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Scorched Wheat May Provide Answers on the Destruction of Canaanite Tel Hazor
Bible and archaeology news
• 07/24/2012
The palace entryway appears in this reconstruction drawing, which shows Canaanites walking from the courtyard in the foreground, across a raised porch, toward the throne room entrance. Maria Teresa Rubiato
Joshua 11:10-13 describes the Israelite destruction of Hazor:
An excavator sits amidst the ashes and broken storage jars of the destruction layer. The oil stored in these jars brought the fire that destroyed the palace to a scorching 2350° F. Studio Sztulman-Kessel, Jerusalem
(10) And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms.
(11) And they put to the sword all who were in it, utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed, and he burned Hazor with fire.
(12) And all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua took, and smote them with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded.
(13) But none of the cities that stood on mounds did Israel burn, except Hazor only; that Joshua burned.
This destruction is a highly debated subject in Biblical archaeology. The Book of Joshua suggests that after the conquest of Hazor, Joshua quickly took all of the land between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The Book of Judges (4:1-2, 4:23-4) presents a different picture, in which the settlement of Canaan is a slow, generally peaceful infiltration of scattered tribes gradually coexisting with the Canaanites.
Whatever the case, the destruction is well attested. The jugs of wheat are far from the only evidence of a large fire in the palace: excavations have produced burnt cedar beams, a collapsed ceiling, bricks cemented from heat exposure, and soot on the walls. The palatial building containing the massive wheat jugs is attached to another palace. The two structures would have served differing purposes; one administrative, the other ceremonial.
The destroyers of Hazor deliberately beheaded this 15-inch tall Canaanite statue of a seated man. In this photo of the statue in situ, the head lies behind the figure’s high-backed chair. Yigael Yadin Expedition
Excavation directors Ben-Tor and Zuckerman have different takes on the destruction. In the article “Excavating Hazor, Part Two: Did the Israelites Destroy the Canaanite City?”, Amnon Ben-Tor and Maria Theresa Rubiato write that “the ‘Israel’ of the Merneptah Stele seems to be the most likely candidate for the violent destruction of Canaanite Hazor.”
In the BAR article “Where Is the Hazor Archive Buried?”, Zuckerman states that “More recent dating of this destruction places it too early for the Israelites. Yet Ben-Tor is right in excluding the Sea Peoples (who included the Philistines), the Egyptians and rival Canaanite cities. Who is left? I believe it was an internal revolt within the city that was responsible for the destruction. The city was then abandoned until the arrival of the Israelites.”
The expedition to Hazor in the mid-1950s, led by the late Yigael Yadin, was the largest and most important archaeological excavation undertaken by the young state of Israel.
Tel Hazor, the largest archaeological site in northern Israel, features an upper tell of 30 acres as well as a lower city of more than 175 acres. Excavation directors discovered the large clay jugs of burned wheat in what they call a palace from the Bronze Age city, which occupied more than 200 acres of land.
Tel Hazor, the largest archaeological site in northern Israel, features an upper tell of 30 acres as well as a lower city of more than 175 acres. Excavation directors discovered the large clay jugs of burned wheat in what they call a palace from the Bronze Age city, which occupied more than 200 acres of land.
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