Harosheth Haggoyim (Hebrew:חרושת הגויים, lit.Smithy of the Nations) is a fortress described in theBook of Judges as the fortress or cavalry base ofSisera, commander of the army of "Jabin, King ofCanaan".[1]
Sisera is described as having had nine hundred iron chariots with which he fought the Israelites.[2] InJudges 5, themother of Sisera is poignantly described looking from a window, presumably in Harosheth Haggoyim, and asking"Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?" when he does not return from the battle where his army was defeated by theIsraelites, and he was killed by the Biblical heroineYael.[3]
In the late 19th century,Victor Guérin identified the southernLebanese village ofHariss with Harosheth,[4] a location with which thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine seems to agree.[5]
ArchaeologistAdam Zertal of theUniversity of Haifa proposed that the site ofEl-Ahwat, betweenKatzir-Harish andNahal Iron, is the site of Harosheth Haggoyim, and the more recent find of a fancychariot linchpin by archaeologist Oren Cohen seems to corroborate this hypothesis.[6][7]
The site was excavated from 1993-2000 by teams from the University of Haifa and theUniversity of Cagliari inSardinia. The dig was headed by Professor Zertal.[7] The dig revealed a fortified place dating to the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (13th-12th centuries BCE). The style of the fortifications, walls, passageways in the walls and rounded huts is very different from Canaanite cities of the era, leading Zertal to propose that the site may have been occupied by theShardana, one of theSea Peoples who invaded the Levant in the Late Bronze Age.[7] Zertal based his 2010 Hebrew languageSisera’s Secret, A Journey following the Sea-Peoples and the Song of Deborah, (Dvir, Tel Aviv) on this theory.[6]
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Among the more intriguing objects uncovered by the El-Ahwat dig is a small, round, bronze relief measuring about 2 cm. in diameter and 5 mm. thick. The bronze shows the "face of a woman wearing a cap and earrings shaped as chariot wheels." It was found inside a structure identified by the archaeological team as the “Governor’s House”. It is clear that the bronze was once the finial or end of an "elongated object" from which it had been broken off in antiquity.[7]
It has now been identified as alinchpin from the wheel of a warchariot belonging to a high-ranking person.[7] It would have appeared on the side of a chariot in much the position as a modern hubcap.
Zertal explained the significance of the discovery, “This identification enhances the historical and archaeological value of the site and proves that chariots belonging to high-ranking individuals were found there. It provides support for the possibility, which has not yet been definitively established, that this was Sisera’s city of residence and that it was from there that the chariots set out on their way to the battle against the Israelite tribes, located between the ancient sites ofTaanach andMegiddo.”[7]
Anson Rainey,[8] on the basis of the place name ("farmland")[clarification needed], the need for lowland (rather than wooded hilly terrain) for chariots, and other records of military encampments in the area, places the chariot base in theValley of Jezreel, betweenTaanach andMegiddo.