as weaving and flint flaking. The early phase of this building was violently destroyed by fire, by whom we do not know. It was later rebuilt and finally abandoned. To our surprise, during the following period—the Early Bronze Age II, which saw the earliest urbanization in Canaan—the site was unoccupied. Then it was resettled in the Early Bronze III (c. 2700–2300 B.C.E.) when a large amount of the so-called “Khirbet Kerak Pottery” is evidence for settlement by immigrants who originated in the Caucasus region (today parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan). Beth Shean was the southernmost settlement site of these distant settlers.
For several hundred years thereafter, however, only shepherds and a few peasants lived on top of the ruined Early Bronze Age city.
Beginning in the mid-18th century B.C.E. (Middle Bronze II), a small Canaanite settlement with well-planned streets and dwellings occupied the site for two centuries.
The next period, the Late Bronze Age, produced the earliest spectacular finds from Beth Shean. They date from the mid-15th century to the mid-12th century B.C.E. At this time the site became an administrative center and garrison town of Egypt’s New Kingdom empire that then ruled Canaan. The University of Pennsylvania expedition uncovered 038 a wealth of buildings and artifacts from this period (Egyptian dynasties XVIII, XIX and XX), including successive temples, administrative buildings, a governor’s house, and a number of inscribed stelae, door lintels and statues erected by Pharaohs Seti I, Ramesses II and Ramesses III. Our excavations uncovered additional Egyptian administrative and residential buildings. Both expeditions revealed a rich collection of artifacts reflecting the high status of the Egyptian officials stationed here. They were living in what might be called “little Egypt.” Their pottery was manufactured by Egyptian potters who produced vessels similar to those in Egypt. Seals (and seal impressions), cult objects, jewelry and other artifacts were made in Egyptian style. Houses were decorated with Egyptian-style wall paintings.
During the 13th–12th centuries B.C.E., Egyptian garrison members were buried in anthropoid pottery coffins, a practice known in Egypt and at several Egyptian strongholds in southern Canaan, such as Deir el-Balah south of Gaza. Almost 50 of these anthropoid coffins (mostly just small pieces) were recovered at Beth Shean. These finds provide dramatic evidence of the extent of Egyptian domination of Canaan in the period when the earliest Israelites just began to settle in the hill country south of Beth Shean.
The portraits on some of the anthropoid coffin lids from Beth Shean were made in a kind of “grotesque” style foreign to Egypt. At one time it was thought that these might be the coffins of Philistines, especially because of the “feather” headdress on one of the coffin lids and other signs on two other lids that resemble the headdress of the Philistines and other “Sea Peoples” pictured on the wall of the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu in Egypt.1 But as suggested already in 1973 by Eliezer Oren, it is now clear that the anthropoid coffins at Beth Shean and elsewhere are related to Egyptian garrisons there during the late New Kingdom.2 The most that one can say is that the three coffins in the “grotesque” style with those special signs belonged to mercenaries in the Egyptian garrison; we know that the Egyptians hired mercenaries among the population groups known as the Sea Peoples (they included Sherden and Danuna as well as Philistines). Whether there were a few Philistines (mercenaries) among them at Beth Shean we cannot tell. In any case, the use of those anthropoid coffins ended with the end of the Egyptian presence in Canaan, no later than about 1130 B.C.E., at a time when the Philistines had just begun their settlements in Philistia and much earlier than the time of the assumed battle against Saul, which, if historical, must have occurred closer to 1000 B.C.E.
Toward 1140/30 B.C.E. the Egyptian presence in Canaan came to an end. Beth Shean was destroyed by heavy fire, perhaps after being captured by local Canaanites who were happy to get rid of their then-weakened foreign rulers.
During the late 12th–11th century B.C.E., the town was resettled and the destroyed residential 039040 quarter was rebuilt. The material culture this time, however, is Canaanite. The local Canaanite population simply replaced the Egyptian garrison.
This is the city that existed when the battle of Gilboa between Saul and the Philistines is supposed to have taken place. But there is no evidence of a Philistine presence at Beth Shean at this time. Philistine painted pottery, which is quite distinctive, is absent from Beth Shean, though it was found in small quantities at Tel Rehov to the south, as well as at a few other sites in the Jezreel Valley. Beth Shean, however, was never a Philistine town. If the Biblical story has historical validity, if the Philistines hung Saul’s body on the wall of Beth Shean, the most that we can assume is that the Philistines who arrived from the southern coastal plain took over the local Canaanite town for a short time—but such an event cannot be corroborated by archaeology.
What about the wall of Beth Shean where the Bible says the bodies of Saul and his sons were hung? After all, walls are an archaeological specialty. Alas, no fortification walls have been found at Beth Shean—from any period. Benny Arubas, the architect of the Hebrew University excavations of the Roman city at lower Beth Shean, has suggested an explanation, however.3 The critical part of the mound with the wall may have been cut off in the Roman period during the construction of Scythopolis at the foot of the mound. The main street of this Roman city was a very wide, straight road flanked by roofed sidewalks and shops. The adjacent tell interfered with this plan. Therefore the entire southern and perhaps also part of the western portions of the mound were simply cut away by huge earth works. This would leave no chance for 20th-century archaeologists to find any fortifications on these sides of the mound. On the 041 other sides of the mound, excavations were not carried out to a sufficient depth due to thick occupation deposits of later periods. For this reason, we have no archaeological confirmation of the Biblical account. It could have been a historical event or it could be a literary construct. Archaeology has not provided a clear answer.
