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Khirbet el-Qom

Khirbet el-Qom (Arabic: خربة الكوم) is an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum, West Bank, in the territory of the biblical Kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron, 14 km (8.7 mi) to the west of the latter.

Khirbet el-Qom
One of the burial inscription from the site
Khirbet el-Qom is located in the West Bank
Khirbet el-Qom
Shown within the West Bank
Locational-Kum, West Bank, Palestine
Coordinates31°32′4.98″N 34°57′59.63″E / 31.5347167°N 34.9665639°E / 31.5347167; 34.9665639
History
Founded20 BCE
PeriodsEarly Bronze Age - Hellenistic period
CulturesCanaanite, Israelite, Edomite, Second Temple Judaism
Site notes
Excavation dates1967-8
ArchaeologistsWilliam G. Dever
ConditionIn ruins
Public accessyes

Remains from the site dating to the Second Temple period include hundreds of Aramaic ostraca,[1] what appears to be a 4th-century BCE shrine dedicated to Yahweh,[2] and a burial cave featuring Hebrew inscriptions dating from the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE.[3]

Excavations

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In the 1930s, Ben Zvi visited Khirbet al-Qum and stayed at the residence of Sheikh Suleiman from the Irgum family. Suleiman, the owner of the ruins at the site, said they had Jewish origins. He expressed interest in dating the site and inquired whether it was referenced in the "Torah".[4]

Archaeological excavations were conducted at the site in 1967 by William G. Dever on behalf of the Hebrew Union College.[5]

Findings

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Iron Age

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Uriyahu inscription

Two Iron Age bench tombs carved into natural rock were discovered at el-Qom; both were investigated by William Dever in 1967 following their discovery by tomb robbers.[6] Both tombs contain inscriptions, dating from the second half of the 8th century BCE,[7] slightly after the Asheratic Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions. The inscription from Tomb 2 is associated with a "magic hand" symbol, and reads:

"Uriyahu the honourable has written this
Blessed is/be Uriyahu by Yahweh
And [because?] from his oppressors by his asherah he has saved him
[written] by Oniyahu"
"...by his Asherah
...and his Asherah"[8][9]

Unlike the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, this inscription do not include a place name with the name of Yahweh (the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions talk of "Yahweh of Samaria" and "Yahweh of Teman"); this seems to indicate that they were written after the fall of Samaria, which left Yahweh as the god of one state only.[10]

the inscriptions from Khirbet el-Qom and Kuntillet Ajrud, along with great Levantine archives such as Ebla archive, Ugarit archive and Mari archive, were important factors in the reconceptualization of the ancient Israelite religion and its understanding as a part and parcel of its Near Eastern/Levantine/West Semitic/Canaanite environment.[11][12]

There is some scholarly debate about the translation, particularly for line three.[13][14]

A jug inscribed "to/for Yahmol" and a bowl inscribed "El" were also found.[15]

Persian and Hellenistic periods

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One thousand seven hundred ostraca in Aramaic may have been found on the site and the vicinity, dating from the Persian and Hellenistic periods, during which the area was classified as the Persian province of Idumea, with a mixed population of Edomites, Jews and Arabs.[1] The site is called Maqqedah in the Idumean ostraca.[16] Based on this, some scholars identify Khirbet el-Qom with biblical Makkedah (Joshua 10:10, 16, 17, 21, 28, 29; 12:16; 15:41).[17]

Khirbet el-Qom may have housed a Yahwistic shrine in the 4th century BCE, likely serving the small Judean population of northern Idumea, making it one of three known Yahwistic shrines in ancient Israel during this period, alongside the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim.[2]

Roman period

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A burial cave in El-Qom contained three Hebrew funerary inscriptions dating from the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE, bearing names such as Miriam and Shalom. Currently, they are housed in the Israel Antiquities Authority storage facilities in Beit Shemesh.[3]

Identification

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Based on the findings and the possible name preservation of the ancient name in the adjacent valley of Wadi es-Safir, it has been suggested that Khirbet el-Qum is Shafir, a place mentioned in the Book of Micah (1:11).[18]

See also

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External

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Bibliography

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  • Zevit, Ziony (1984). "The Khirbet el-Qôm Inscription Mentioning a Goddess". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (255). American Schools of Oriental Research: 39–47. doi:10.2307/1357074. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1357074. Retrieved 2023-11-08.

