Khirbat esh-Sheikh Madkur / ʿAīd el Mâ | |
 Pine-covered hill of Adullam, seen from northwest | |
  Shown within Israel | |
| Alternative name | 'Eîd el Mieh (Kh. 'Id el-Minya) |
|---|---|
| Location | Israel |
| Region | Shfela |
| Coordinates | 31°39′0″N35°0′9″E / 31.65000°N 35.00250°E /31.65000; 35.00250 |
| Grid position | 150/118PAL |
| History | |
| Founded | Canaanite period and successive periods |
| Abandoned | unknown |
| Periods | Chalcolithic,Early and Late Bronze,Iron Age periods to the Ottoman period |
| Cultures | Canaanite, Jewish, Greco-Roman, Byzantine, early Islamic, Ottoman |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 2015 |
| Archaeologists | Surveyed by Y. Dagan, B. Zissu, I. Radashkovsky and E. Liraz |
| Condition | Ruin |
| Ownership | Jewish National Fund |
| Public access | yes |
Adullam (Hebrew:עֲדֻלָּם,romanized: ʿəḏullām,Koinē Greek:Οδολλάμ) is an ancient ruin once numbered among the thirty-six cities ofCanaan whose kings "Joshua and the children of Israel smote"(Joshua 12:7–24).[1] After that, it fell as an inheritance to thetribe of Judah and was included in the northern division of theShephelah "lowland" cities of the land of Judah(Joshua 15:35).[2]
The connection between Judah and Adullam and its surroundings was actually already established in the patriarchal period, whenJudah "went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah"(Genesis 38:1).[2] At the beginning of the royal period, in the days ofKing Saul, the area was close to the land of thePhilistines, and thusDavid, fleeing from Saul, sought refuge in the cave of Adullam and made it a place of reconnoitering and organization, both, for him and his men(1 Samuel 22:1–2).[2][3] Here, too, the episode took place when three of David's heroes brought him water from the well of Bethlehem and he did not dare to drink it, but "poured it out unto the Lord"(2 Samuel 23:13–17).[4] It is also learnt from the battle ofDavid and Goliath, which took place in theValley of Elah directly adjoining the north-side of the ruin, as well as from the raid of the Philistines intoKeilah to the immediate south of Adullam, that Adullam was a frontier city during that period.[2]
The current site was formerly known by theArabic appellation Khurbet esh-Sheikh Madhkur, 9 mi. (15 km.) northeast ofBayt Jibrin,[4] and was built upon a hilltop overlooking the Elah valley, straddling theGreen Line between Israel and theWest Bank, and with its suburban ruin,Levantine Arabic:عيد الميا,romanized: ʿeyd el-Miye, lying directly below it.[5] By the late 19th century, the settlement, which had been a town, was in ruins.[6] The hilltop ruin is named after Madkour, one of the sons of theSultan Beder, for whom is built ashrine (wely) and formerly called by its inhabitantsWely Madkour.[7] The hilltop is mostly flat, withcisterns carved into the rock. The remains of stone structures which once stood there can still be seen. Sedimentary layers of ruins from the old Canaanite andIsraelite eras, mostlypotsherds, are noticeable everywhere, although olive groves now grow atop of this hill, enclosed within stonewall enclosures. The villages ofAderet,Aviezer andKhirbet al-Deir are located nearby. The ruin lies about 3 km (1.9 mi) south ofmoshavNeve Michael.
Kh. esh-Sheikh Madkur (Palestine grid: 1503/1175) sits at an elevation of 434 metres (1,424 ft) above sea-level and is thought by modern historical geographers to be the "upper Adullam", based on its proximity to Kh. 'Id el-Minya. The name of this latter site is believed by historical geographers to be a corruption of the word "Adullam."[8] The identification of the upper site with the biblical Adullam is still inconclusive, as archaeological evidence attesting to its Old Canaanite name has yet to be found. In the late 19th century, the hilltop ruin and its adjacent ruins were explored by French explorer,Victor Guérin, who wrote:
[Upon leaving the hilltop ruin,Khirbet el-Sheikh Madkour], at 11:20 [AM], we descend to the east in the valley. At 11:25 [AM], I examine other ruins, calledKhirbet A'id el-Miah. Sixty toppled houses in thewadi formed a village that still existed in the Muslim period, as [proven by] the remains of amosque there observed. In antiquity, the ruins that cover the plateau of the hill ofSheikh Madkour and which extend in the valley were probably one and the same city, divided into two parts, the upper part and the lower part.[9]
While Guérin does not specifically say that the site in question was the ancient Adullam, he holds thatKh. esh-Sheikh Madkour andKh. 'Id el Minya are to be recognised as the same city; the upper and the lower. The site is maintained by theJewish National Fund in Israel, and archaeological surveys and partial excavations have been conducted. The site features ancientcaverns, cisterns carved into the rock, and a Muslimshrine known asWely Sheikh Madkour.
