Finding a lost city
Aussie archaeology undergraduates have been part of a groundbreaking international team that’s located the remains of an ancient biblical city.
STUDENTS FROM MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, Sydney, have been helping to rewrite the history books by uncovering ancient artefacts at the 3000-year-old site of a long-lost city in the Middle East known as Khirbet el-Rai. The site, surrounded by farmlands and orchards, occupies just 1.7ha of a hilltop in the foothills of a mountain range in southern Israel that leads up to Jerusalem, near the town of Kiryat Gat.
A team from Macquarie, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem began excavating there in 2015, carefully extracting dozens of complete pottery vessels dating back to the 11th century BCE. The antiquity of these finds was initially indicated by similarities in shape and form of the pottery pieces with those of known ages from elsewhere throughout the region, but the age of the pottery has since been confirmed by carbon dating of plant materials, including olive pits, seeds and grains.
This dates the site to the era of the Philistines, a mysterious civilisation that dominated the coast of ancient Canaan – modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel – after the Bronze Age collapsed in about 1200 BCE, before disappearing from history in the 6th century BCE. Other important discoveries at the site include spacious, massive stone structures thought to be the elaborate foundations of substantial buildings, offerings laid beneath the floors of buildings to bring good fortune, and stone and metal tools.
Both the age and location of the city, as well as its apparent level of sophistication, are important to how scholars are interpreting its significance. One of the lead archaeologists on the dig, Dr Gil Davis, director of Macquarie University’s Program for Ancient Mediterranean Studies who also runs the Ancient Israel Program in the Department
of Ancient History, says there is now much evidence to suggest the site is that of the lost biblical city of Ziklag – a strategic location in the conflict between the Philistines and the emerging Israelite kingdom. Ziklag was reputed to be the city granted to David by the Philistines when he later sought refuge from King Saul and became their mercenary.
The existence of the city has long been contentious. It’s mentioned many times in the Old Testament of the Bible, in association with King David. But there has been a shortfall of historical confirmation of both David and the location of the city. “Ziklag has long been sought and it’s remarkable that it’s an Australian team involved in finding it,” Gil says.
The project is a rare opportunity for Australian undergraduate students and history teachers to be involved in an archaeological dig of international significance.
“This is unique,” Gil explains. “Other [Australian] universities, of course, take part in excavations overseas but it’s typically something that’s done at the academic postgraduate student level. No-one else is sending undergraduates over and they are certainly not sending teams of 20-plus people, as we are.” The Ancient Israel Program has been strongly supported by donors to the university who have entirely funded the dig.
The excavation team managed to complete its second full season of investigations at the site before international travel was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Macquarie University students are now waiting to return and resume digging for a third, and possibly final, season when travel restrictions are lifted.
Beyond the potential of the find’s biblical connections, the discovery is significant because of where it fits more broadly in terms of human history.
“What we are talking about is a time of great cha nge i n hu ma n civ i l isat ion,” Gi l ex pla i n s. “These great empires of the Bronze Age, like the Babylonians and Hittites, and the Canaanite cities were part of that, but they were all destroyed around 1200BC and nobody knows why or what happened then. The assumption has always been that there was a relatively impoverished Dark Age.”
The Khirbet el-Rai site changes this because it shows the existence of a substantial early Iron Age settlement with elaborate structures and centralised administration. The excavation project at the site is hoping to be able to answer questions about inter-cultural relations during the early Iron Age.
One notable artefact unearthed by Macquarie University students during the last dig session at the site is what’s known as a ‘smiting god’ figure. “It’s clearly a figure that has come out of the Canaanite civilisation – it’s a god of the Canaanites,” Gil says. “So this is a Canaanite city that’s heavily under Philistine influence and its name [Ziklag] is Philistine…it’s been taken over by a young King David before he is a king and then it’s retained as part of his kingdom.
“So the Philistines were moving in from the coast and at the very same time the Israelite kingdom was forming up in the hills. This is the period we are talking about. It is immensely important historically to be able to say here are the Philistines, there are the Canaanites and the Israelites, and they are all meeting up around about this place,” Gil explains.
“And now we can actually tie in historical accounts from the Bible…because this is the bit of the Bible that is more historically aligned with what’s being found archaeologically.”
Another important feature of the dig is a field chemistry lab established by the university and intended to enhance training in archaeological techniques. It also means that important chemical observations about artefacts can be made on-site without waiting weeks or months for objects to be sent back to distant laboratories.