Using Social-Spatial Patterns within Khirbet Qeiyafa and Khirbet al-Ra’i to Fit Them into a Larger Framework of Understanding Social-Political Organization in the Early Iron Age Southern Levant
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Date
2020
Authors
Dicken, Jacob Alexander
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Khirbet Qeiyafa and Khirbet al-Ra’i are two relatively newly excavated sites in modern Israel relating to the Iron Age IIA period around 1000 BC, the first being a Judean site and the latter being a Philistine site. In this paper, I use spatial data relating to the interior spaces of buildings and settlements to offer several hypotheses as to how they relate to social roles within these settlements as well as to how the settlements relate to the emergent kingdoms of which they are a part. I suggest that Khirbet Qeiyafa is a city which was constructed as a planned city through which the Judean state intentionally spread its hegemony militarily and economically westward and that the two major patterns for how houses are laid out in the settlement are suggestive of social class and status. I suggest regarding Khirbet al-Ra’i that it is fundamentally different from Khirbet Qeiyafa in a variety of ways as a longer-lived settlement characterized by decentralized decision-making over several major phases. I achieve this by reviewing relevant data, comparing them to general patterns in other similar sites, and ultimately offering hypotheses for later research to take interest in regarding the sites and the topic of the Iron Age southern Levant, especially with a focus on political and social layouts.
Description
58 pages
Keywords
Anthropology, Archaelogy, Iron-Age Spatial-Organization, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet al-Ra'i, Iron Age, Philistines, Judah