Body: | The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern Border
By Rudolph Cohen, 1985 AD
String of desert fortresses uncovered in Central Negev
(The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern Border, Rudolph
Cohen, 1985 AD)
An enormous number of Iron Age fortresses have been uncovered in the
Central Negev, especially in recent years. The question is, what are they
doing here? The answer depends in large part on who built them. And to
determine who built them, we need to know as precisely as possible when
they were built.
The remains of a few of these fortresses were found even before World War
I. In their famous archaeological survey for the London-based Palestine
Exploration Fund, Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence
of Arabia") discovered Qast er-Ruheileh, Bir Birein and Tell Ein el
Qudeirat in what they identified as the Biblical "Wilderness of Zin."
Nothing else happened until the 1950s and early 1960s, when some additional
fortresses were identified in surveys of the area conducted by the American
rabbi-archaeologist Nelson Glueck and, later, by one of Israel's leading
archaeologists, Yohanan Aharoni.2
In 1961, Beno Rothenberg also surveyed the area of Nahal Horsha and Nahal
Kadesh Barnea.3
In 1965, I began my own work in this area. In the second half of the 1960s,
I led a survey on behalf of the Archaeological Survey of Israel, and in the
1970s, another on behalf of Israel's Department of Antiquities. In 1975,
Ze'ev Meshel conducted a survey in the area of Nahal Sirpad, with the help
of the staff of the field school at Sde Boqer. As a result of all these
archaeological surveys, more than 40 Iron Age fortresses have now been
identified in the Central Negev.
A new phase in our understanding of these fortresses was opened up,
however, by a number of excavations, rather than by surveys. I excavated my
first fortress, Atar Haro'a, between 1965 and 1967. Then, between 1969 and
1972 Ze'ev Meshel and I excavated four additional fortresses. a After the
1978 Camp David peace accords, which led to the transfer of important
military airfields from Sinai to the Central Negev, I directed a number of
emergency rescue excavations of these fortresses on behalf of the
Department of Antiquities, the most recent in 1983. In all, 20 of these
fortresses have now been at least partially excavated.4
As a result of all this work, we have identified four different styles of
fortressesperhaps, more accurately, I should say we have identified four
different types of architectural plans. Some of the fortresses are (1)
roughly oval in plan; others are (2) rectangular but with unequal sides;
still others are (3) square; finally, two of the fortresses are (4)
rectangular but with outcropping towers at the corners and sides. Let us
put aside the fourth category because the two fortresses with outcropping
towers at their corners and sides date from the eighth to the sixth
centuries B.C., considerably later in the Iron Age than the other three
fortress plans; these other three are not only earlier, but
contemporaneous. In this article, I will concentrate on the fortresses with
the first three kinds of plansoval, rectangular with unequal sides, and
square. All three plans, while they differ in shape, consist of casemate
walls enclosing a central courtyard.
The most common plan is the oval. We now know of 11 oval fortresses. Let me
describe in more detail one of these, which I excavated in the spring of
1983.
We call it Mesudat Nahal Aqrav. The first word means "fortress" in Hebrew.
Aqrav, as I shall call it here, is surrounded by a casemate wall, which is
a wall formed by two parallel walls subdivided into rooms by transverse
walls. The inner and outer casemate walls of the fortress are two feet wide
and were constructed with rough-hewn blocks of local limestone. They are
preserved to a height of over six feet. The entire casemate wall is
approximately 130 feet in diameter and 406 feet in circumference, and is
divided into 24 casemate rooms. The 8,712-square-foot central courtyard was
open to the sky. The casemate rooms, however, were roofed and were used as
lodgings, armories and storerooms. These rooms are each about eight feet
wide, but they vary in length from about 10 to 25 feet. In three of these
casemate rooms, we found stone columns in situ. That is why we know the
casemate rooms were roofed. The columns once supported the roof, which had
long since fallen in. In some of the doorways connecting the rooms with the
courtyard, we found the lintels in situ.
In the southern part of the courtyard we found the remains of a large
structure, about 30 feet wide and 80 feet long, attached to the inner wall
of the casemate. We don't know exactly what it was used for, but it
probably served some administrative function.
The principal entrance to the fortress, on the south, was formed rather
simply by a gap of about six feet in the casemate wall between two of the
casemate rooms. A second gateway, almost eight feet wide, provided access
through the northern side of the fortress, but at some stage it was sealed
up with massive stones. West of this northern gateway was a square room,
about 13 feet on a side, that had evidently served as a lookout tower.
