State formation theory and the kingdom of ancient Israel

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 60, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 117-129

  Master, Daniel M ^a  

^a WHEATON COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 66249096700     PISSN: 00222968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/468899     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. Though the description of the finds from Jerusalem in the tenth century is quite limited, the one architectural feature that has occasioned some discussion is the stepped-stone structure of area G. The excavators report that this structure overlies the earlier Stratum 16 (LB) terraces and that it is also earlier than the Stratum 10 (seventh century) buildings. This is a wide stratigraphic berth (Yigal Shiloh, Excavations at the City of David I [Jerusalem, 1984]). Since Shiloh's excavations, the stratigraphic "association" between the tenth-century pottery and this structure has been repeatedly questioned because of concern that Shiloh unnecessarily separated the Stratum 16 substructure from its superstructure (which Shiloh called tenth century). If these two features are stratigraphically joined, then the stepped-stone structure is also Late Bronze Age (see Jane M. Cahill and David Tarler, "Excavations Directed by Yigal Shiloh at the City of David, 1978-1985," in Hillel Geva, ed., Ancient Jerusalem Revealed [Jerusalem, 1994], p. 34). The Late Bronze Age dating would leave only a few loci with tenth-century pottery from this area. Cahill, one of the few to have dealt extensively with pottery from these few loci, does support the tenth-century date and argues for the presence of a town in Jerusalem in the tenth century (see her article, "It Is There: The Archaeological Evidence Proves It," Biblical Archaeology Review 24 [1998]: 34-41, 63).
2. David Ussishkin, "Where is the Tenth Century?" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, November 1997).
3. Wright's map of the provinces seems to show a reorganization of almost every traditional tribal area in Palestine. In his discussion of this province list, however, his accompanying text seems to support a less radical reorganization, allowing that province 3, for instance, could still be the traditional tribal area of Manasseh. Even such a minor change makes the map much more in line with the supposed earlier tribal divisions ("The Provinces," pp. 60-62).
4. Ussishkin, "Where is the Tenth Century?"
5. see also Nadav Naaman, "The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the Debate on Jerusalem's Political Position in the Tenth Century B.C.E.," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 304 (1996): 17-28.
6. The last major phase linked with Egyptian influence is Stratum S3=Lower VI (see Amihai Mazar, "Beth Shean in the Iron Age: Preliminary Report and Conclusions of the 1990-91 Excavations," Israel Exploration Journal 43 [1993]: 204-17, 223-26). After this Stratum was destroyed, much of it was rebuilt along the same lines in Stratum S2 = Upper VI. Following the destruction of S2, the city was rebuilt (S1 =Lower V) with a different "plan and building technique" but still remained a major city. This city was also destroyed by fire. Traditionally, these strata have been dated to between the late twelfth (S3) and tenth (S1) centuries.
7. This date is supported by a series of carbon 14 samples (see Mazar, "Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein," Levant 29 [1997]: 160;
8. but against this see Israel Finkelstein, "Where is the Tenth Century?" [paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, November 1997]). The stratigraphy and chronology of Beth-Shean will be clarified both by ongoing publications and by the closely related excavations at Rehov. It is hoped that these sites will soon yield a much more nuanced pottery chronology of the tenth-ninth centuries.
9. The equivalence of the gates at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, and their attribution to the tenth century, became a fundamental tenet of the archaeology of the United Monarchy (see Yigael Yadin, "Solomon's City Wall and Gate at Gezer," Israel Exploration Journal 8 1958]: 80;
10. Yohanan Aharoni, "The Stratification of Israelite Megiddo," JNES 31 [1972]: 302;
11. Ussishkin, "King Solomon's Palaces," Biblical Archaeologist 36 [1973]: 78-79;
12. Ephraim Stern, "Hazor, Dor and Megiddo in the Time of Ahab and under Assyrian Rule," Israel Exploration Journal 40 [1990]: 12). Holladay's work on the pottery has confirmed this relative chronology (Gezer VIII=Megiddo VA-IVB) independent of 1 Kings 9:15 or the architecture of the gates
13. (see John S. Holladay, Jr., "Red Slip, Burnish, and the Solomonic Gateway at Gezer," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 277-78 [1990]: 23-70).
14. Recent criticism of Holladay's work does not affect the synthesis presented above (see Mazar, "On the Appearance of Red Slip in the Iron I Period in Israel," in Seymour Gitin, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern, eds., Mediterranean Peoples in Transition [Jerusalem, 1998], pp. 368-78).
