Tel Harashim, or Khirbet et-Tuliel, is a roughly 6–10 dunam archaeological site in the Meron Ridges of Upper Galilee. It sits on a hilltop about 700 meters above sea level with springs welling up at the base, which is likely one of the reasons why past people chose to build there. The site is not explicitly mentioned in the biblical text, but some scholars think that it is related to the Biblical narrative describing King Solomon’s sale of the “land of Cabul” to Hiram, king of Tyre (1 Kings 9:11–14). Though it was surveyed and excavated in the 1950s by the well-known Yohanan Aharoni, Tel Harashim has reentered scholarly debate in recent years as a part of the discussion on the border zone between the Phoenician kingdom of Tyre and Israel in the early 1st millennium BCE.
Casemate fort of the 11th-10th centuries BCE
The earliest evidence for human activity at Harashim is from the Middle Bronze Age (1950–1550 BCE), but it is small-scale until around the 11th century BCE. At this point the site becomes more involved with regional trade, with local bronze production and pottery types from Phoenicia and the wider Galilee. In the 10th c. The site was fortified and enclosed with a casemate wall, indicating a need for the local people to defend themselves, or the new presence of a larger state.
Who is behind the fort at Tel Harashim?
Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist Doron Ben-Ami, who published some of Aharoni’s excavation data from the fortress at Tel Harashim, argued that it was controlled by the Israelites and gained importance due to the trade between Israel and Phoenicia. Hayah Katz (Kinneret College), takes a different approach. Like Ben-Ami, she interprets the data as evidence for a regime fortifying their border and engaging in trade with Tyre. The question is, which regime was it? Katz disagrees with Ben-Ami’s Israel hypothesis, arguing that Tel Harashim was part of a small local regime based out of Mount Adir, an 11th c. fortress roughly 8 km to the northeast.
The later history of the site
There is no evidence that the fortress at Harashim was destroyed, but by the 6th c., the site was abandoned, with no remaining architecture and only some pottery sherds to indicate the sparse presence of people. After the Persian Period (530–332 BCE), Tel Harashim fell into ruin until archaeological excavations began in 1953.
Sources:
Ben-Ami, D. (2004). The Casemate Fort at Tel Harashim in Upper Galilee. Tel Aviv, 31(2), 194–208.
Katz, H. (2020). Settlement Processes in the Meron Ridges During the Iron Age I. BASOR 383(1), 1–18.
Steiner, M. L., & Killebrew, A. E. (Eds.). (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant c. 8000–332 BCE. Oxford University Press.
Biblical Hiking map