References

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  1. ^ a b André Lemaire, 'Edom and the Edomites,' in André Lemaire, Baruch Halpern (eds.), The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception, BRILL 2010pp.225-245 p.243.
  2. ^ a b Knoppers, Gary (2019). Jews and Samaritans: the origins and history of their early relations. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-19-006879-0.
  3. ^ a b Corpus inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae: a multi-lingual corpus of the inscriptions from Alexander to Muhammad. Vol. IV: Iudaea / Idumaea. Eran Lupu, Marfa Heimbach, Naomi Schneider, Hannah Cotton. Berlin: de Gruyter. 2018. pp. 1237–1241. ISBN 978-3-11-022219-7. OCLC 663773367.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. ^ Ben-Zvi, Itzhak (1967). שאר ישוב: מאמרים ופרקים בדברי ימי הישוב העברי בא"י ובחקר המולדת [She'ar Yeshuv] (in Hebrew). תל אביב תרפ"ז. p. 408.
  5. ^ Dever, William G. 1969–1970. "Iron Age Epigraphic Material from the Area of Khirbet El-Kôm.", Hebrew Union College Annual 40–41: 139–204
  6. ^ Zevit, Ziony. “The Khirbet El-Qôm Inscription Mentioning a Goddess.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 255, 1984, pp. 39–47
  7. ^ Hadley, Judith M. (1987). "The Khirbet el-Qom Inscription". Vetus Testamentum. 37 (1): 50–62. doi:10.2307/1517810. ISSN 0042-4935. JSTOR 1517810.
  8. ^ Keel, Othmar, and Uehlinger, Christoph, "Gods, goddesses, and images of God in ancient Israel" (Fortress Press, 1998) p.239.
  9. ^ Meindert Djikstra, I Have Blessed you by YHWH of Samaria and his Asherah: Texts With Religious Elements from the Soil Archive of Ancient Israel, in Bob Becking, (ed), "Only One God? Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah" (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), p.p.32-34
  10. ^ Keel, Othmar, and Uehlinger, Christoph, "Gods, goddesses, and images of God in ancient Israel" (Fortress Press, 1998) p.239.
  11. ^ Dever, William G. (1999). "Archaeology and the Ancient Israelite Cult: How the Kh. El-Qôm and Kuntillet ʿajrûd 'Asherah' Texts Have Changed the Picture". Eretz-Israel. 26: 9*–15*. ISSN 0071-108X. JSTOR 23629918.
  12. ^ Uehlinger, Christoph (2015). "Distinctive or diverse? Conceptualizing ancient Israelite religion in its southern Levantine setting". Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel. 4 (1): 12, 14. doi:10.1628/219222715X14343676549106. ISSN 2192-2276.
  13. ^ Shea, William H. “The Khirbet El-Qom Tomb Inscription Again.” Vetus Testamentum, vol. 40, no. 1, 1990, pp. 110–16
  14. ^ Margalit, Baruch. “Some Observations on the Inscription and Drawing from Khirbet El-Qôm.” Vetus Testamentum, vol. 39, no. 3, 1989, pp. 371–78
  15. ^ Alice Mandell, and Jeremy Smoak. "Reading and Writing in the Dark at Khirbet El-Qom: The Literacies of Ancient Subterranean Judah." Near Eastern Archaeology, vol. 80, no. 3, 2017, pp. 188–95
  16. ^ David F. Graf, 'Petra and the Nabataeans in the Early Hellenistic Period: the literary and archaeological evidence,' in Michel Mouton,Stephan G. Schmid (eds.), Men on the Rocks: The Formation of Nabataean Petra, Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH, 2013 pp.35-55 p.47
  17. ^ Diana Vikander Edelman, The Origins of the Second Temple: Persion Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem, Routledge 2005, ISBN 9781845530174, p. 265 [1]
  18. ^ Kochavi, Moshe, ed. (1972). Judaea, Samaria and the Golan: Archaeological Survey 1967-1968 (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Carta. p. 29.
  19. ^ Margalit, Baruch (1989). "Some Observations on the Inscription and Drawing from Khirbet el-Qôm". Vetus Testamentum. 39 (3). Brill: 371–378. doi:10.2307/1519611. ISSN 0042-4935. JSTOR 1519611. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  20. ^ Zevit 1984, p. 46.

31°32′05″N 34°58′00″E / 31.5347°N 34.9666°E / 31.5347; 34.9666

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