New Radiocarbon Dating from Late Bronze and Iron Age Gezer and Its Implications

Not only does Tel Gezer sit on the ancient international crossroad of the Via Maris or “Way of the Sea” that connected Egypt with greater Syria and Mesopotamia, but it is also situated along the local ancient roads from the coastal plain to Jerusalem. Of great relevance to world archaeology is Gezer’s location at the interface between archaeology, the Hebrew Bible, and other ancient texts. The recent publication of L. Webster and co-authors (Webster et al. 2023) presents the first significant radiocarbon dataset from Tel Gezer, a site that has been excavated for over one hundred years by some of the most celebrated Levantine archaeologists of the twentieth century including R. A. S. Macalister, R-C. Weill, A. Rowe, G. E. Wright, N. Glueck, and W. G. Dever. As one of the most important Bronze and Iron Age sites in the southern Levant, Gezer’s stratigraphy, material culture, and relative dating have been at the center of archaeological discourse since the first excavations were initiated in 1902 (Amiran 1955; Dever 1986, 1993, 2003; Finkelstein 2002; Frese 2019; Garfinkel and Pietsch 2021; Gitin 1990; Maeir 2004; Mazar 2010; Wolff 2021; Yadin 1958). The Tandy expedition, under the direction of S. M. Ortiz and S. R. Wolff, provides the first largescale radiocarbon dataset and chronological analysis of this key southern Levantine Bronze and Iron Age settlement center.From a methodological perspective, in the late 1960s–early 1970s, the excavations at Tel Gezer were pathbreaking, developing tight stratigraphic control and recording (Dever and Lance 1978) and interdisciplinary research taking advantage of emergent subfields such as geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, and paleobotany (Dever 1981). Unlike for the prehistoric period in the southern Levant, the application of radiocarbon dating to the historical (Iron Age) period was relatively slow. The publication of a paper in Science in 2003 concerning Iron Age chronology, pharaohs, and Hebrew kings pushed the envelope for the application of high-precision radiocarbon dating in the region (Bruins et al. 2003). That same year, an international conference on radiocarbon dating and the Bible was held at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton Manor that brought together leading researchers working in Israel and Jordan on the these issues (Levy and Higham 2005). While Prof. Dever presented at the conference (Dever 2005), at the time there was no significant number of radiocarbon dates from Gezer to address science-based dating and the site’s relation to biblical history. While somewhat late to the 14C Iron Age “dating game,” thanks to the Tandy expedition (2006–2017), Tel Gezer now joins the growing number of southern Levantine Iron Age excavations with large suites of radiocarbon dates that are more in alignment with the traditional, or high chronology for the Iron Age southern Levant (Mazar 2005; Mazar and Bronk Ramsey 2016) rather than the low chronology (Finkelstein 2005b, 2020; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2011).My colleagues and I recently commented on the growing importance of absolute dating for historical archaeology in the southern Levant in relation to another very important Iron Age 14C dating project in Jerusalem’s City of David (Levy et al. 2024; Regev et al. 2024). One of the most significant aspects of the Regev et al. 2024 study was their ability to work toward solving the problem of the Hallstatt Plateau, resulting in calibrated age resolution of ±200 y for the period between ca. 800 and 400 BCE—a key period in the history of Jerusalem (and the southern Levant) that includes the destruction of the city by a major earthquake (eighth century BCE) and by the Babylonian army (early sixth century BCE). At Gezer, Webster et al. (2023: 14) “chose not to radiocarbon date Stratum 6 because its expected chronological position (destroyed in 734 BC) would place it on the Hallstatt Plateau.” Webster et al. (2023: 27) avoided this absolute dating problem by not running 14C samples from Stratum 6, instead relying on traditional relative dating methods using pottery and material culture sequences in relation to Gezer’s stratigraphy (Wolff 2021). As the total number of radiocarbon dates produced for Webster et al.’s Gezer project was 35 samples, future researchers will have to solve the Hallstatt Plateau dating problem in Stratum 6 using a much larger assemblage of radiocarbon dates. For our research in Jordan’s Faynan district, home of the largest southern Levantine Iron Age copper production centers, to help solve the Hallstatt Plateau problem for the few late Iron Age sites dating to the problematic 800–400 BCE period, we applied geomagnetic intensity anchors for other historically known military campaigns and associated destruction events that have been established for the Iron Age southern Levant (Vaknin et al. 2022). The results are reproduced in Figure 1 (Levy et al. 2024). Going into the future, Iron Age archaeologists should apply this “shotgun” approach to absolute dating, using as many dating methods as possible to solve historical biblical-archaeology problems.As highlighted in Webster et al.’s research (2023: table 3), seven key archaeological and historical issues are addressed in their 14C study of the LB IIB–Iron Age IIA strata at Tel Gezer. Two of these issues are germane to our Faynan research: (a) rise of Iron Age monumentality (Tandy Stratum 8; HUC Stratum VIII); (b) the end of Stratum 8/VIII and Sheshonq I’s campaign at Gezer. In their 2001 The Bible Unearthed, I. Finkelstein and N. A. Silberman wrote: “For some years, Solomon’s gates symbolized archaeology’s most impressive support for the Bible. Yet basic questions of historical logic eventually undermined their significance. Nowhere else in the region—from eastern Turkey in the north through western Syria to Transjordan in the south—was there any sign of similarly developed royal institutions or monumental building in the tenth century BCE. As we have seen, David and Solomon’s homeland of Judah was conspicuously underdeveloped—and there is no evidence whatever of the wealth of a great empire flowing back to it” (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001: 140). Now, more than two decades since The Bible