The floors of the various rooms were beaten earth. When we found them, they
were covered with a layer of ashes, indicating that the fortress had met
with a violent end. Amid the ashes were the smashed remains of wheel-made
pottery (that, as we shall see, enabled us to date the fortress), as well
as some handmade pottery.
We also found the ruins of a contemporaneous settlement north of the
fortress. The settlement included a number of structures. The largest and
central structure had two wings of similar shape. Overall it was about 32
feet by 23 feet. Its walls, like those of the fortress, were built of
rough-hewn limestone blocks. In the eastern wall were two stone pillars of
five cylindrical drums each.
Aqrav is only one of 11 oval fortresses of Iron Age origin that have been
identified in the Central Negev.6 Although all 11 are oval, some are more
nearly circular than others. Their sizes vary considerably. The smallest,
Horvat Haluqim, is about 70 feet in diameter, the largest, Horvat Rahba,
about 215 feet in diameter. Sometimes the shape follows the topography of
the hill on which it is built. These oval fortresses contain between eight
and 24 casemate rooms, although the full number has not been determined in
all cases. Generally, the gateway is simply a gap in the line of the
casemate rooms, although sometimes the passage is narrowed by massive stone
piers. Some of the fortresses, like Aqrav, have additional internal
structures. But the basic groundplan is the samecasemate rooms around a
central courtyard. Each of these oval fortresses, with perhaps one
exception, has an associated settlement.
The second type of fortress is rectangular in plan. The walls are usually
unequal in length and correspond to the topography of the hill on which
they were built. Sometimes the line of casemate rooms simply skirts the
edge of the hilltop. Seven of these rectangular fortresses have been
identified.7
The third type of fortress is square and was evidently built in accordance
with a standard plan, almost 65 feet on a side. There are four of these
square fortresses.8
All three types of fortresses contained similar pottery, which, although
not abundant, was homogeneous. These fortresses also shared many other
characteristics, including casemate walls built of rough-hewn limestone
blocks around a central courtyard and usually a beaten-earth floor with a
layer of ashes on top indicating a fiery destruction. There were slight
differences in addition to shape. Some had buildings in the courtyard. Some
had outbuildings attached to the outside casemate wall. Some had guardrooms
attached to the gateway. At some we found cisterns for water storage and at
others animal pens; sometimes the courtyard was one big, open area, and
sometimes it was subdivided by walls. But these variations were minor.
Associated settlements were found in the immediate vicinity of most of the
fortresses. Many of the structures in the settlements consisted of
so-called "four-room houses." The four-room house is closely associated
with the sedentarization (the change from a semi-nomadic life to a settled
life) of the Israelites when they occupied Canaan after the Exodus. A
typical four-room house contains three parallel long rooms (one of which
may be an open courtyard) with a long, broad room perpendicular to the
three long rooms. Any of the rooms may be subdivided without changing its
basic structure or plan. The walls separating the long rooms from the
courtyard often consist of monolithic stone pillars (three in each row)
alternating with dry stone construction. Some four-room houses have five
and six pillars in a row, and instead of being monolithic these pillars
sometimes consist of stacked drums. Sometimes a building clearly seems to
be part of a unified farm complex that includes nearby terraced fields,
walls and cisterns. Cisterns were often located at the bottom of a small
wadi in order to collect the rainwater. At Horvat Haluqim, a typical
settlement, we recorded the remains of 25 structures, although not all were
four-room houses.
While it is obvious that the settlements were associated with the
fortresses, the settlement's precise relationship to the fortress remains
unclear. Were the inhabitants of the settlements civilian farmers who
enjoyed the protection of the nearby military stronghold? Or, on the model
of the Roman limitanei, were the inhabitants soldier-cultivators who took
refuge in the fortress in time of danger?
Clearly, the three fortress typesoval, rectangular and squarewere
contemporary with one another, and all belonged to the same overall
defensive network in the Central Negev. This is shown by the pottery and,
to a lesser extent, by the other similarities, including the similarities
in building technique.
