Hezekiah's Tax Office
When Israel Finkelstein published his book on the history of Israel, claiming that there was no evidence for David and Solomon, that Jerusalem was only an unimportant village and that Biblical history was nothing more than myth, he was reflecting the state of knowledge at the time (although many would assert that he was being rather too critical in rejecting some evidence and somewhat too uncritical in accepting evidence that favoured his point of view). In the subsequent years, however, new evidence is demonstrating that his position is untenable.
First came the discovery of the "House of David" inscription which clearly showed that people only a couple of centuries after David lived believed that he had founded a ruling house. Then came the suggestion - almost certainly correct - by Andre Lemaire that a word on the Moabite Stone, which had puzzled epigraphers ever since the stone's discovery, probably also referred to the House of David. More recently there is the uncovering by Eilat Mazar of substantial buildings on Mt Ophel dating from the time of David and Solomon (by the unrevised chronology).
Now new excavations outside Jerusalem at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel have uncovered a large and luxurious building dating from the time of Hezekiah which has been interpreted as an administrative centre. The excavations, which involve around 100 students and volunteers, are run jointly by the Archaeological Institute of Tel Aviv University and Heidelberg University in Germany.
Scattered among and around the ruins of this building are large numbers of jar handles on which names and seals have been imprinted. The archaeologists suggest that jars of oil, wine and other agricultural produce were stored here as taxes - though there is disagreement over whether they represented taxes gathered from the locals for Hezekiah's use or whether they were intended to be paid to other kings.
If the latter, then almost certainly those other kings were the kings of Assyria. Although much is made in the Bible of the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem when the army of Sennacherib was forced to retreat when the angel of the Lord slew 185,000 men in a single night, the fact remains that in his 14th year Hezekiah was obliged to apologise for his rebellion and pay a substantial tribute to the Assyrians. However, according to 2 Kings 18:13-15 that tribute was 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold (a talent was approximately 76 lbs), so if this newly discovered building has anything to do with it, Hezekiah must have had some way of turning oil and wine into gold!
Although most of the pottery appears to date from the time of Hezekiah, it would seem that the building, which included a large residential area identified as a palace, remained in use right down to the time of the Babylonian conquest. When the Jews returned from Exile the building was repaired and put back to use for another two centuries until the Hellenistic Period. However it must have been used by the Syrian oppressors because when the Maccabbees revolted against Antiochus Ephiphanes the building was razed to the ground and replaced by a simple Jewish village complete with mikveot, columbaria and other buildings.
The village was destroyed in its turn during the AD 70 war with Rome but it was rebuilt and under the Byzantines a church was built there, but the village was finally abandoned around the time of the Arab conquest. It remained in ruins until the modern kibbutz was constructed nearby.
mikveot, columbaria A mikveh was a ritual bath, many of which were in private houses rather than in separate buildings, which is the modern Jewish practice. Columbaria were buildings or caves containing lots of small holes in which pigeons and doves could nest. The birds were very valuable as a source of meat, eggs and fertiliser - and, of course, for sacrifices. The name is used by extension to refer to similar buildings where urns containing the ashes of the dead were stored.Return
© Kendall K. Down 2009
