Why Did the Early Israelites Dig All Those Pits?

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At almost every Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.) site where the early Israelites settled, archaeologists have found an extraordinary number of pits.

In Biblical terms, Iron Age I is the period of the Judges, when, as the Bible tells us, “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). King David came to the throne at the beginning of the next archaeological period (Iron Age II), in about 1000 B.C.

So numerous are these pits that at some sites they are considered the most characteristic element of Iron Age I occupation. At Tell Ta-annek, for example, the American archaeologist Paul Lapp reported 17 pits in a single area.¹ At Hazor, Yigael Yadin reported three principal architectural elements in the Iron I stratum: (1) ovens, (2) foundations for huts or tents and (3) pits. Of the three structures, the pits appear to constitute the primary building activity at Hazor during this period. The “excavated areas were literally strewn with these pits,” Yadin tells us.² A similar situation was found at Shechem³ and at other sites.⁴

These early Israelite pits were constructed on two standard designs:

1. The bell-shape

2. The cylinder or bottle-shape

The latter type looks like a bottle with a small opening and a narrow neck, which leads to a body or cavity that has an undiminished diameter. The cylindrical pit can be quite large, reaching a width of 10 feet and a depth of 16 feet. The bell-shape style of pit is, of course, shaped like a bell. It, as well, can be quite large, sometimes measuring up to 8 feet wide and 12 feet deep.

Several Biblical references to pits suggest that on occasion the pits were used for incarceration; the size of excavated pits indicates that they could have been temporarily used for this purpose. Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers in Dothan (Genesis 37:21–24). The prophet Jeremiah was also imprisoned in a pit (Jeremiah 18:20–22).

Murdered bodies were also thrown into pits. The men who murdered King David’s son Absalom threw his body into a pit (2 Samuel 18:17). After the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., 70 supporters of the Judahite puppet ruler Gedaliah were murdered and thrown into a royal pit (Jeremiah 41:7–9).

Incarceration and the holding of murdered persons’ bodies cannot have been the primary purpose of these early Israelite pits, however.

Some of these pits are unlined. Others are lined with lime plaster, still others are lined with rocks and a few are lined with ash. In most cases, there was undoubtedly a separate sealer. Modern ethnographic parallels suggest that valley or wadi clay and dung were probably used to seal at least some of these early Israelite pits,⁵ although these sealing methods have not actually survived.

The pits dug by the early Israelites are sometimes a special boon to the excavator because they contain a wealth of valuable small finds, such as restorable pottery and figurines. When the senior author of this article was supervising the excavation of an area at Tell el-Hesi, the most valuable and the largest objects we found came from the earthen fill of these pits.

But obviously these pits were not dug to provide repositories for archaeologists 3,000 years later. Why then did the early Israelites dig all these pits?

One early suggestion was that the early Israelites who dug the cylindrical or bottle-shaped pits were searching for building materials from earlier periods, which they could “rob” and then use in their own construction. Consequently, these pits are sometimes referred to as “robber pits.”⁶

At one point, American archaeologist Lawrence Toombs suggested that the pits at Shechem must have some type of agricultural function because Shechem reverted to an agricultural village in Iron I. Toombs speculated that the Shechem farmers obtained garden chalk for their fields from these pits.⁷

The eminent French archaeologist Père Roland de Vaux suggested that the pits at Shechem may have served as latrines.⁸

Jacob Kaplan, an Israeli scholar, regards many of these pits as cooking ovens.⁹

Other archaeologists argue that the Israelite pits at Beer-Sheva from the Persian period were probably used for making compost.¹⁰

Excavation reports sometimes refer to pits as “refuse” or “rubbish” pits.¹¹ Presumably this reflects a judgment that the pits referred to were dug in order to discard trash. It is difficult to believe, however, that so many uniform pits, often lines of them, were used simply to throw garbage into. The refuse that excavators find in the fill of pits reflects only a secondary, or later, function of the pits.

