The case for redating the MB/LB transition.

The currently accepted dating of the MB/LB transition depends largely on the assumption that the destructions which occurred at that time mark the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and a subsequent Egyptian campaign of retaliation throughout Palestine [e.g. Dever:174-175]. This scenario has resulted in the destructions being given a round date of 1550 BC, though the new and lower dates for the 18th Dynasty now preferred by many Egyptologists would place them nearer to 1500 BC [Bietak 1988:54]. In fact there is no evidence at all to link the destructions with Egyptian campaigns against the Hyksos [Bimson 1981:132-40;1987], and so a major plank for dating the MB/LB transition is actually a piece of fiction.

I will not repeat in detail here the arguments in favor of redating the MB/LB transition to shortly before 1400 BC. Briefly, two lines of recent research converge in support of such a revision. One is the chronological research of M. Bietak, the excavator of Tell ed-Dab'a in Egypt's Eastern Delta. At this site a Middle Bronze culture closely related to that of Palestine is represented in archaeological contexts datable by Egyptian finds. On the basis of his excavations Bietak would lower the dates for the period known as MBIIB by roughly a century [Bietak 1984]. In Palestine MBIIB is followed by MBIIC, the final phase of the MBA. In Egypt the equivalent of MBIIC is a very short period, ending with the expulsion of the Hyksos (now to be dated between 1530 and 1515 BC [Bietak 1988:54], but in Palestine, as is well-attested at sites such as Shechem, it must have lasted at least a century and probably more. As far as Palestine is concerned, Bietak's radically low dates for MBIIB therefore push down the end of MBIIC as well.

Bietak himself would lower the MB/LB transition in central Palestine to 1459 BC. [8] This is because he attributes the destructions which marked the transition to Thutmose III, whose campaigns began in that year according to the low chronology. However, Egyptologist J. Hoffmeier has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, the campaigns of Thutmose III did not cause widespread destruction in Canaan [Hoffmeier, forthcoming]. Other destroyers of the MBIIC cities must therefore be found, and a date a few decades later than Bietak's would allow us to identify their destroyers as the incoming Israelites. [9]

A later date than Bietak's becomes increasingly likely in the light of the second piece of research to be mentioned here. In a recent re-examination of the pottery from the MBA city at Jericho, B. G. Wood has shown that the city actually continued to thrive somewhat into the LBI period before it was destroyed [Wood 1987b]. This conclusion is radical enough by itself, but it opens up an even more radical possibility. Wood's conclusion is based on a careful study of local Palestinian pottery from the site, whereas previous work on Palestine's ceramic chronology has given more weight to imported wares. It may be that other cities supposedly destroyed at the end of MBIIC should also have their lives extended into LBI. This possibility needs to be tested by means of a detailed comparative study of pottery from a whole range of sites, applying Wood's dating criteria.

The radical conclusions of Bietak and Wood put the dating of the MB/LB destructions back into the melting-pot. Both studies imply a later date for those destructions than has conventionally been entertained. Bietak's work places the MB/LB transition later than has previously been suspected, while Wood's findings may require us to place the major wave of destructions some way into LBI instead of at the MBIIC/LBI transition. While it is too early to be dogmatic, it does seem likely that either Bietak's evidence, or Wood's evidence, or some combination of the two, will allow (or even require) us to date those destructions late in the 15th century BC. With the Israelite Conquest assigned to shortly before 1400 BC, and with the wave of MB/LB (or in Wood's view LBI) destructions redated to correlate with it, the biblical tradition is archaeologically attested at every site where a city said to have been destroyed by the Israelites has been confidently identified and adequately excavated. This statement would not win universal assent, however; many biblical scholars and archaeologists would object that it is not true of the city of Ai, the city which Israel took immediately after Jericho according to Joshua 7:2-8:29. This city deserves a separate discussion.

The identification of Bethel and Ai.

Ai lay in the central highlands, not far from Bethel and roughly to the east of it (Genesis 12:8). With Bethel confidently identified with the site of Beitin, Ai has been identified with Khirbet et-Tell, the only site east of Beitin which has clear remains from the Old Testament period. However, these remains do not indicate occupation at the time of the Conquest. There is no evidence of any occupation at Khirbet et-Tell between the end of the Early Bronze Age (around 2300 BC) and the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1160 BC) when a small, unwalled village, typical of the period, was established on the ancient mound. Israel's capture and destruction of Ai has therefore been a longstanding problem for scholars who have tried to correlate the biblical traditions with archaeological evidence. Furthermore, it remains a problem within the revised framework proposed here, since the gap in occupation at Khirbet et-Tell includes the whole of the MBA.