15. Holladay, "Red Slip," pp. 25-40, 62-63.
16. As Ussishkin notes, the major extrabīblical chronological anchor for Gezer is the assertion that it was destroyed in the campaign of the Pharaoh Shishak in 925 B.C.E. (see Ussishkin, "Notes on Megiddo, Gezer, Ashdod, and Tel Batash in the Tenth to Ninth Centuries B.C.," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 277-78 [1990]: 76;
17. for the date of Shishak, see Kenneth Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650B.C.) [Warminster, 1973], pp. 294-302). But as Kitchen convincingly points out, the reading of Gezer in this list is faulty; Gezer is not mentioned in the intact portion of the inscription. But even assuming for a moment that Shishak destroyed Gezer, it is still unclear which of the destructions Shishak performed. Following Naaman's most recent reconstruction, Gezer's gate could have been destroyed in the ninth-century campaigns of Hazael, which destroyed, in his scheme, the contemporary Megiddo VA/IVB
18. (see Naaman, "Historical and Literary Notes on the Excavation of Jezreel," Tel Aviv 24 [1997]: 127).
19. We would then define Gezer as an "administrative center." Its monumental, public constructions are not part of a general growth in the city. Rather, these monumental structures seem imposed on the site, so that the site can perform an administrative role (protection, collection of surplus, etc.) within a broader region. At the same time, domestic architecture is insignificant in the . broader plan of the site. Our description here follows the work of Volkmar Fritz, who came to similar conclusions regarding the administrative function of Gezer, Megiddo, and Hazor ("Monarchy and Re-Urbanization," in Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies, eds., The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States [Sheffield, 1996]).
20. See Amnon Ben-Tor, "Hazor," in Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (New York, 1993), p. 606;
21. Finkelstein, "The Archaeology of the United Monarchy: An Alternative View," Levant 28 (1996): 183.
22. Another helpful chronological anchor may be the destruction of Stratum IX. The excavators argue that this reflects an early ninth-century destruction by Ben-Hadad I (see Amnon Ben-Tor and Doron Ben-Ami, "Hazor and the Archaeology of the Tenth Century B.C.E.," Israel Exploration Journal 48 (1998): 1-37;
23. Ben-Tor, "Hazor," p. 606;
24. and Yadin, Hazor: The Head of All Those Kingdoms [London, 1972], p. 143). In that case, Stratum X should probably date to the middle to late tenth century. Interestingly, Hazor is ignored by Naaman in his description of the campaign of Hazael (Naaman, "Historical and Literary Notes").
25. The recent work of Annabel Zarzeki-Peleg provides a correlation between Hazor X-IX and Megiddo V-IV but does not help to resolve the disputes over absolute chronology (see Annabel Zarzeki-Peleg, "Hazor, Jokneam and Megiddo in the Tenth Century B.C.E.," Tel Aviv 24 [1997]: 284;
26. see also Ben-Tor and Ben-Ami, "Hazor").
27. Stratum VIA at Megiddo is a large city characterized by "quite densely built residential structures, a few public buildings, and a gate." Megiddo VIA underwent a massive destruction. On its ruins, an unwalled village (Stratum VB) with shabbily built architecture sprung up. Its successor, Stratum VA-IVB, was laid out as a well-planned administrative center (see n. 10 above). The structures of Stratum VA-IVB were partially destroyed by fire but then quickly rebuilt. The resultant Stratum IVA is similarly planned with the addition of extensive "stable" complexes and an offset-inset fortification (see Shiloh, "Megiddo," in Stern, ed., New Encyclopedia, p. 1016).
