The Fortress Above the Valley of Elah

Heaps of stones: that is all British surveyors noted in 1875 on a hilltop called Khirbet Qeiyafa, near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh.

Scripture: Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim. Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines.

The passage sets armies facing each other near Socoh and Azekah, in the valley of Elah. The next verses name a champion, Goliath of Gath.

In the 1860s a village was reported at Khirbet Qeiyafa; in 1932, a watchtower at a ruin 200 metres east. Then mostly neglect, until Saar Ganor discovered impressive Iron Age structures in 2005.

Digging began in August 2007, led by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

They found a fortress city ringed by a wall seven hundred metres long, built of field stones, some weighing eight tons.

To date it, they used pottery styles and burned olive pits, carbon-dated at Oxford University, according to World Archaeology. That is a lab method for estimating the age of once-living material. One published calibration: roughly 1051 to 969 BCE, at 77.8% probability.

That date is debated. Israel Finkelstein says activity began around 1050 BCE and ended no later than 915 BCE. The pottery alone fits either late Iron Age One or Iron Age Two A: two phases of the Iron Age.

The excavators identify it as Sha'arayim, meaning Two Gates, and as a fortress of King David. Others suggest a North Israelite, Philistine or Canaanite site; the excavators reject that.

So it illustrates the setting: a fortified border city above the valley, in an era that may match David's. Nothing in the sources shows the battle itself took place here.

Khirbet Qeiyafa lies near Beit Shemesh. In 2015, Beit Shemesh scrapped a plan for a new neighbourhood nearby; archaeologists say the site's traces date to King David's era.

A real fortress, a real valley, and a date still argued over. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow this page for more from the ground.