Israel’s Earthquake, 8th Century B.C.E.

Chapters 9–14 are from a different author than chapters 1–8.

The site was extensively surveyed in the past by the Survey of Western Palestine (C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, Vol. I, Galilee [London: The Committee of Palestine Exploration Fund, 1881], 77.) A century later, Nechemia Zori conducted a survey and collected pottery from the Middle Bronze I, Iron Age I and Persian periods (20th–18th, 12th–11th, and 6th–3rd centuries B.C.E.). See Nechemia Zori, The Land of Issachar: An Archaeological Survey (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1977), 62–63. Another survey, under supervision of Zvi Gal, identified stone walls on the summit and pottery dated to Iron Age II and Byzantine periods (10th–6th centuries B.C.E. and 4th–7th centuries C.E.). See Zvi Gal, Archaeological Survey of Israel: Map of Har Tavor (41), Map of ‘En Dor (45) (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 1998), 56* site no. 14). Zecharia Kallai identified the site with the biblical city of ‘En Dor (Zecharia Kallai, “En-Dor,” Eretz Israel 16, 1982: 168–170 [169–170] (Heb; English Summary, 257*–258*).

For more on the valley, see the discussion of the nearby city of Jezreel in, Norma Franklin, “Jezreel: A Military City and the Location of Jehu’s Coup,” TheTorah (2017); eadem, “The Story of Naboth’s Vineyard and the Ancient Winery in Jezreel,” TheTorah (2017).

A salvage excavation is when the government sends archaeologists to a site that it is considering developing (roads, houses, etc.), to look into its archaeological value and record what is there before the state decides whether to preserve it.

The 2014 survey also found a fourth stratum dating to the Persian period. Another season was conducted in January 2020, yielding finds dated to the Iron I–Iron IIA periods (12^th–10^th centuries B.C.E.).

The wall consists of large stones, measuring 1.20 x 0.70 m.

For an English translation of the Kurkh monolith with commentary, see Mordechai Cogan, The Raging Torrent: Historical Inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia Relating to Ancient Israel, 2^nd updated and expanded edition, A Carta Handbook (Jerusalem: Carta, 2015 [orig. 2008]), 14–22. There is some debate about whether the numbers are accurate.

For an English translation of the Black Obelisk with commentary, see Cogan, The Raging Torrent, 22–27.

See Cogan, The Raging Torrent, 27–31. These events are also mentioned on two inscribed statues, one found in Ashur and the other in Calah. See Cogan, The Raging Torrent, 31–34.

These huge stones were used mostly in the eastern casemate. The remains of the wall found at Tel Agol, built of 8–9 rows of basalt stones, reach a height of more than 2 m.

Researchers found the remains of pottery vessels on the storeroom, and on the workshop floor, they found a heap of cutting stones, broken stone vessels, and a large quantities of stone chips.

Note that the very top of what we see in this picture, where the stones are straight, is the new course put down during the repair process (phase 3).

What we see here is the very bottom of the wall. The beaten earth next to it is ground level, and the remaining wall is only 0.70m above this.

The exact dates are debated, but he reigned for 52 years.

The pottery found at the casemates was retrieved mainly from the floor/bottom levels.

Yigael Yadin, Hazor, the Rediscovery of a Great Citadel of the Bible (New York: Random House, 1975). Israel Finkelstein concurs with this dating. See, Israel Finkelstein, “Hazor and the North in the Iron Age: A Low Chronology Perspective,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 314 (1999): 55–70.

Steven A. Austin, Gordon W. Franz, and Eric G. Frost, “Amos’s Earthquake: An Extraordinary Middle East Seismic Event of 750 B.C.” International Geology Review 42 (2000): 657–671.

Unsurprisingly, many sites from Iron II Israel have been associated with this earthquake. In his 2012 dissertation on this earthquake, Ryan N. Roberts argues that many of these claims may be “dubious,” and points to Tel Rehov, in the Beth-shean valley, and Deir Allah (biblical Sukkot), just across the river in the Transjordan, as the two with the strongest evidence. Ryan N. Roberts, Terra Terror: An Interdisciplinary Study of Earthquakes in Ancient Near Eastern Texts and the Hebrew Bible, Ph.D. dissertation (UCLA, 2012) 139, 191–193. I think we can now add Tel Agol into the list of sites with clear signs of earthquake damage from this period. In any event, the dissertation is ten years old, so certainly Tel Agol will not be the only update necessary.

A fuller publication of the material in this article is forthcoming in, Nurit Feig, “Fortifications at Tel Agol – Biblical Evidence of an Earthquake,” in נַחֲלָתוֺ: A Memorial Volume for Adam Zertal, ed., Ralph K. Hawkins, Dror Ben-Yosef, and Erasmus Gaß (Münster, DE: Ugarit-Verlag, in press).