Biblical Archaeology Review

I am not convinced by Dever’s argument against a 9th century date. One of the Iron Age walls which on Macalister’s plan appears above the shaft looks as if it could have been a retaining wall around the top of the shaft steps.

Sometime after the 9th century B.C. shaft/tunnel system was cut, the tunnel was deepened and graded so that the water then flowed from the spring to the base of the shaft inside the city. This saved steps for the water carriers who no longer had to walk through the tunnel, but the arrangement apparently proved unsatisfactory. Perhaps the water became fouled at the shaft end since it had no place to flow off. So the tunnel floor was again recut and regraded so the spring water no longer flowed to the base of the shaft.

A casemate wall consists of two parallel walls connected by periodic cross walls. The effect is to create a line of narrow rectangular rooms, but the main purpose probably was to provide a wall system with sufficient space on the top for defenders to maneuver easily. We know that this wall style was most characteristic of Israel in the 10th century B.C.

An “inset-offset” wall is one which has periodic zigzag vertical cutbacks along its face. This device gave defenders a line of fire against attackers at the base of their wall; it became popular in Israel in the 9th century B.C.

This shaft and tunnel system has been described and illustrated in “Digging in the City of David,” BAR 05:04.

There are reasons to question this early a dating, but they need not concern us here.

For the sake of clarity, the term “tunnel” will be reserved for horizontal cuttings, “shaft” for vertical ones, and “stepped tunnel” for angling ones.

Yadin suggests that the battle may have been at a fortress in the vicinity of Ashdod rather than at Megiddo and that the Biblical reference to Megiddo is a corruption of “migdal” (fortress).

Note the Yahwistic elements in this name (ya and yahu). Eliashiv, on the other hand, contains the divine element el, another name for God.