The question naturally arises as to why three distinct fortress types were
employed. I have tried to establish some correlation between the respective
groundplans and function or terrain, but have not reached any satisfactory
conclusion. One might suppose that two or three different architects were
active in the area, each responsible for different projects, and each
utilizing the "blueprint" he preferred or with which he was familiar. Or it
may be that the fortresses were not all erected simultaneously, but came
into being in short stages. Even if no more than a decade or so intervened
between different types, one can easily imagine that new defensive
groundplans came into vogue, replacing earlier models. However, this is all
simply conjecture. But the existence of three basic plans does not
contradict my basic thesis that the network in its entirety was notably
short-lived, not enduring more than a half-century at most.
The three different shapes may be reflected in different words for
fortresses used in the Bible. Professor Benjamin Mazar has suggested a
relationship between the oval fortresses and the Biblical expression
atarot. This word refers to a fortified city or encampment and appears
either alone or as part of a place name. The verbal root of the word
connotes the sense of "surrounding" or "closing in," and occurs in words
for "crown" and "wreath." In a place name, by analogy, it would imply a
round enclosure. In Numbers 32:34-35, among the sites established in
Transjordan by the tribe of Gad, Ataroth and Atroth-shophan are mentioned.
In Joshua 16:5, Atroth-addar is listed as one of the border cities of
Ephraim. In 1 Chronicles 2:54, Atroth-beth-joab is cited as one of the
eponymous sons of Salma. Even though they are rather general examples,
these names containing the element atarot do suggest that a round or oval
fortification had an accepted nomenclature in Biblical usage. Perhaps these
names referred to an oval fortress of the type we have been discussing.
Elsewhere in scripture other words are used for fortresses. These include
mesudah (plural, mesudoth) and mesadah (plural, mesadim). Sometimes two of
these terms are used together, as in Genesis 25:16, where the Ishmaelites
are enumerated "by their haserim and by their tiroth." These two words are
translated variously as towns and castles, villages and encampments,
hamlets and fortresses, settlements and strongholds. The reference may well
be to a fortress like those we have been discussing (more specifically the
oval plan) and its associated settlement.
Later the Israelites fled from the Midianites and built for themselves
refuges in caves and mesadim (fortresses, Judges 6:2).
When David fled from Saul, seeking refuge in the wilderness of Judah, he
stayed in mesadim (fortresses) (1 Samuel 23:14). This same kind of fortress
or stronghold is later referred to in 1 Samuel 24:22 as a mesudah.
The numerous fortresses that have been discussed in the Central Negev are
altogether suitable to these Biblical terms and their contexts. On the
other hand, these Central Negev fortresses and their associated settlements
can be placed in a much narrower time frame. Once this has been done, we
will be able to place these Central Negev fortresses in a more precise
historical context. One of the most significant contributions of our recent
work on these fortresses has been to re-date themalthough not all
scholars agree with our new dating.
The principal method for dating these fortresses is to date the pottery
found lying in the ashes on the floor. Although never found in large
quantities in any of the fortresses, it is nevertheless homogeneous pottery
and clearly datable, in our view, to the tenth century B.C. Some scholars,
however, have assigned the pottery to the 11th century, which radically
changes the historical context in which the functions of the fortresses
must be interpreted.
Two distinct types of pottery were found in the fortresses, hand-made and
wheel-made. The particular kind of hand-made pottery found is restricted to
the Negev, so scholars call it "Negbite" ware. Negbite ware was first
observed by Woolley and Lawrence in their pre-World War I probe of
Kadesh-Barnea. They noted fragments of "rough, handmade wares, thin-walled,
of gritty clay burnt very hard in an open hearth."9 This pottery was
"rediscovered" by Glueck in his excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh
(identified by him with Biblical Ezion-Geber). Here he found "large
quantities of crude, handmade, friable, smoke-blackened pots, many of which
were built up on a mat, and most of which have various simple types of
horn- or ledge-handles, or combinations of both."10 Subsequently, similar
hand-made pottery was found at numerous Iron Age sites in the Central Negev
and Timna-Eilat area. Aharoni related it to the semi-nomadic inhabitants of
the desert: "This latter handmade pottery was no doubt made locally by the
most primitive methods, i.e., on a mat and with very bad firing. It may be
conjectured that these vessels were the work of nomad potters, who, being
constantly on the move from settlement to settlement in the Negev and
Aravah, could not make use of the more highly developed instruments of
their craft, such as a potter's wheel and a permanent clay oven. These
simple and cheap utensils largely satisfied the daily needs of the local
population, especially as cooking-pots. At the same time, a certain amount
of the usual pottery of the period was imported from further north."11
Interesting as this Negbite pottery is, it cannot be used at the present
time to date the Central Negev fortresses because it has such a wide
chronological range. True, at one time, the pottery was assigned to the
tenth century B.C., but that was before my excavation at Kadesh-Barnea,
where it clearly remained in use until the end of the Iron Age in the sixth
century B.C.12 Moreover, Beno Rothenberg, on the basis of his research in
the Timna-Eilat area, argues that this pottery originated hundreds of years
before the tenth century B.C.13 Although I have some reservations on this
point, it is nevertheless clear that Negbite ware is of limited usefulness
as a chronological indicator. This is unfortunately the case even though
within its long time-span Negbite ware appears to have undergone some
changes. For example, in the Central Negev fortresses, which I date to the
tenth century, virtually the only forms of Negbite ware were cooking pots
and bowls. By the eighth-seventh centuries B.C., as seen in the so-called
middle fortress at Kadesh-Barnea, we found a wide variety of shapes, many
of them quite clearly modeled on contemporaneous wheel-made types.
