The Date of Destruction of Gezer Stratum VI

Abstract

The Hebrew Union College (HUC) excavators of Gezer attributed the destruction of Stratum VI to the 734 BCE campaign of Tiglath-pileser III. They based this on the relief found at Nimrud depicting the event. Various scholars who for numerous reasons wished to lower the date of destruction to the end of the 8th century have subsequently challenged this attribution. This paper, concentrating on evidence revealed in the new Tandy excavations (especially oval storage jars, Phoenician torpedo amphoras and holemouth jars), substantiates the date proposed by the HUC excavators. Its ceramic assemblage, therefore, should be used as a chronological peg for furthering the discussion of the subdivision of ceramic typology within the Iron IIB.

Keywords:

• Gezer
• Tiglath-pileser III
• Phoenician torpedo amphora
• Oval storage jars
• Holemouth storage jars

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my appreciation to Mordechai Cogan, Davide Nadali and Luis Siddal for their comments and the references provided by them regarding the relief from Nimrud. I am also grateful to Charles Wilson and Alexander Fantalkin for their comments, both editorial and substantive in nature. Wilson also graciously prepared the figures and calculated the volume of the vessels based on the Laboratoire de l’Image (2011). I thank Gunnar Lehmann for his comment regarding Phoenician torpedo amphoras. I am also grateful to the editors and two anonymous readers for their constructive comments. All illustrations are courtesy of the Tandy Institute for Archaeology excavation project except where noted otherwise. The drawings were prepared by the Computational Archaeology Laboratory, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University with the exception of Figs. 4: 1; 5: 4, which were drawn by Charles Wilson and Fig. 7: 1 which was drawn by Noga Zeevi.

Notes

1 This date was corrected to 734 BCE in Cogan 2015, which is accepted here.

2 L. Siddal echoed similar thoughts in a personal communication (3 August 2020).

3 The Tandy Institute for Archaeology expedition excavated all of the casemate rooms to the west of Casemate 12 (Nos. 13–15) and all were devoid of finds, presumably as a result of having been previously excavated by Macalister.

4 The general stratum numbers for the HUC excavations are in Roman numerals whereas the preliminary stratum numbers of the Tandy excavation are in Arabic numerals. By coincidence, Str. VI (HUC)=Str. 6 (Tandy).

5 For this type, see Gitin 2005. I employ this term to refer to the early, unstamped form of the lmlk storage jar.

6 Measurements were made on the assumption that the vessels were filled to the level of the neck and not to the mouth, leaving space for a stopper.

7 This is a minimum total: at least 31 from the Macalister excavations (Lance 1971a: 159 states that this number could be as high as 50), eight from HUC and 11 from the Tandy excavations.

8 The only possible exception came from Locus 94001 Basket 94035 (a basket that yielded, in addition to the stamped handle, only two body sherds). This locus was assigned to ‘Stratum 6, possibly later’ in the Tandy database.

9 Measurements were made on the assumption that the vessels were filled to the level of the carination on the shoulder and not to the mouth.

10 A comprehensive study of Phoenician torpedo amphoras is currently being undertaken by G. Lehmann, A. Gilboa and P. Waiman-Barak. Significantly, they concur that the straight-sided amphora preceded the waisted type (G. Lehmann, personal communication).

11 For recent discussions of Israelite objects found at Gezer, see Brandl 2012: 400; 2014: 31; 2015a: 51–53; 2015b: 6.