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First the link to this week’s complete list as HTML and as PDF.
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In his writing Harrison just like a surprising number of others seems to confuse the find stratum of a victory stele with the destruction layer from the battle it commemorates. A monumental stele will always be erected clearly above that layer, probably on a cleared and elevated platform for visibility, and never half hidden in the rubble. Following Cline and his very convincing arguments, stratum VI was destroyed by an earthquake and the site temporarily abandoned. David, who certainly did not have the means to fight a fortified city, could then take and resettle it. The rather poor stratum VB is well in line with everything we know about him (apart from overblown eulogies). According to 1 K 9, 15 Solomon did build in Megiddo right on his northern frontier but it says nothing about monumentality. 1 K 7, 10 is about Jerusalem alone while chapter 10, the queen of Sheba story, is a legendary embellishment.
In Shishak’s campaign there is no word about a siege or a battle. He came to reestablish Egypt’s rule and probably established it in unfortified Megiddo without resistance. This would make stratum VA/IVB Omri’s and Ahab’s and stratum IVA Jeroboam II’s. Egypt’s rule was still acknowledged if not strictly enforced in Ahab’s time and there is the possibility that Egypt contributed troops to the battle of Qarqar. So Shishak’s stela would still have held pride of place in Ahab’s layer in line with Harrison’s hypothesized provenance.
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If Palace 6000 is no Bit-Hilani, this takes away one of the strongest arguments for dating it much later than Solomon. Lehmann & Killebrew give no dates for the “southern lateral access” podium buildings they now compare it to. Looking up their given levels for Hazor and Lachish they too postdate Solomon by a century, so the old argument still stands albeit in new form. Stratum VA/IVB is still Omride. It is interesting to see that Finkelstein only came to that conclusion some time after 1994.
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