Some pits were undoubtedly used as cisterns for water storage. The majority of water cisterns are plaster-lined, although unlined cisterns dug into impermeable rock have also been discovered in the central hill-country of early Israel.¹² But water storage cannot account for most of the early Israelite pits.

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The most sensible suggestion seems to be an early one made by the director of the Shechem expedition, G. Ernest Wright—most of these pits were used for grain storage. This suggestion also has the support now of Toombs, G. R. H. Wright¹³ and others. However, until tested, the suggestion remains at best a hypothesis.

To test the viability of this suggestion, we organized the Lahav Grain Storage Project, which is affiliated with the excavation of Tell Halif (Lahav), the Lahav Research Project and the Colonel Joe Alon Centre of Kibbutz Lahav.

We constructed a number of pits to replicate those from ancient Israel, stored grain in them for an extended period of time and conducted a series of tests on the pits and their contents to determine whether they work satisfactorily for grain storage.

Our pits are smaller than those found in the field. Our test pits are only about 2 by 3 feet. But other experimenters have shown that the size of an experimental pit can be reduced without affecting the behavior pattern of the stored grain.¹⁴

Some of our experimental pits we left unlined, others we lined with stone and in still others we used ash on the walls. In the future, we intend to test plaster. We sealed our test pits with valley or wadi clay.

For storage material, we used locally grown wheat from the 1985 harvest of Kibbutz Lahav, since its shape and size are directly comparable to the shape and size of ancient wheat.

We poured the grain into the test pits as soon as we completed them, filling each pit to about ¾ capacity. We stored the grain for four to six months. One pit remained unopened. Normally, however, experiments have shown that four to six months is ample to determine success ratios for storage pits of grain.¹⁵

We then carefully tested the viability of the grain, the infestation of insects, the concentration of carbon dioxide and oxygen and the temperature of the grain.¹⁶ The results show that subterranean pit storage was an efficient and suitable means of preserving grain. Underground storage hinders rodent activity, prevents an increase of moisture and controls the formation of 056bacteria. The principal hazard from this method of storage comes from the intrusion of insects. Insects do damage to the grain simply by eating the endosperm or germ of the grain. If enough insects infest the grain, it can be disastrous to the crop. Insects also breed in the grain itself, thus multiplying the number to destroy the grain crop.

All in all, however, subterranean pits appear to be an excellent means of grain storage. They were used prolifically in early Israel. Whether these pits were also used for other purposes, it seems clear that most of them were used for grain storage. In addition, our experiments showed that the ash lining used in some test pits was more effective in preserving the grain than were other types of linings, because it prevented moisture build-up and the intrusion of vermin.

The early Israelites were not the only people to dig pits. Indeed, pits are found in every archaeological period from the Epipaleolithic period (c. 18,000 B.C.) forward.¹⁷ They come in a variety of designs, sizes and construction techniques. But in some periods, they proliferate.

Iron Age I is such a period. The reason for this is not entirely clear. But if we are correct that these pits were used mainly for grain storage, the reason for the proliferation may relate to the village social structure of this period, when the emphasis was on private installations. Later, in Iron II, Israel was ruled by a monarchy. No longer did the Israelites live with a relatively simple grain-storage system. With the development of more mature political, social and economic hierarchies, commencing with the establishment of the Israelite monarchy, grain-storage practices became more complex and communally oriented. We can see at that time a movement toward a centralized, public grain-storage system, well attested by several excavated examples of large-scale silos and a variety of huge storehouse complexes.

The enormous number of pits in the earlier period—the period of the Judges—reflects a simplicity and lack of diversity in grain-storage techniques that befits the prevailing socio-economic and political context of that time.

At almost every Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.) site where the early Israelites settled, archaeologists have found an extraordinary number of pits. In Biblical terms, Iron Age I is the period of the Judges, when, as the Bible tells us, “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). King David came to the throne at the beginning of the next archaeological period (Iron Age II), in about 1000 B.C. So numerous are these pits that at some sites they are considered the most characteristic element of Iron Age I occupation. At Tell Ta-annek, for example, […]