To securely date the Central Negev fortresses, however, we must turn to the
wheel-made pottery that was imported from the north, the heartland of the
United Monarchy and the culturally developed part of the country. The
wheelmade pottery unearthed in all the fortresses shows many distinct
similarities. Cooking pots from several sites, for example, clearly derive
from the same overall assemblage. They are shallow, carinated (in profile,
they have an angle), and have a round base.
In my view, the pottery associated with the oval fortresses throughout the
Central Negev can be confidently assigned to the tenth century B.C. It is
difficult to demonstrate this conclusion in non-technical language and it
is even more difficult for the non-expert to assess the arguments.
If my arguments as to the dating of this pottery are correct, then a
re-dating of a number of excavation levels is required at several important
sites somewhat north of the Central Negev fortresses, in the Beer-Sheva
Basin (Tel Beer-Sheva, level VII; Tel Masos, level I; and Tel Esdar, levels
II-III). The excavators of these sites date these strata earlier than the
tenth century B.C. It seems to me that the firm chronology established for
the Central Negev fortresses necessitates a re-evaluation of their views.
My own examination of the pottery from these levels has convinced me that
they date to the tenth century B.C.c
An accurate date for these Central Negev fortresses is not a merely
academic issue. In the period embraced by the 11th and tenth centuries,
Israel underwent a major transformation: It developed from a loose
confederation of tribes into a unified state. (David's reign began in about
1000 B.C.) The earlier or later dating of these fortresses is, therefore,
crucial. It determines the historical background against which the role of
the fortress and settlement network will have to be interpreted. Those who
favor the earlier date are inclined to view the fortifications in the
context of King Saul's campaign against the desert nomads, such as the
Amalekites. In my view, the fortresses were erected during the reign of
King Solomon. Solomon's reign was undoubtedly a period of expansion and
royal planning par excellence, and the establishment of a fortress and
settlement network in the Negev would have been of vital importance for the
strengthening of his kingdom's southern region. (On King Solomon's building
of fortifications, see 1 Kings 9:15.) It is in this context that we must
understand the Central Negev fortresses and associated settlements.
In addition to the technical dating evidence based on the pottery, there
are other arguments, historical and archaeological, that support my
conclusion.
Let us consider another archaeological fact. Many of the fortresses and the
associated settlements contained an ash-layer that convincingly proves
these fortresses and their nearby settlements suffered the same sorry end.
What or who was the destroyer? I believe there is only one reasonable
candidate: Pharaoh Shishak (Sheshonq I).
About five years after Solomon's death (ca. 924 B.C.), Pharaoh Shishak
launched an attack against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There are
cursory references to this Egyptian campaign in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles.
In 1 Kings 14:25-26, we read "In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King
Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem and carried off the treasures of
the House of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He carried off
everything; he even carried off all the golden shields that Solomon had
made." In 2 Chronicles 12:1-12, we are told that Shishak came with 12,000
chariots, 60,000 horsemen and innumerable troops. In the swath of
destruction, he took the fortified towns of Judah. But Shishak "did not
destroy [Rehoboam] entirely."
A more extensive description of the campaign was inscribed by Shishak
himself on the walls of the Temple of Amon in Karnak. In this victory
inscription, which is one of the most important historical documents of its
time, Shishak lists the names of the cities, villages and settlements he
conquered. The first part of the inscription contains a long list of sites
in the northern and central sections of Israel. The second part of the
inscription, containing over 10 names, is apparently devoted to the Negev.