28. Gordon Loud, Megiddo II, OIP 62 (Chicago, 1948), p. 44, figs. 100-102, pls. 88-91.
29. Yadin argued that Palace 6000, in the north, was actually part of a casemate wall for this stratum, which ran underneath the offset-inset wall in some places (see Yadin, "A Rejoinder," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 239 [1980]: 19). Yadin and Shiloh link this casemate wall, never discovered by the Chicago excavators, to the earlier phase of the sixchambered gate (ibid.), p. 19;
30. Yigal Shiloh, "Solomon's Gate at Megiddo as Recorded by Its Excavator, R. Lamon, Chicago," Levant 12 [1980]: 69-76). Ussishkin argues that the six-chambered gate was used only with the later Stratum IVA (Ussishkin, "Was the 'Solomonic' City Gate at Megiddo Built by King Solomon?," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 239 [1980]: 2-18;
31. See, in response, Yadin, "A Rejoinder"). Ussishkin's view would weaken the connection between the gates at Gezer VIII, Megiddo VA-IVB, and Hazor X, which used to be the major underpinning of relative chronology in the early Iron II. Unlike in Yadin's day, however, the connection between Hazor X, Megiddo VA-IVB, and Gezer V11I no longer relies solely on the comparative architecture of the gates (see Holladay, "Red Slip," and Ben-Tor and Ben-Ami, "Hazor").
32. For the link between Shishak and Stratum VI, see Finkelstein, "Archaeology," p. 183;
33. similarly, Naaman implies this link (see his article "Historical and Literary Notes," p. 126).
34. (see Finkelstein, "Notes on the Stratigraphy and Chronology of Iron Age Ta'anach," Tel Aviv 25 [1998]: 208-18).
35. The major architectural unit in Stratum IIB was the "Cultic Structure," containing pottery almost identical to that of Locus 2081, the cultic structure in Megiddo VA-IV. At Taanach there was even a bowl full of astragali, just as at Megiddo (see Rast, Taanach I, fig. 97a, 24-26, 34, Table 1).
36. Lawrence E. Stager, "Shishak and Solomon" (paper read at the annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, San Francisco, November, 1997). With Taanach as the anchor of the absolute chronology, the relative chronology falls in line. As Rast convincingly shows, Taanach IIB is equivalent to Megiddo VA-IVB. Holladay and Mazar conclude that Megiddo VA-IVB is contemporary with Gezer VIII and Beth-SheanSULower V.
37. In contrast, Finkelstein bases his chronology on another equation. He concludes that the chronology at Megiddo should be based on the excavations at Jezreel, whose pottery closely parallels the pottery at Megiddo VA-IVB (following Orna Zimhoni, "The Iron Age Pottery from Tel Jezreel-An Interim Report," Tel Aviv 19 [1992]: 69; for forms from Jezreel later than Megiddo VA-IVB, however,
38. See Zarzechi-Peleg, "Hazor, Jokneam, and Megiddo," pp. 284-87). But even if the pottery comparisons were exact, there is no reason why Jezreel should be the anchor for the tenth century. No contemporary text refers directly to Jezreel's foundation or destruction. Pottery from fills at Jezreel represent the MB, LB, and Iron I (see Zimhoni, "Clues from the Enclosure-Fills: Pre-Omride Settlement at Tel Jezreel," Tel Aviv 24 [1997]: 85);
39. it is neither a single-period site, nor one with a good sequence of superimposed floors, nor one anchored by specific extrabiblical texts (for a more comprehensive critique of Finkelstein's revised Iron Age chronology, see Mazar, "Iron Age Chronology," and Ben-Tor and Ben-Ami, "Hazor," pp. 30-33).
40. We can add to this the picture of growth in the highlands generated by recent surveys (see Finkelstein, "The Emergence of the Monarchy").
41. In the famous example, the Hopi-Tewa Pueblos have identical pottery styles but sharp social boundaries between groups (M. B. Stanislawski and B. B. Stanislawski, "Hopi and Hopi-tewa Ceramic Tradition Networks," in Ian Hodder, ed., The Spatial Organization of Culture [Pittsburgh, 1978], pp. 225-26).
42. Further, as Hodder's work in Kenya shows, sharp differences in decoration do not necessarily signal the social boundaries that archaeologists often assume (Hodder, "Simple Correlations between Material Culture and Society: A Review," in Hodder, ed., Spatial Organization, pp. 3-24;
43. Hodder, Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology [Cambridge, 1991], p. 3).
44. Thomas L. Thompson, The Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Source (Leiden, 1992), pp. 391 and 423;
45. John Van Seters, In Search of History (Winona Lake, Indiana, 1997), p. 302;
46. for a summary, see Gary N. Knoppers, "The Vanishing Solomon: The Disappearance of the United Monarchy from Recent Histories of Ancient Israel," Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997): 19-44,
47. and Baruch Halpern, "Erasing History-The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel," Bible Review 11/6 (1995): 26-35, 47.