In recent years, however, a possible solution has emerged. This stems from D. Livingston's bold proposal [1970; 1987] that Beitin is not the site of biblical Bethel. Livingston points out that Beitin's location does not fit the biblical requirements for Bethel very well. There is no mountain between Beitin and Khirbet et-Tell, as there should be between Bethel and Ai (Genesis 12:8), and Beitin is rather too far north to fit neatly into the line of border towns between Benjamin and Ephraim listed in Joshua 16:1-3 and 18:12-14. Furthermore, Beitin does not fit the location of Bethel described by the early Christian authors Eusebius and Jerome. Eusebius (AD 269-339) wrote a work known as the Onomasticon which was subsequently revised and amplified by Jerome (AD 345-419). This gives the location of various biblical sites in relation to contemporary landmarks, including Roman milestones. According to the Onomasticon, Bethel lay at [or near] the twelfth Roman milestone from Aelia [Jerusalem, renamed Aelia Capitolina by the emperor Hadrian], on the east side of the road leading north to Neapolis (i.e. Old Testament Shechem, modern Nablus). In the last hundred years a number of the Roman milestones along this road have been discovered. Their locations make it quite clear that the Beitin lay near the fourteenth milestone, not the twelfth. In other words, this evidence agrees with that of the biblical boundary lists in showing Beitin to be too far north for identification with Bethel.

Ironically, it was a rather loose application of the Onomasticon which led to the identification of Beitin with Bethel in the first place. In 1838 the American biblical scholar and explorer Edward Robinson estimated the distance between Beitin and Jerusalem by the time it took him to make the journey on horseback, concluding that it lay the correct distance north of Jerusalem to be biblical Bethel [Robinson 1856:449-50]. Modern measurements with odometer, and the discovery of some of the Roman milestones, show that he simply underestimated the distance. Beitin is too far from Jerusalem to be Bethel if Eusebius's information is correct.

If Beitin is not Bethel, what is it? It is certainly a significant site, with archaeological remains from virtually all of the Old Testament period. It may be the site of biblical Bethaven. Its name is a possible reflex of Bethaven (spelt Bethaun in the Onomasticon), and there is no evidence to stand in the way of the identification. But if Beitin is Bethaven rather than Bethel, where is Bethel? A site which fits Eusebius's location of Bethel (i.e. near the twelfth Roman milestone north of Jerusalem) is present-day el-Bireh. The twelfth Roman milestone itself has never been found, but the 3rd, 4th and 5th have, along with another from Khirbet esh-She which unfortunately lacks an inscription. The locations of the 3rd, 4th and 5th indicate that the one found at Khirbet esh-She must have been the 11th. This place lies south of el-Bireh, putting el-Bireh near the twelfth milestone [Livingston 1987].

El-Bireh has never been excavated and the existence of a thriving modern town makes excavation unlikely. However, a surface-survey of the highest point in the town produced pottery from most of the major archaeological periods, suggesting the site was an important one in Old Testament times. The early Christian pilgrim Egeria, who visited Palestine in the fourth century, has left an account which confirms the location of Bethel at el-Bireh rather than Beitin. She says that twenty-eight miles south of Neapolis lay a village called Bethar, and a mile south of that "the place where Jacob slept on his way from Mesopotamia" -- i.e. Bethel (Genesis 35:1-15); twelve miles further south lay Jerusalem [Wilkinson 1971:155]. This makes sense if Bethel stood at present-day el-Bireh, for the village she calls Bethar would then be Eusebius's Bethaun and biblical Bethaven; if Bethel is located at Beitin, there are no ruins north of it to equate with Egeria's Bethar. [10]

If we accept Livingston's arguments and locate Bethel at el-Bireh (for which the evidence seems overwhelming), does this help us find an alternative location for Ai? Livingston himself has combed the area east of el-Bireh very thoroughly and has suggested identifying Ai with a small site known as Khirbet Nisya. This fits the requirements of Genesis 12:8 in that a significant mountain lies between it and el-Bireh. The terrain also makes detailed sense of the accounts of the Israelite attacks on Ai in Joshua 7 and 8.

Livingston has conducted a number of short excavation campaigns at Khirbet Nisya since 1979 [Bimson & Livingston 48-51; Livingston 1987]. Detailed publication of the finds is still forthcoming, but two major facts have emerged, one favouring the site's identification with Ai and one weighing against it. In favour is the pottery record from Khirbet Nisya. Pottery has been found from the Chalcolithic, Early Bronze I, MBII, LBI, Iron Age I and II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Early Arabic periods. These finds cover all the periods when Ai is known to have been inhabited according to the Bible and Eusebius. It is particularly significant that there was a settlement there in MBII, and that at the transition to LBI (or shortly thereafter) the site was abandoned. This correlates well with a destruction and abandonment of Ai at the MBII/LBI transitional period.

