Khirbet er-Ra'i, also Khirbet al-Ra'i, (formerly ''Tôr el Hiry'', ) is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in the

Shephelah The Shephelah or Shfela, lit. "lowlands" ( hbo, הַשְּפֵלָה ''hašŠǝfēlā'', also Modern Hebrew: , ''Šǝfēlat Yəhūda'', the "Judaean foothills"), is a transitional region of soft-sloping rolling hills in south-central Israel str ...

region of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. It is located 4 km west of

Lachish Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...

.Garfinkel, Yosef & Keimer, Kyle & Ganor, & Rollston, Christopher. (2021). 2019
Khirbet al-Ra‘i in the Judean Shephelah: The 2015–2019 Excavation Seasons
37. 13-50. Archeological excavations conducted in Khirbet er-Ra'i in the past decade have uncovered remains dating back to the 12th-10th centuries BCE. According to the site's excavators, it was mainly a Canaanite site, but with a strong Philistine influence.

Location

Khirbet e-Ra'i is situated on a hill on the

Lachish River Lakhish River ( he, נחל לכיש, ''Naḥal Lakhish'') is a river in Israel that flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the city of Ashdod. It is also known as Wadi Kabiba (inland section) and Wadi Sukhrir (Ashdod section) in Arabic. History The Dr ...

's southern bank, between the upper and lower parts of the Shfela (Shephelah). The hill is overlooking the

Coastal Plain A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Coa ...

in the west, the

Mount Hebron The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron ( ar, جبل الخليل, translit=Jabal al-Khalīl, he, הר חברון, translit=Har Hevron), are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, comprising the southern part of the J ...

and

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

in the east and

Tell ej-Judeideh Tell ej-Judeideh ( ar, تل الجديدة / خربة الجديدة) is a tell in modern Israel, lying at an elevation of above sea-level. The Arabic name is thought to mean, "Mound of the dykes." In Modern Hebrew, the ruin is known by the n ...

and

Maresha Tel Maresha ( he, תל מראשה) is the tell (archaeological mound) of the biblical Iron Age city of Maresha, and of the subsequent, post-586 BCE Idumean city known by its Hellenised name Marisa, Arabised as Marissa (ماريسا). The tell i ...

to the north. Khirbet er-Ra'i controls the main road connecting the coastal plain with the Shephelah and

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Hebrew language#Modern Hebrew, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous L ...

. According to the archeologists, these features make the site suitable to serve as a forward outpost of the settlements in the area of Lachish.

Discovery & excavations

The site was noted on the PEF Survey of Palestine maps as ''Tôr el Hiry'', meaning "The mount of the granary; a cliff formed apparently by a landslip" according to

E.H. Palmer Edward Henry Palmer (7 August 184010 August 1882), known as E. H. Palmer, was an English orientalist and explorer. Biography Youth and education Palmer was born in Green Street, Cambridge the son of a private schoolmaster. He was orphaned a ...

, 1881. It was noted by Yehudah Dagan in 1992, and first excavated in October 2015 and April 2016 on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology at The

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

and the

Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...

and under the direction of by

Yosef Garfinkel Yosef Garfinkel (hebrew: יוסף גרפינקל; born 1956) is an Israeli archaeologist and academic. He is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Yosef (Yo ...

and

Saar Ganor Saar Ganor is an Israeli archaeologist. He was the director, along with Yosef Garfinkel, of excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, thought to be Biblical Sha'arayim. He is inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Autho ...

. Two excavation areas (A and B) were opened were the remains of structures could be seen on the surface. The excavation revealed the ruins of a massive structure dating to the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

I–II and fences from the

Ottoman period The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. Other periods were represented in potsherds from the Middle Bronze Age,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

and the Early Islamic Period.

Archaeological findings

Khirbet er-Ra'i appears to have been the main site in the region after the fall of Canaanite Lachish in the late 12th and early 11th centuries BCE. During the 10th century BCE, Khirbet er-Ra'i was a small village, but seems to have had the largest pottery assemblage in the region after Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Proto-Canaanite inscription

In 2021, archaeologists Garfinkel and Ganor announced the discovery of a

proto-Canaanite Proto-Canaanite is the name given to :(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. :(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...

dating to the 12th century BCE in Khirbet ar-Ra'i, a time period seen by many as the historical setting for the Biblical

Book of Judges The Book of Judges (, ') is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom i ...

. The inscription, found on a jar, was deciphered by the epigrapher Prof.

Christopher Rollston Prof. Christopher A. Rollston (born in Michigan, United States) is a scholar of the ancient Near East, specializing in Hebrew Bible, Greek New Testament, Old Testament Apocrypha, Northwest Semitic literature, epigraphy and paleography. Biogr ...

as bearing the name Jerubbaal, a name that appears only once in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

as another name for the judge Gideon. According to the archaeologists, this inscription may refer to another Jerubbaal and not the Gideon of biblical tradition, but the fact that an identical name is found in archaeological site dating to a period identified with that of the Judges, shows that even though the Hebrew Bible was compiled in a much later period, some historical memories were preserved and passed down through the generations. Haggai Misgav of the Hebrew University says that because the inscription is partial, he is not certain that "Jerubbaal" is the only possible reading. It's possible that the first letter seen could actually be a

zayin Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew Zayin , Yiddish Zoyen , Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound . The ...

letter, not a

yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many l ...

. There may have been an

ayin ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac ܥ, and Arabic (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). The letter represen ...

before that, so the inscription could also refer to "Azruba'al".

Identification with Ziklag

A number of scholars have suggested that Khirbet al-Ra'i is the site of biblical

Ziklag Ziklag ( he, צִקְלַג) is the biblical name of a town that was located in the Negev region in the south-west of what was the Kingdom of Judah. It was a provincial town within the Philistine kingdom of Gath when Achish was king. Its exact loca ...

. Other scholars, such as Israel Finkelstein and Aren Maeir, argue against this identification, on the basis of biblical geography and the lack of continuity in names.

References

{{Reflist

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 20
IAAWikimedia commons
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/good-news/ziklag-another-bible-town-uncovered-by-aussie-archaeologists/ Archaeological sites in Israel Bronze Age sites in Israel Iron Age sites in Israel Disputed Biblical places Canaanite cities Canaanite inscriptions