Who Are You, Eshba’al Ben Beda?

September 2, 2015

An aerial view of Khirbet Qeiyafa, where the sherds were discovered A rare inscription from the time of King David was discovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Valley of Elah. A ceramic jar c. 3,000 years old that was broken into numerous sherds was discovered in 2012 during excavations carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Letters written in ancient Canaanite script could be discerned on several of the sherds, sparking the curiosity of researchers.

Intensive restoration work, during which hundreds of pottery sherds were glued together to form a whole jar, solved the riddle—the jar was incised with the inscription: Eshba’al Ben Beda. Dr. Mitka Golub and Dr. Haggai Misgav were among the team of researchers involved in deciphering the text.

According to Garfinkel and Ganor, “This is the first time that the name Eshba’al has appeared on an ancient inscription in the country. Eshba’al Ben Shaul, who ruled over Israel at the same time as David, is known from the Bible. Eshba’al was murdered by assassins and decapitated and his head was brought to David in Hebron (2 Samuel 3–4). Inscription on the rim of the pottery It is interesting to note that the name Eshba’al appears in the Bible and now also in the archaeological record, only during the reign of King David, in the first half of the tenth century BC. This name was not used later in the First Temple period. The correlation between the biblical tradition and the archaeological finds indicates this was a common name only during that period. The name Beda is unique and does not occur in ancient inscriptions or in the biblical tradition.”

According to the researchers, the fact that the name Eshba’al was incised on a jar suggests that he was an important person. He was apparently the owner of a large agricultural estate and the produce collected there was packed and transported in jars that bore his name. This is clear evidence of social stratification and the creation of an established economic class that occurred at the time of the formation of the Kingdom of Judah.

Khirbet Qeiyafa is identified with the biblical city Sha’arayim. Several seasons of excavations directed by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor exposed a fortified city that dates from the time of David. In 2008, the world’s earliest Hebrew inscription was uncovered there.

According to Garfinkel and Ganor, “Until about five years ago we knew of no inscriptions dating to the tenth century BC from the Kingdom of Judah. In recent years four inscriptions have been published: two from Khirbet Qeiyafa, one from Jerusalem and one from Beit Shemesh. This completely changes our understanding of the distribution of writing in the Kingdom of Judah and it is now clear that writing was far more widespread than previously thought.”

Source: Excerpts of press release by Israel Antiquities Authority

Photo Credit: Photos by Ashernet