Overview

Bibliography

Khirbet Qeiyafa is a 2.3 hectare site overlooking the Elah valley in the western Shephelah, between Azekah (Tell Zakariyeh) to the west and Socoh (Khirbet Shuwayka) to the southeast. The site was visited by several nineteenth century explorers, but was largely neglected during the twentieth century. Surveys of the Shephelah at the end of the twentieth century once again brought Khirbet Qeiyafa to scholarly attention because of the Iron Age remains noted on the site.

Excavations of Khirbet Qeiyafa by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority began in 2007. After two seasons of excavation (when the site was photographed), they had exposed a monumental four-chamber gate with two adjacent buildings along the western side the site. The site is surrounded by a wall 700 meters long preserved 2-3 high in places. A second monumental gate on the eastern side of the site has been identified but not excavated, leading to the probably assertion that Khirbet Qeiyafa should be identified with Sha'arayim ("two gates") in the biblical narrative.

Although the site is significant because it is fortified with monumental architecture and dates to the early tenth century (the time of the Davidic Kingdom), it has received most attention because of an early alphabetic inscription found in the gate. The inscription, written on a pot sherd (ostracon), is the longest inscription found to date in the so-called "proto-Canaanite" script (the script that preceded the early Phoenician and Hebrew scripts). Its translation has not yet been published.

The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:

	Persian–Hellenistic Period
	Iron IIA Period