Khirbet Qeiyafa and the 10th century BCE

HIERARCHICAL ARCHITECTURE: Can royal architecture prove biblical Judah was a kingdom? Features such as recessed doors, rectangular roof beams and volute capitals were common in palaces around the region, supporting the notion that Judah was a kingdom since the 10th century BCE. Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

“A kingdom is not something abstract; a kingdom is based on elements like borders, a center and a periphery, roads, a network for tax collection and so on,” [excavator Yosef] Garfinkel said. “However, another characteristic of a kingdom is its social hierarchy as demonstrated by the presence of palaces and temples.

“Throughout history and to this day, people have used architecture to emphasize power,” he further remarked. “Based on the findings in Khirbet Qeiyafa, we can see urbanism and the construction of fortified cities in Judah already in the 10th century BC.”

This century has been receiving a good deal of attention recently. See here and links.

For many posts on the archaeology of Khirbet Qeiyafa, with lots also on the tenth century BCE, see here and links, here, here, and here.

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