Australian and Israeli archaeologists announced this week the discovery of the biblical city of Ziklag, whose ruins have been found in Tel a-Rai, near the town of Kiryat Gat in Israel. A first dating places them at the beginning of the 10th century BC, in the time of King David.
This reinforces the theory that David was more than just a local chief, as some researchers maintain, and would indeed have ruled over a united kingdom in the Judea area, although not as powerful as previously thought.
Ziklag is mentioned in the Biblical books of Joshua and Samuel as a Philistine settlement adjoining the city of Gath. His name stands out in the biblical record because he is not a Semite or a Canaanite, but a Philistine (recent DNA studies have revealed the origin of this people). According to these books, Ziklag served as a refuge for the future King David when he fled from Saul. There he and 600 of his men settled for 14 months and used it as a base to attack neighboring towns.
Later, in the book of Nehemiah, Ziklag is mentioned as one of the places to which the Jews returned from Babylon.
After seven seasons of excavations, some thousand square meters of the settlement were unearthed, with finds that include huge stone structures and typical Philistine cultural artifacts, including pottery, offerings, olive pits and other organic objects.
Analysis and carbon-14 dating of all these objects identifies the site as the lost city where David settled, as recounted in the first and second books of Samuel. In fact, the site offers evidence from all biblical periods, including later Persian remains as well.
There are two levels of destruction at the site, one from the early 10th century B.C. and another from the mid-11th century B.C. The layer of destruction of the tenth century is the one that would correspond to the biblical narrative.
However, not all experts are convinced that it is Ziklag, since they believe that it must have been located further inland, near the desert and far from the coastal plain.