Only a few of the names can be identified with cities known from the Bible.
These include Arad, Yurza, Sharnhen, and the proposed identification of
Ezion-Geber, which is doubtful.14
Of particular interest to us here are nine place-names formed with the
component p.h\-q-r, which can be readily associated with the Semitic root
h\-g-r ("fort"). The list includes, for example, the fortress of Great
Arad, which clearly refers to the site still bearing that name. Identifying
the other fortresses referred to by Shishak is more problematic, but it may
well be that a number of the names refer to the fortresses we have been
discussing.
This suggestion was first put forward by Professor Benjamin Mazar.15
Interestingly enough, the late Yohanan Aharoni, in his fundamental
historico-geographical study, The Land of Israel, agreed with Mazar's
suggestion connecting the Central Negev fortress and settlement sites with
the list of conquered sites on Shishak's victory inscription.16 Indeed,
Aharoni wrote that: "At least some of the sites in the network of forts
along the Negev roads date to the United Monarchy. The Israelite
agricultural settlement built on Ramat Matred ... was founded in the first
half of the tenth century and evidently destroyed by Shishak's expedition
shortly after Solomon's death."17
Later Aharoni argued for an 11th-century date for the Central Negev
fortresses, largely because he dated level VII at Beer-Sheva, a major
excavation he directed, to the 11th century B.C. But he never
systematically refuted the reasons he and Mazar had adduced for connecting
them with Shishak's campaign of about 925 B.C.
Aharoni, when contending for an 11th-century date, argued that the
settlement and fortress complex in the Central Negev represented a natural
extension of the ongoing process of sedentarization commenced by the Hebrew
tribes in the 13th century: "We have before us an instructive illustration
of settlement pressure and the diffusion of the excess population into the
most remote and difficult regions. Israelite settlement in the northern
Negev began towards the end of the 13th century, and by the end of the 11th
century it had reached the Negev's southernmost corners."18 I believe this
argument is applicable to the Israelite expansion into the northern part of
the area, but not the area in which these Central Negev fortresses are
found. In considering the history of the Israelites in the Negev, one must
distinguish between the northern part of the area, with the Beer-Sheva
Basin at its focus, and the southern part, which features the limestone
highlands of our immediate concern. The excavators of Beer-Sheva and Masos
attribute the beginnings of Israelite sedentarization in the Beer-Sheva
Basin to the beginning of the 13th and start of the 12th centuries B.C.
While I am convinced that they have set the dates of their lowest
(earliest) levels too far back, I basically concur with their description
of the 11th century as a kind of efflorescence in that region. This
corresponds with what is known as the Period of the Judges or (less
Biblically) the Settlement period in Palestine. My disagreement with some
of my colleagues concerns the end of this phase. Both historical and
strictly archaeological considerations have led me to the conclusion that
the Central Negev fortresses and settlements were not in existence in the
Period of the Judges; their brief occupation can be dated to the tenth
century B.C.
There can be no doubt that the Central Negev fortresses and settlements
constitute the principal evidence of Israelite settlement in the area south
of Beer-Sheva. The reality of Shishak's devastating campaign to the Central
Negev is accepted by everyone. Moreover, if the Central Negev fortresses
and settlements were not among the sites enumerated by Shishak, we are
confronted with an acute historico-archaeological problem: Where are the
settlements destroyed by Shishak? There simply are no other possibilities.
Following the destruction of these fortresses, the Central Negev was
virtually abandoned. The conclusion is inescapable: Shishak demolished the
Central Negev fortresses and settlements in about 924 B.C.
The excavations of these sites have all indicated that they were occupied
only for a brief period, 50 years at most. They could not have been erected
long before their demise. Therefore, they must have been constructed some
time in the tenth century. Other archaeological evidence, such as the
presence of red-burnished pottery, supports this contention.
Another reason I believe these fortresses were constructed in King
Solomon's reign is that they reflect a unified effort involving the
systematic construction of dozens of remote but at the same time
substantial strongholds. Such an effort clearly implies an initiative by a
strong central authority, an authority not evident in the 11th century, the
days of the Judges. In the tenth century, by contrast, there was a strong
central authority in the person of King Solomon himself. In my view, the
fortresses were erected during the reign of King Solomon, a vigorous and
powerful ruler, whose numerous public works included the fortification of
cities, the construction of storehouses, and the founding of distant
trading-posts. Solomon's fortress network provided a firm defensive line
against attack from the south, and accordingly can be understood as the
southern border of his kingdom.19 Following Shishak's campaign, Judah's
southern border retreated to its former line along the Beer-Sheva Basin.