On the negative side, no building remains have yet been found from that period, even though Ai appears from the biblical account of the Conquest to have been a fortified town (Joshua 7:5; 8:29). Nor has any trace of a destruction level been discovered. A possible explanation for this may lie in the activities of the Byzantine and later inhabitants, who converted the entire hill into farming terraces, re-using building remains to construct the terrace walls and removing ancient occupation levels to provide the fill behind them. (Indeed, it was in the fill of one of the terraces that much of the MBII pottery was discovered in the 1985 season.) From the point of view of the ancient farmers this vastly improved the site's agricultural potential, but from the archaeologist's point of view it may have been a gross act of vandalism, removing all evidence that the MB II settlement was a walled town. In more recent centuries wind and rain have contributed further to the process of denudation. If this is not the explanation for the lack of building remains and traces of burning, we must conclude that Ai has not yet been found. On the other hand the possibility always remains that some traces of buildings and fortifications still await discovery at Khirbet Nisya during a future season of excavation.

The small size of Khirbet Nisya may also seem to stand against its identification with Ai, and so a word needs to be said about this. Livingston has estimated that the area containing occupational debris (chiefly pottery) is about seven acres [Livingston 1980:24]. Even if we assume an occupation density of 200 people per acre (which is rather high for an ancient settlement of the type characteristic of biblical Palestine), this gives us a population of only 1,400 people. The Old Testament, on the other hand, speaks of Ai as having 12,000 inhabitants (Joshua 8:25), implying a truly vast city. However, before Livingston suggested locating Ai at Khirbet Nisya, J. W. Wenham [1967: 21, 26, 41] had argued that the original population figure for Ai must have been 1,200, which had been distorted by a factor of ten through textual corruption. Wenham points to Joshua 7:3 as support for the smaller figure: the Israelites sent to reconnoitre the town suggest to Joshua that he should send only two or three thousand men to capture it, because its inhabitants "are but few". This certainly does not sound like a description of a town of 12,000, which would have been relatively huge in the Old Testament period. (For comparison, Jericho, with an area of no more than 10 acres, would have had a population of between 1,600 and 2,000 if present estimates of population density are dependable.) Furthermore, Ai is said to have been smaller than Gibeon (Joshua 10:2); the tell of Gibeon has an area of 15 acres, so Ai must have been smaller than that. In these respects the site of Khirbet Nisya is actually a good candidate for Ai.

In conclusion, Khirbet Nisya is undoubtedly a better candidate for identification with Ai than is Khirbet et-Tell. It has the correct topographical relationship to the true site of Bethel, is the right size and was occupied at the right periods. But whether or not Khirbet Nisya is the true site of Ai, it is clear that we are no longer compelled to look for Ai at Khirbet et-Tell. It follows that the gap in occupation at Khirbet et-Tell is not evidence against the historicity of the Conquest, nor does it weigh against our theory for placing the Conquest at the MBII/LBI transition.

Conclusion

Writing of the difficulty of establishing, with any degree of confidence, that any given archaeological evidence pertains to Israel's entry into Canaan, H. D. Lance remarks: "If the biblical list of cities destroyed by Joshua could be correlated site by site with massive destructions at the end of the Late Bronze Age, one could begin to find the probabilities persuasive. But no such correlation exists" [Lance:64]. His final comment is true of the situation at the end of the LBA, as we have seen; but it is not true of the situation at the end of MBA, when enough correlations exist to make the probabilities very persuasive indeed. It is undoubtedly true that the failure to find such correlations in the past has contributed to a radical skepticism concerning the traditions of Israel's origins in Canaan. Perhaps the future recognition of such correlations will lead eventually to a rehabilitation of those traditions.

Notes

1. In this paper I consistently adopt the "ultra-low" chronology for New Kingdom Egypt, currently gaining in popularity among Egyptologists. [See Kitchen 1977/78; various papers in Astrsm 1987].

2. The short (between one and two years) reign of Ramesses I fell only fifteen years before the reign of Ramesses II. The theory of some scholars [Courville: 118-122; Merrill:107; Dyer:226-27] that other pharaohs with the name Ramesses ruled in a much earlier period are not supported by inscriptional evidence and are totally unnecessary.

3. If Tell el-Maskhouta is preferred as the site of Pithom, lack of 18th Dynasty remains at that place should not be seen as evidence against a 15th-century Exodus. As noted above, no remains have yet been found of 18th and 19th Dynasty installations referred to in Egyptian texts and inscriptions. Lack of remains from the 15th-13th centuries therefore has more to do with conditions at the site than with the site's occupational history.

4. Goedicke in personal correspondence dated 9th September 1987.

5. For details, with references, see Bimson 1981:188-196 and (brief, but more up to date) Bimson and Livingston:40-41.

6. My arrangement of the lines is also indebted to a forthcoming study by W. H. Shea.

7. For further possible evidence of earthquake activity at the end of the MBII city, see Bimson 1981:122-124.

8. Bietak in personal correspondence dated 17th March 1987.

9. Bietak has recently resisted my suggestion that the date of the fall of the MBIIC cities could be dated to the late 15th century BC [Bietak 1988]. My reply to Bietak will appear in Biblical Archaeology Review 14/6 (Nov-Dec 1988).

10. I am indebted to David Livingston for the information contained in this paragraph.

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