48. Albrecht Alt, "Israel's Gaue unter Salomo," in idem, ed., Alttestamentliche Studien Rudolf Kittel zum 60. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 1-19;
49. G. Ernest Wright, "The Provinces of Solomon," Eretz-lsrael 8 (1967): 58-68
50. William F. Albright, "The Administrative Divisions of Israel and Judah," Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 5 (1925): 20; for the most recent discussion of the Solomonic districts, see Gabrielle Vera Novacek, "Lines of Division and Monumental Aspirations: King Solomon's Administrative Districts and the Early Israelite State" (B.A. Thesis, Harvard University, 1999). Novacek convincingly shows minor shifts in boundaries between the Solomonic divisions and the tribal lists in Joshua. I would, however, disagree with her overall conclusion that this reflects a shift to a territorially based administration.
51. Baruch Halpern, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Ancient Israel (Chico, California, 1981).
52. Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin, "Miqne, Tel (Ekron)," in Stern, ed., New Encyclopedia, p. 1056.
53. Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, trans. A. West (1884; New York, 1972), pp. 231-33.
54. The persistence of this tendency to view societies as systematically connected units, as analogous to biological organisms, could be better attributed to Émile Durkheim and his description of the solidarity of societies (G. Simpson, trans., The Division of Labor in Society [New York, 1964], pp. 54-69).
55. Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society (New York, 1967), pp. 22, 185, 191,238. In Frieds scheme, the resultant structure must then develop an ideology, a concept of legitimacy to dupe the less-privileged groups into allowing the continuation of unequal access to the means of production. Since Frieds stratification is based only on the relatively simple division into private property (an item found in state and nonstate societies), it is difficult to see how any society would be prevented from eventually forming a state or how a state, once formed, would collapse. Fried clearly defines the state, explains the process of its formation, but fails to account for the oscillation between societal forms visible in the ancient world.
56. Elman Service, Primitive Social Organization (New York, 1971), pp. 102, 134, 140-41.
57. Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalnik, "The Early State: Theories and Hypotheses," in idem, eds., The Early State (The Hague, 1978), pp. 21-23;
58. idem, "Ubi sumus? The Study of the State Conference in Retrospect," in idem, eds., The Study of the Stale (The Hague, 1981), pp. 471-85.
59. Both of the volumes edited by Claessen and Skalník also present a wide variety of other opinions on state formation, which is a vast and constantly developing field of anthropological theory. All of these theorists make a distinction between primary and secondary state formation. Primary states are formed entirely through internal processes. The formation of secondary states, on the other hand, is aided or produced through interaction with other state-level societies (see, for instance, Fried, Evolution, pp. 231, 242).
60. The distinction between these types of states is particularly significant in the study of the Israel, which, if a state at all, was a secondary one. Whereas the few primary states (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica) underwent long, internal development processes, most later states benefited from the ideas and institutions of these primary societies. Secondary states may either compress or eliminate whole stages often considered essential in the development of primary states. This distinction was applied to the Early Bronze Age in Syria-Palestine by Douglas Esse, in "Secondary State Formation and Collapse in Early Bronze Age Palestine," in P. de Miroschedji, L'urbanisation de la Palestine a Vage l'âge Bronze ancien, BAR International Series 527 (Oxford, 1989).
61. Thomas E. Levy and Augustin F. C. Holl, "Social Change and the Archaeology of the Holy Land," in Thomas E. Levy, ed., The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (New York, 1995);
62. See also the following articles from the same volume: Levy, "Cult, Metallurgy and Rank Societies-Chalcolithic Period (ca. 4500-3500 BCE)"
63. Holladay, "The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in the Iron IIA-B (ca. 100-750 BCE)"; and Norman Yoffee, "Conclusion: A Mass in Celebration of the Conference."
64. Frank S. Frick, The Formation of the State in Ancient Israel (Sheffield, 1985), pp. 58-60, 66-68.
65. This is one of the primary points made by Ronald Cohen in his discussion of the state. In Cohen's view, the early state was different from the structures that came before based on its ability to resist fission (idem, "State Origins: A Reappraisal," in Claessen and Skalník, eds., The Early Stale, p. 35).