The Israelites continued to display a definite interest in their country's
southern region, as witnessed by the succession of ambitious fortresses at
Kadesh-Barnea. But the Central Negev, by and large, was abandoned, and no
attempt at serious resettlement was undertaken for many centuries, until
the coming of the Nabateans in the third and second centuries B.C.
Central Negev Fortresses
Sidebar to: The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern
Border
The fortresses in the Central Negev were built according to three plans:
oval, square and rectangular. Solid lines illustrate excavated features;
open or dotted lines represent the archaeologist's reconstruction. At each
fortress a casemate wall encloses a central courtyard. The repeated pattern
of these fotress shapes suggests that they were part of a unified network
built in a brief timespan, perhaps during the reign of one monarch. The
author speculates that the fortresses were all built by order of King
Solomon, in the tenth century B.C., and that they endured for no more than
50 years.
Why were fortresses constructed in three different shapes? No one knows for
sure, but two theories are proposed. Different architects may have been
responsible for the different designs, or a short time lapse between the
construction of the different types of fortresses may have allowed new
defensive groundplans to come into vogue.
Footnotes:
a. Mesudat Refed, Mesudat Hatira, Horvat Ritma, and Mesudat Har Boqer.
b. The fortresses that fit into this fourth category are the two upper
fortresses at Kadesh-Barnea and that of Horvat Uza. For more information,
see "Did I Excavate Kadesh-Barnea?" BAR 07:03.
c. With regard to Esdar, Kochavi has incorrectly (in my opinion) separated
Strata III and II, assigning the former to the 11th century, the latter to
the beginning of the tenth. I contend that they form a single level, and
that, together with Masos I and Beer-Sheva VII, they were contemporaneous
with the Central Negev strongholdsand that they all subsisted during the
period of the United Kingdom.
Endnotes:
1. Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence, "The Wilderness of Zin,"
Palestine Exploration Fund Annual III (1914-15), p. 61.
2. Nelson Glueck, "The Negev," Biblical Archaeologist (BA) 22 (1959), pp.
82-97, esp. p. 93. Yohanan Aharoni, "Forerunners of the Limes Iron Age
Fortresses in the Negev," Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ) 17 (1967), pp.
1-17.
3. Beno Rothenberg, Negev, Archaeology in the Negev and the Arabah, (Ramat
Gan, Israel, 1967), pp. 71-79.
4. For citations see Rudolph Cohen, "The Iron Age Fortresses in the Central
Negev," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR) 236
(1980), pp. 61-79. The material presented here is part of the author's
doctoral research on "The Settlements of the Central Negev," supervised by
Prof Benjamin Mazar and the late Yigael Yadin.
5. Cohen, "Mesudat Nahal Aqrav," IEJ 34 (1984), p. 204. I was assisted in
this excavation by M. Herman, Y. Yisrael, N. Sneh, Y. Lender, D. Nachlieli,
Iris Elder and B. Steltzer. The surveying was carried out by M. Feist, I.
Varkin, E. Palepa and Nellie Steltzer. Financial aid was provided by the
National Council for Research and Development of the Ministry of Science
and Development.
6. The other ten oval fortresses are: Ein Qedeis (Aharoni, "Forerunners,"
IEJ, 17 [1967]); Horvat Haluqim (Cohen, "Excavations at Horvat Haluqim,"
Atiqot [English Series] 6 [1970], pp. 6-24); Atar Haro'a (Cohen et al.,
"The Archaeological Survey in Israel," IEJ 15 [1965], pp. 263-264; idem,
Atar Haro'a, Atiqot [Hebrew Series] 6 [1970], pp. 6-24); Horvat Ketef
Shivta (Hadashot Arkheologiyot (HA) 39 [1971], p. 30); Horvat Rahba (Cohen,
"Notes and News: Horvat Rahba," IEJ 25 [1975], pp. 171-172); Mesudat Nahal
Horsha (HA, 45 [1973], p. 40); Mesudat Nahal Sirpad (HA, 65 [1981], p. 39);
Mesudat Nahal Resisim (HA, 83 [1983]); Mesudat Kadesh-Barnea (earliest
level) (Cohen, "Notes and News: Kadesh-Barnea," IEJ 32 [1982], pp.
