In Their Own Words

020

Why have archaeologists found so little in Jerusalem from the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.), the period just before the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan? We know an important city existed there, despite the paucity of archaeological evidence, because we have correspondence between the Egyptian pharaoh and the king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, preserved in the archive of cuneiform tablets known as the Amarna letters.^a Jerusalem archaeologist Eilat Mazar gives this analysis in her recently published preliminary report on her current Jerusalem excavations:¹

One of the more interesting topics in the archaeology of Jerusalem is the scarcity of Late Bronze Age remains in the city. Nevertheless, the existence of a settlement then is attested to by the meager and fragmentary remains exposed by [Kathleen] Kenyon and [Yigal] Shiloh (Stratum 16), as well as the tomb discovered on the western slope of the Mount of Olives and rich in finds from this period. Scholars have attempted to explain the paucity of finds on various grounds … [They] have primarily attributed the scarcity of remains to an overall pattern of settlement reduction in this period and to intensive occupational activity in subsequent periods, which apparently destroyed whatever did remain. It seems to me that these are not the main reasons behind the absence of finds; rather, it is the fact that most excavations have taken place on the margins of the tell or completely beyond it. Only excavations conducted in the heart of the ancient settlement on top of the spur could attest to the accuracy of the Amarna letters’ description of the Jerusalem kingdom.

Only last year, Mazar’s excavations near the Ophel south of the Temple Mount revealed a fragment of a Late Bronze Age cuneiform tablet, very likely a copy of one of the letters Abdi-Heba sent to Egypt.^b

Why have archaeologists found so little in Jerusalem from the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.), the period just before the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan? We know an important city existed there, despite the paucity of archaeological evidence, because we have correspondence between the Egyptian pharaoh and the king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, preserved in the archive of cuneiform tablets known as the Amarna letters.a Jerusalem archaeologist Eilat Mazar gives this analysis in her recently published preliminary report on her current Jerusalem excavations:1 One of the more interesting topics in the archaeology of Jerusalem is the scarcity of Late […]