66. Finkelstein, "The Emergence of the Monarchy in Israel: The Environmental and Socio-Economic Aspects," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44 (1989): 48, 63. Although Finkelstein's chronology has changed since this article, his state-formation theory remains typical of this approach. He writes: My approach to these questions does not diverge from mainstream sociopolitical research, according to which, a full-blown state is characterized by a well-stratified society, one directed by a specialized public administration led by a ruling stratum which extends beyond the immediate kinship circles of the ruler. Writing systems are characteristic of full-blown states as are organized industrial production and the erection of monumental structures that serve both propaganda and legitimization goals as well as practical functions. See idem, "State Formation in Israel and Judah: A Contrast in Context, A Contrast in Trajectory," Near Eastern Archaeology 62 (March 1999): 39.
67. Kenneth Whitelam, "Symbols of Power: Aspects of Royal Propaganda in the United Monarchy," Biblical Archaeologist 49 (1986): 166-73.
68. It seems best to speak of Whitelam's 1986 arguments in the past tense, given the changes that are evident in his 1996 work (see idem, The Invention of Ancient Israel [New York, 1996]).
69. David W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archaeological Approach (Sheffield, 1991), pp. 143-44;
70. in agreement, see also Finkelstein, "State Formation," p. 42.
71. Holladay attempts, "... to develop the analysisand some synthesis-solely on the basis of the archaeology itself ... accepting as historical evidence only materials from contemporary sources." He places these strictures on his presentation because of the lateness of the biblical text and because of his confidence in modern archaeology and anthropology (idem, "The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah," p. 368). In attempting to show the nature of political organization, Holladay is unable to keep to his own guidelines and implicitly uses the biblical text for the heart of his presentation. Holladay's chart lists Jerusalem as the "primary seat of government" and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer as regional centers (ibid., p. 373). By itself, the archaeological evidence provides no basis for such a conclusion. In contrast, in the Middle Bronze Age, no one suggests that the coastal cities were regional centers with a capital in Jerusalem. The only way that Holladay can discover the political organization in this society or distinguish between city-states, several larger polities, and a single nation is to use the biblical presentation.
72. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, "Introduction: Tribes and the Complexities of State Formation in the Middle East," in idem, eds.. Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 3-4;
73. See also in the same volume: Richard Tapper, "Anthropologists, Historians, and Tribespeople on Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East," pp. 49-51
74. and Thomas Barfield, "Tribe and State Relations: The Inner Asian Perspective," pp. 155-56.
75. See B. Tibi, "Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modem Middle East," in Khoury and Kostiner, eds., Tribe and State Formation, p. 127.
76. Barfield, "Tribe and State," pp. 164-75.
77. Recently there have been several critiques of this neo-evolutionary band-tribe-chiefdom-state progression. Yoffee, for instance, argues that this model is far too simplistic and joins together several independent strands within society. Although he primarily attacks the utility of the "chiefdom" as a type that predicts or immediately precedes the formation of a state, Yoffee argues that the varied economic, societal, and political trajectories of any society resist the attempts at single categorization (Norman Yoffee, "Too Many Chiefs?," in Norman Yoffee and Andrew Sherratt, eds., Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? [Cambridge, 1993], pp. 69-71);
78. in another attack on the contrast between tribal, kin-based organization and territorial, state-level organization, Emanuel Marx argues for territorial boundaries in tribal organizations in recent societies in "The Tribe as a Unit of Subsistence: Nomadic Pastoralism in the Middle East," American Anthropologist 79 (1977): 343-63;
79. also included in this category is Dale F. Eickelman, The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1989).
80. Max Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 2, ed. G. Roth and C. Wittick (Berkeley, 1978), pp. 954-56.
81. Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 2, pp. 1010-14.
82. The first to apply Weber's "patrimonial model" to ancient Israel was Lawrence E. Stager. His analysis is particularly helpful in its discussion of archaeology of the bet āb, the particularly Israelite manifestation of the Weberian household (see Stager, "The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 [1985]: 1-35).
83. More recently, David Vanderhooft has presented an interesting analysis of the mispāha, a broader Israelite kinship group, discussing the nature and changes of this kinship form through the lens of the Priestly writer ("The Israelite mišpahâ in the Priestly Writings: An Elite Reconstruction of Social Organization" [paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, November 1997]).
84. Further, J. David Schloen has extended this model beyond Israel to city-states and other ancient Near East polities (see J. David Schloen, "The Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom of Ugarit" [Ph.D. diss.. Harvard University, 1995].
85. Weber's state-formation theories also figure prominently, though to somewhat different effect, in the recent essay by C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, "Sociological and Biblical Views of the Early State," in Fritz and Davies, Origins, pp. 78-105.