266-267); and Mesudat Ela ("Mesudat Nahal Ela," IEJ 34 [1984], pp.
203-204).
7. Examples are Mesad Hatira, Horvat Har Boqer, Horvat Ramat Boqer, Mesad
Refed, Mesad Nahal Nafha, Mesad Har Sa'ad, Mesad Mishor Hamah.
8. Horvat Mesora, Horvat Ritma, Horvat Nahal Raviv, and the fortress
opposite Atar Haro'a.
9. Woolley and Lawrence, "The Wilderness of Zin," Palestine Exploration
Fund Annual III (1914-15), p. 61.
10. Glueck, "The First Campaign at Tell el-Kheleifeh (Ezion-Geber)," BASOR
71 (1938), p. 14; BASOR 79 (1940), pp. 17-18.
11. Aharoni et al., "The Ancient Desert Agriculture of the Negev V: An
Israelite Agricultural Settlement at Ramat Matred," IEJ 10 (1960), pp.
97-111.
12. Cohen, "Kadesh-Barnea: A Fortress from the Time of the Judean Kingdom,"
Israel Museum Publication (1983), p. xvii.
13. Rothenberg, Timna (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972).
14. J. Simons, Egyptian Topographical Lists, (Leiden, 1937), pp. 89-102,
178-186. Arad (nos. 107-109), Yurza (nos. 110-112), Sharahen (No. 125),
Ezion-Geber (nos. 73-74).
15. B. Mazar, "The Campaign of Pharaoh Shishak to Palestine," Vetus
Testamentum, Suppl. IV (1957), pp. 57-66.
16. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (London: Burns & Oates, 1974), pp.
288-290.
17. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, p. 273.
18. Aharoni, The Archaeology of Israel (Jerusalem: Shikmona, 1978), p. 154
(Hebrew).
19. The Bible contains a great deal of information about the highways in
this area. The "Way of the Spies" was the principal route from
Kadesh-Barnea to Arad. The "Way of Shur" (Genesis 16:7; 20:1) ran from
Beer-Sheva through the area of Halussa, Nisana, and from there to the Sinai
interior, on the way towards Egypt. The Bible also alludes to the "Way of
Mount Seir" (Deuteronomy 1:1-2), the "Way of the Mount of the Amorites"
(Deuteronomy 1:19), and the "Way of the Red Sea" (Exodus 13:18; Numbers
21:4; 14:25; Deuteronomy 1:40; 2:1). There is a striking resemblance
between the array of fortresses along the eastern edge of the Central
Negevfrom Horvat Rahba south to the Sede Boqer area until beyond Mishor
Haruah, and then west to Ein Qedeis and Kadesh-Barneaand the southern
border of the tribe of Judah as described in Joshua 15:1-4: "The portion
that fell by lot to the various clans of the tribe of Judah ... Their
southern boundary began from the tip of the Dead Sea, from the tongue that
projects southward. It proceeded to the south of the Ascent of Akrabbim,
passed on to Zin, ascended to the south of Kadesh-Barnea, passed on to
Hezron, ascended to Addar ... and the boundary ran to the Sea. That shall
be your southern boundary." Such a border would also explain why no remains
of Israelite fortresses have been located south of Makhtesh Ramon. Aharoni
believed that the Negev fortress network continued down the Aravah, via
Yotveta, to the Eilat district, where Solomon's Red Sea harbor was
presumably located (Aharoni, "Forerunners," IEJ 17 [1967]). However,
subsequent research has shown that there is no archaeological basis for
this view. Ze'ev Meshel's excavations at Yotveta have revealed that the
fortress here postdates considerably those of the Central Negev network
(Meshel, "Notes and News: Yotveta," IEJ 24 [1974] pp. 273-274) and a recent
re-examination of Glueck's finds at Tel el-Kheleifeh (which he identified
with Ezion-geber) has conclusively proved that the tenth-century B.C.
pottery is not represented (Gary Pratico, "Tell el Kheleifeh 1938-1940: A
forthcoming reappraisal," BA, 1982, pp. 120-121). It may be, therefore,
that Solomon employed the Edomite King's Highway in Transjordan (which was
under his control), and that the actual site of the port is in the vicinity
of present-day Akabah.
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.
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