The Canaanite town of the Iron Age I came to an end some time around 1000 B.C.E. We found some evidence for violent destruction, but the exact circumstances of the end of this town remain unknown.
A new city was built during the Iron IIa period, dated to the tenth–ninth centuries B.C.E. We discovered the remains of three substantial buildings from this period on the summit of the mound. Their wide mudbrick walls were laid on large basalt stone foundations with charred wooden beams between the bricks and the stone foundation. These structures had been part of an administrative complex. If indeed this complex was constructed during the tenth century B.C.E., it would agree with the Biblical notice that Beth Shean was one of three important towns in one of Solomon’s administrative districts (the other two being Megiddo and Tanaach; see 1 Kings 4:12).
These buildings were destroyed in a fierce conflagration. When and how this happened is somewhat of a question. The Bible records an attack on Jerusalem by Shishak, king of Egypt, five years after the death of Solomon, during the reign of his son Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25). Scholars agree that Biblical Shishak is Pharaoh Sheshonq I of Egypt. His campaign into Judah and Israel c. 920 B.C.E. is recorded in detail on a wall of the Egyptian temple at Karnak. Among the cities he claims to have conquered is Beth Shean. Shishak’s campaign surely tends to confirm Beth Shean’s importance in Solomon’s time and may explain the fiery destruction at the site. Yet I must admit that our pottery chronology is not sufficiently developed to enable us to date precisely the final destruction of these buildings. It may have occurred either in the late tenth or in the ninth century B.C.E. If the later date is accepted, the destruction could 070 have been caused by the wars between Israel and the Arameans, rather than by Shishak’s campaign. It is difficult to decide between these two alternatives.
Following this destruction, Beth Shean was rebuilt yet again and continued to be a thriving town in the northern kingdom of Israel. Both the University of Pennsylvania expedition and the Hebrew University expedition found significant structures from this time period. A typical Israelite “four-room house” excavated by our expedition is exceptional in its size and contained massive mudbrick walls 071 that probably carried a second floor. It was destroyed and burnt with the rest of the town in a great fire probably set by the Assyrians when they conquered the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel in 732 B.C.E. The devastation was total, followed by hundreds of years of an occupational gap.
Life resumed on the mound during the Hellenistic period, sometime in the late third or early second century B.C.E. By that time the city was renamed Nysa/Scythopolis and was inhabited by a mixed Jewish and pagan population. In the first century B.C.E., the high, steep tell no longer fit the latest developments in urban planning, and a large city was built in conformance with Roman urban planning at the foot of the mound. Only a temple was built on the tell, connected by steps to the city center at the foot of the mound.
This new Roman city, with its temples, markets, wide streets and monuments continued to thrive for several centuries. During the Byzantine period (fourth–sixth centuries C.E.), the mound was settled again, and a circular church replaced the older Roman temple.
After the devastating earthquake of 749 C.E., a thriving Arab city arose on the mound. In the Crusader period, the mound became part of a large estate that was surrounded by a fortification wall and entered through a monumental gate. Later, the mound was abandoned until the 20th century, when it became a magnet to archaeologists.4
The Bible tells us that King Saul was killed by the Philistines and that his body (as well as those of his three sons) was hung on the wall of Beth Shean:
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Trude Dothan, The Philistines and Their Material Culture (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1982), pp. 252–288.
2.
Eliezer D. Oren, The Northern Cemetery of Beth Shan (Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 132–150.
3.
B. Arubas, “The Impact of Town Planning at Scythopolis on the Topography of Tel Beth-Shean: A New Understanding of Its Fortifications and Status,” in Amihai Mazar, ed., Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean 1989–1996, Volume I. From the Late Bronze Age IIB to the Medieval Period (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Israel Exploration Society, 2006) pp. 48–58.
4.
For a summary of the old and new excavations at Beth Shean, see Amihai Mazar, “Beth Shean, Tel,” pp. 214–223, in E. Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (rev. ed.), (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993); Amihai Mazar, “Four Thousand Years of History at Tel Beth Shean: An Account of the Renewed Excavations,” Biblical Archaeologist 60 (1997), pp. 62–76; Amihai Mazar, “Tel Beth Shean: History and Archaeology,” pp. 239–272 in Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann, eds., in collaboration with B. Corzilius and T. Pilger, One God, One Cult, One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 405) (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010); Amihai Mazar, “The Egyptian Garrison Town at Beth Shean,” in S. Bar, D. Kahn and J. Shirley, eds., Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature: Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa, 3–7 May 2009 (Leiden: Brill 2011), pp. 155–189.
Final reports: Amihai Mazar, Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean, 1989–1996. Volume 1: From the New Kingdom to the Medieval Period (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Israel Exploration Society, 2006); Amihai Mazar and Robert A. Mullins, eds., Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean 1989–1996, Volume II: The Middle and Late Bronze Age Strata in Area R (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Israel Exploration Society, 2007); Nava Panitz-Cohen and Amihai Mazar, eds., Excavations at Tel Beth-Shean 1989–1996, Volume III: The 13th–11th Centuries B.C.E. (Areas S and N) (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Israel Exploration Society, 2009).
