Tel Jezreel is located on a ridge about 100 m above sea level south of Afula, in the eastern part of the Jezreel Valley. The mound stands on its surroundings and overlooks the “Via Maris” between Egypt and Mesopotamia. The site was identified as Jezreel in the 19th century and remains were found there dating from the Neolithic period to the present day. Jezreel was a central site in the Kingdom of Israel in the 9th-10th centuries BCE and is mentioned in the Bible as the place where the story of the “Vineyard of Nevot the Jezreelite” took place. In the mound are the remains of a fortified complex from the days of Omri and Ahab, the kings of Israel, which were excavated in the 1990s.
Research history
Already in the 19th century, the site was identified as Jezreel by the American biblical scholar Edward Robinson. Between the years 1987-1988, a rescue excavation took place on the eastern slope of the hill on behalf of the Antiquities Division (later the Israel Antiquities Authority) and remains were found there from the Iron Age II (586-950 BCE) to the Byzantine period. Between the years 1990-1996, an expedition led by David Ussishkin excavated the site from Tel Aviv University and John Woodhead from the British Institute of Archeology in Jerusalem. The excavations focused on an Iron Age complex to uncover remains from the Biblical period.
The findings of the excavation
The ancient finds on the site date back to the Neolithic period and remains of a settlement were found from the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium to approximately 2200 BCE) to the Crusader period (13th century CE). Among the archaeological findings at the mound were imprints of the text “for the king” on jars (unusual for the north of the country, since they originated in the Kingdom of Judah) and a 7th century BCE ceramic bathtub-like burial coffin, where the deceased was laid curled up on his side with his hands covering his face. Similar coffins were found in nearby Megiddo.
The fortified complex from the days of Beit Omari
The main settlement on the site took place during the Iron Age. Jezreel was a central site in the Kingdom of Israel during the Omride dynasty (10th-9th centuries BCE). Jezreel is also mentioned as a central place in the Bible: King Saul chose Jezreel as a base for the war against the Philistines (1 Samuel 29); it was in Jezreel that the prophet Elijah rebuked the Israeli king Ahab for executing Nevot the Jezreelite in order to take control of his vineyard (hence the expression “you killed and also inherited”, 1 Kings 21). Jezreel is also mentioned in Jehu’s rebellion (842 BCE) in which 70 sons of Ahab were murdered, including King Yoram, in the story there is a reference to the tower in Jezreel and the square of the gate where Jehu laid the heads of the sons of Ahab (2 Kings 9, 2 Chronicles 22).
The area of the rectangular compound is about 60 dunams and it is surrounded by a wall of enclosures. At its four corners stood guard towers with deep stone foundations. The only gate stood to the south, and on the other three sides a deep moat was cut in the rock for defense purposes.
In light of the geographic location of the fort and the archaeological find, Osishkin and Woodhead hypothesized that the complex served as the main military center of the Omride kingdom, while the city of Samaria served as the capital of the Israeli kingdom. Their hypothesis is supported by Assyrian documents that state that Ahab had a large army including about 2,000 chariots which needed a suitable enclosure. While the description is probably exaggerated, Ahab’s army is still considered the largest in the region. Previous hypotheses in the study claimed that Jezreel was another capital city in the Kingdom of Israel, in addition to the one in Samaria (German researcher Albrecht Alt) or a gateway city to the Kingdom of Israel from the east (South African researcher Olivier).
The destruction of the compound and the subsequent history of the site
The layer of destruction in the southeastern area of the complex probably points to the destruction of the city during the reign of Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 9th century BCE. After that, the settlement on the site dwindled, including a Byzantine settlement and a magnificent church of the Templars during the Crusader period. In the western part of the mound, the Arab village of Zar’in existed until the war of liberation (1948).
sources
Ussishkin, D. 1996. The fortified complex of the House of Omri kings in Israel. The Land of Israel, Studies in the Knowledge of the Land and its Antiquities, Sefer Yosef Aviram. pp. 1-14.
Ussishkin, D. 2010. Jezreel, stronghold of Ahab and Jezebel. Antiquities: a journal for the antiquities of the Land of Israel and the lands of the Bible. No. 139: pp. 2-11.
Ussishkin, D. & Woodhead, G. 1997. Excavations at Tel Jezreel 1994–1996: Third Preliminary Report, Tel Aviv, 24:1, 6-72.
Biblical Hiking map