Unearthed was published, many excavations with science-based goals have taken place in Israel and Jordan making it necessary to reassess the view that there were no local complex societies, royal institutions, or monumental building during the tenth century BCE in the southern Levant.The Tandy excavations radiocarbon dating project (Webster et al. 2023; Webster, Wolff, and Ortiz, this issue), following Yigael Yadin’s (1958) pioneer study, makes the case that the monumental six-chambered gate at Gezer was indeed constructed in the early tenth century BCE, and it presents a summary of new projects with monumentality and social complexity for this key period in biblical history (e.g., Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet al–Rai Level VII, Beth Shemesh Level 4). The radiocarbon dating and material culture evidence from the copper production center at Faynan’s Khirbat en–Nahas (KEN) offers one of the largest assemblages (N = 102 samples) of radiocarbon dates for an Iron Age site in the southern Levant (Levy et al. 2014) and shows definitive evidence of local social complexity during the Iron IIA period in this part of ancient Edom. The radiocarbon dates and Bayesian models for KEN and other Iron Age sites excavated by our team have been published (Higham et al. 2005; Levy et al. 2004; Levy et al. 2014; Levy et al. 2008). For the comment here, in terms of securely dated early tenth-century BCE monumental architecture, Figure 2 shows the four-chambered gate and fortification wall (Area A) at the site. Figure 3 illustrates KEN’s administrative building and enclosure (Area R) and the Area M slag mound excavation that demonstrated local industrial-scale copper production dating to all phases of the tenth and ninth centuries BCE.There has been debate over our results (Bienkowski 2022; Finkelstein 2005a; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2006, 2008; Tebes 2022) concerning data showing a local tenth-century BCE complex society in Edom; however, these critiques are unfounded. Finkelstein (2005a: 123), even before the complete suite of radiocarbon dates from the KEN gatehouse was published (Levy et al. 2014), argued that “a close look at the aerial photo and plan of Khirbet en–Nahas (Levy et al. 2004: 868–869) seems to show that the fort was built on top of the site, cutting into the piles of copper industry waste. . . . Khirbet en-Nahas supports the commonly-held view on the emergence of Edom under Assyrian domination in the 8th century BCE.” But examining a photo or Google Earth image is poor evidence for making stratigraphic interpretations. The published stratigraphy for the KEN gatehouse excavations (Levy et al. 2014: 93–122) show conclusively that it was not cut into piles of slag; rather, the slag deposits accumulated around the structure or inside rooms at different phases of the Iron Age, and there is no evidence of eighth-century BCE radiocarbon dates or material culture that tie the 10-hectare site to this period or the Assyrians.Regarding our large-scale 14C dating project for the site of Khirbat en-Nahas (N = 102 dates), Tebes states: “The 14C dates reveal a long history of occupation of Area M, from the 14th to the 9th centuries BCE. As expected, most of them come from industrial layers and fills, and we note again the presence of ‘outliers’ that can be attributed to the mixed nature of the mound layers, with four samples dated too ‘late’—OxA-17643, OxA-17645 (M4), OxA-17644, OxA-17647 (M5a)” (2022: 130). In fact, all these dates are not outliers in any of the models presented by Tebes, regardless of the calibration curves used. They have a 3–4% chance of being an outlier, which is < less than the prior setting of 5%. These are simply not outliers. Similarly, Tebes says: “Overall, IntCal20 significantly changed seventeen 14C dates from KEN, lowering eleven dates and raising six. . . . Our IntCal20 re-calibration significantly lowered four 14C dates (in two cases only the start date) (OxA-19040, OxA-17646, OxA-17639, OxA-17636) and raised two (OxA-17703, OxA-17638)” (2022: 130). There is in fact no significant difference between any of the dates before and after calibration with the different datasets. For the majority of the distributions, they overlap; take OxA-19040 as an example (Fig. 4). This critique is also unfounded. The high precision radiocarbon-dating project at Khirbat en-Nahas and its plethora of material culture finds demonstrate that ancient Israel’s contemporary neighbor provides evidence of a local complex/kingdom-level society during the Iron IIA period in the southern Levant (Ben-Yosef et al. 2010, 2019; Ben-Yosef 2019; Higham et al. 2005; Levy et al. 2004; Levy et al. 2014; Levy et al. 2008).Concerning the military campaign of Sheshonq I, the new 14C data and model from the Tandy expedition indicate that Stratum 8 at Gezer may have come to an end during his reign. As Webster et al. point out here, there are issues they factor into their interpretation such as the text-based date for Rehoboam’s fifth year (925 BCE), which could in fact be decades higher (Ash 1998: 13–19, 25), and some other concerns. They rule out a previously suggested connection between Gezer Stratum 8 and Hazael’s campaign (ca. 840 BCE), which was based on the low chronology (Finkelstein 2002). The new Tandy 14C results add another important geospatial data point for Sheshonq I campaign’s main route along the Via Maris by linking archaeological strata to the Egyptian historical record. The disruption in industrial copper production at Khirbat en-Nahas (Area M) at the end of the tenth century BCE has been attributed to a “flying column” of Sheshonq I’s forces during their Asiatic campaign when they made their way across the northern Negev to the southern end of the Dead Sea and then south through the Wadi Arabah (Kitchen [1973] 2004; Levy et al. 2008). This reconstruction is strengthened by the discovery in the Faynan copper production region of an Egyptian scarab bearing the name of the Pharaoh Sheshonq I (Levy, Münger, and Najjar 2014) (Fig. 5). Thus, the new radiocarbon dating evidence from Tel Gezer joins the growing number of archaeological sites in Israel and Jordan with monumental architecture, epigraphy, industrial and other evidence for local south Levantine social complexity at the level of statelet or kingdom societies during the tenth century BCE.