Kh. 'Id el Minya, also known as'Eid al-Miah (Palestine grid: 1504/1181), is the site recognised as Adullam proper,[10] being now atell at the southern end ofWadi es-Sûr, an extension of theElah valley. The site was first recognised as the biblical Adullam by French archaeologistClermont-Ganneau in 1871, based on its location, a close approximation of the name and the ceramic finds it yielded.[11][12] The ruin sits at an elevation of 351 metres (1,152 ft) above sea-level. The ruin is overgrown with vegetation and trees on the northern flanks of the mountain whereon liesKh. esh-Sheikh Madkour. Razed stone structures, a stone water trough, and the shaft of a stonecolumn can still be seen there.Palestine Exploration Fund surveyor,C.R. Conder, mentions having seen inʻAid el-Miyeh an ancient well having stone water-troughs round it.[13]
Earlier attempts at identification have led some to call other cave systems by the name of "Cave of Adullam." Early drawings depicting the so-called "Adullam cave" have tentatively been identified with the cavern ofUmm el-Tuweimin, and the cave atKhureitun (named afterChariton the Ascetic),[14] although modern day archaeologists and historical geographers have rejected these early hypotheses as being the Cave of Adullam,[15] and have accepted thatʻAid el-Miyeh is the Adullam of old.[16][17][2][18]
It has been pointed out thatKh. esh-Sheikh Madkour, if indeed it is the biblical Adullam, lies only 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) southwest ofTimnah, a site mentioned inGenesis, ch. 38, as being visited by Judah when he went up from Adullam to shear his sheep.[19]
The "Adullam" mentioned in theHebrew Bible is thought to be identical withTell Sheikh Madkhur.[8][20][2][21] The so-called "Biblical period", for time reference-sake, has been referred to by historians and archaeologists as theLate Bronze Age and theIron Age, meaning, the Late Canaanite and Israelite periods, respectively.[22]A.F. Rainey recognized Adullam (Kh. esh-Sheikh Madhkûr) as a Late Bronze Age site.[23]
By theIron Age,[24] Adullam is referred to in theHebrew Bible as being one of the royal cities of the Canaanites,[25] and is listed along with the citiesJarmuth andSocho as occupying a place in the region geographically known as theShefelah,[26] or what is a place of transition between the mountainous region and the coastal plains.
It was here that Judah, the son ofJacob (Israel), came when he left his father and brothers inMigdal Eder. Judah befriended a certain Hirah, an Adullamite.[2][27] In Adullam, Judah met his first wife (unnamed in theBook of Genesis), the daughter ofShuah.
During the period of theIsraelite conquest of the land of Canaan, Adullam was one of many city-states with independent and sovereign kings.[28] According to the same biblical source, the king of Adullam was slain byJoshua and theIsraelites during their conquest of the land.[29] The immediate lands were, by what was thought to be a "divine act" of casting lots, given as a tribal inheritance to the progeny of Judah.[30]
More than 400 years later, the scene of David's victory overGoliath in theElah valley was within a short distance from Adullam, at that time a frontier village.[2][31] Although David was elevated and allowed to sit in King Saul's presence, he soon fell into disrepute with the king and was forced to flee.
David sought refuge in Adullam after being expelled from the city ofGath by KingAchish. TheBook of Samuel refers to the Cave of Adullam where he found protection while living as a refugee from King Saul. Certain caves,grottos andsepulchres are still to be seen on the hilltop, as well as on its northern and eastern slopes. It was there that "every one that was in distress gathered together, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented."[32] There, David thirsted for the well-waters of his native Beth-lehem, then occupied by a Philistine garrison. A party of David's mighty-men of valor went and fetched him water from that place, but, when they returned, David refused to drink it.[33]
In the 10th-century BCE, Adullam was thought to have strategic importance, prompting King David's grandson,Rehoboam (c. 931–913 BCE), to fortify the town, among others, againstAncient Egypt.[2][3][34][35] According to Israeli historianN. Naʾaman, this was not a fortress in the real sense, but only a town inhabited by a civilian population, although it functioned as an administrative military center in which a garrison was stationed and food and armor stored.[36]
In the late 8th-century BCE, theBook of Micah recalled the cities of the lowlands of Judah during a time ofAssyrian encroachment in the country:[37][38] "I will yet bring unto thee, O inhabitant ofMareshah, him that shall possess thee; he shall come even unto Adullam, O glory of Israel."[39]
Sennacherib, during histhird military campaign, despoiled many of the cities belonging to Judah.[40] The Assyrian period was followed by the rise of theNeo-Babylonian Empire, a time marked by general unrest and the eventualdeportation of the inhabitants of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian army in the sixth century BCE.[41] Adullam, as with other towns of the region, would not have gone unaffected.
The only record of Adullam for this time-period (c. 539–331 BCE) is taken from theHebrew canonical books, specifically the account ofNehemiah who returned with the Jewish exiles from theBabylonian captivity, during the reign ofArtaxerxes I.[3] According toEzra, the acclaimed author of the book,[42] some of these returnees had settled in Adullam.[2][43][4] According to Nehemiah, the postexilic community that resettled in Adullam traced their lineage to the tribe of Judah.
The political entity that was established in Judea at the time was that of a vassal state, as Judea became a province of thePersian Empire, governed by asatrap.[44]
Few records abound for the site during the classical period. In 163 BCE, it was in Adullam thatJudas Maccabaeus, the principal leader of theMaccabean Revolt during a time of foreign dominion in the country, retired with his fighting men, after returning from war against theIdumaeans and theSeleucid general,Gorgias.[2][45][46][47][4] Adullam stood near the highway which later became theRoman road in the Valley of Elah, which road led fromJerusalem toBeit Gubrin.
As late as the early 4th century CE, Adullam was described byEusebius as being "a very large village about ten [Roman] miles east ofEleutheropolis."[48]
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Adullam was an inhabited village in the late 16th century. An Ottomantax ledger of 1596 listsʻAyn al-Mayyā [sic] (Arabic:عين الميا) in thenahiyaḪalīl (Hebron subdistrict), and where it is noted that it had thirty-six Muslim heads of households.[49] The copyist of the same tax ledger had erroneously mistaken the Arabicdal in the document for anun, and which name has since been corrected by historical geographers Yoel Elitzur andToledano to readʻA'ïd el-Miah (Arabic:عيد الميا), based on the entry's number of fiscal unit in thedaftar and its corresponding place on Hütteroth's map.[50][51] Local inhabitants grew wheat and barley, as well as cultivated olives. Total revenues accruing from the village for that year amounted to 5160akçe.[52]
According toConder, an ancient road, leading fromBeit Sur toIsdud once passed throughʿAīd el Mâ (Adullam) and was still partially visible.[53]
Frenchorientalist and archaeologist, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, visited the site in 1874 and wrote: "The place is absolutely uninhabited, except during the rainy season, when the herdsmen take shelter there for the night."[54]
The Arabs ofBayt Nattif in the 19th century, when asked about the meaning of the name of the nearby ruin,ʻA'ïd el-Miah, related their own legend about the origin of the name. According to their version, the nameʻA'ïd el-Miah = lit. "Holiday of the Hundred," revolves around an event that occurred there, years ago. According to their story, a large fight broke out on a holiday, in which a hundred people were killed and the settlement destroyed. In memory of the event, the ruins of the settlement were namedʻA'ïd el-Miah, which means "Holiday of the Hundred."[2] Scholars explain this as a case of 'popular etymology', where, in Palestinian toponyms, the original denotation of a town's name is often "re-interpreted" by its local population.[55]
In 1957, the establishment of theAdullam region (Hebrew:חבל עדולם) began, a settlement area comprising over 100,000 dunams (25,000 acres),[56] and bearing the name of the biblical city.[57] Near the mound, north of it,Moshav Aderet was established in 1958.
Surveys were conducted on the site in the years 1992 and 1999. As late as 2003, thearchaeological site of Adullam, both, Upper and Lower, had not been excavated,[58] but by September of 2015, an excavation to a depth of 0.2 m in six squares of equal size was conducted in the surface of the Upper ruin, in hopes of determining the extent of the settlement at the site during the various periods from the relative distribution of the pottery.[12] The gathered pottery sherds foundin situ dated from theEarly Bronze Age to the Ottoman period.[59]
As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhood, which were without number...I besieged and took. Two-hundred thousand, and one-hundred and fifty people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep, without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. Himself, like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city... The cities of his, which I had despoiled, I cut off from his land and to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, [and to] Padi, king of Ekron, [and to] Silli-bel, king of Gaza, I gave. And (thus) I diminished his land.
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