Tirzah (ancient city)
Encyclopedia
Tirzah was a town in the Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...

n highlands northeast of Shechem
Shechem
Shechem was a Canaanite city mentioned in the Amarna letters, and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an Israelite city of the tribe of Manasseh and the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel...

; it is generally identified with Tell el-Farah (North), NE of modern Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...

.

In the Bible

The town of Tirzah is first mentioned in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 in as having had a king whom the Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...

s smote; it is not mentioned again until after the period of the United Monarchy
United Monarchy
According to Biblical tradition, the united Kingdom of Israel was a kingdom that existed in the Land of Israel, a period referred to by scholars as the United Monarchy. Biblical historians date the kingdom from c. 1020 BCE to c...

.

During the time of King Jeroboam
Jeroboam
Jeroboam was the first king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel after the revolt of the ten northern Israelite tribes against Rehoboam that put an end to the United Monarchy....

, Tirzah is mentioned as the place where Abijah
Abijah
Abijah or Abiah or Abia is a Biblical unisex name that means Aviya or "my Father is Yahweh" in Hebrew. In the Old Testament the name Abijah was borne by several characters:Women...

, son of Jeroboam, died as a result of illness . Later Tirzah is described as a capital of the northern kingdom of Israel during the reigns of Baasha, Elah
Elah
Elah may refer to:* Elah, one of the Names of God in Judaism* King Elah of Israel* The Valley of Elah, where the biblical David fought Goliath* Elah, a member of the Edomite clan* Elah is a type of terebinth tree...

, Zimri
Zimri (king)
Zimri or Zambri was a king of Israel for seven days. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 876 BCE, while E. R. Thiele offers the date 885 BCE. His story is told in 1 Kings, Chapter 16....

 and Omri
Omri
Omri was a king of Israel, successful military campaigner and first in the line of Omride kings that included Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram.He was "commander of the army" of king Elah when Zimri murdered Elah and made himself king. Instead, the troops at Gibbethon chose Omri as king, and he led them to...

 . The royal palace at Tirzah was set on fire by Zimri when he was faced with having to surrender to Omri. Omri reigned from Tirzah for six years after which he moved Israel's capital to Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...

.

Tirzah is mentioned in , when Menahem
Menahem
Menahem, was a king of the northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Gadi, and the founder of the dynasty known as the House of Gadi or House of Menahem....

 went from Tirzah to Samaria, assassinated King Shallum
Shallum of Israel
Shallum of Israel was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, and the son of Jabesh. He "conspired against Zachariah, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead" . He reigned only "a month of days in Samaria" before Menahem rose up, put him to death , and became...

 and became King of Israel.

Tirzah is mentioned in , where the lover compares his beloved's beauty to that of Tirzah. If the authorship of Song of Songs can be attributed to Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...

, then this is a reference to the city during the United Monarchy. However, Song of Songs
Song of songs
Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...

 provides no definite historical context to allow it to be dated on that basis.

Tell el-Farah (North)

The archaeological site is a 180 dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

 (0.18 km²) tell
Tell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...

 in the hills of Samaria, northeast of Shechem, in what is currently known as the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

; it has been identified with the Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 Tirzah
Tirzah
Tirzah is a Hebrew word meaning "she is my delight." In the Bible it is the name of a woman, one of the daughters of Zelophehad.-Hebrew name:...

.

Excavations were undertaken at Tell el-Farah between 1946 and 1960 for nine seasons by École Biblique
École Biblique
The École Biblique, strictly the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, is a respected French academic establishment in Jerusalem, founded by Dominicans, and specialising in archaeology and Biblical exegesis.-Foundation:...

 under the direction of Roland de Vaux
Roland de Vaux
Father Roland Guérin de Vaux OP was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the Ecole Biblique, a French Catholic Theological School in East Jerusalem, and he was charged with overseeing research on the scrolls...



The site was occupied in the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 and Chalcolithic eras, and became progressively more populated. Finds from the earliest levels of settlement excavated by Dorothy Garrod
Dorothy Garrod
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod CBE was a British archaeologist who was the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair, partly through her pioneering work on the Palaeolithic period. Her father was Sir Archibald Garrod, the physician.-Life:Born in Oxford, she attended Newnham College, Cambridge...

 in 1928 were suggested to date to the PPNB period.

During the Early Bronze Age, Tell-el Farah had ramparts and domestic housing units. The earliest pottery oven of its kind was excavated here; it had two chambers that allowed separation between the vessels being fired and the open flame. This type of pottery oven continued to be used in the region until the Roman period
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. A temple and an olive press
Olive oil extraction
Olive oil extraction is the process of extracting the oil present in the olive drupes for food use. The oil is produced in the mesocarp cells, and stored in a particular type of vacuole called a lipo vacuole, i.e., every cell contains a tiny olive oil droplet...

 were also uncovered. Town planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

 is clearly evident at the site. The western gate in the town wall was rebuilt several times during this period. The excavations indicate developing urbanization and the presence of new populations. However, the town was abandoned in the middle of the third millennium BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...

, and remained so for approximately 600 years.

In the Middle Bronze Age II
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

, there was a small settlement on the site that used the remnants of the older town walls for protection. In the 1700s the population expanded and a new wall was built, but it enclosed a smaller area than the older city. The Late Bronze Age remains indicate that there was no major urban development during this period.

Tell el-Farah was an important town in the early Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

, the center of a network of villages, one of five such networks that make up the Israelite settlement, starting around 1200 BCE, in the highlands between Jerusalem and the Jezreel Valley
Jezreel Valley
-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...

. Excavations from the Iron Age levels have produced numerous artifacts, including various figurines, arrowheads, spindle whorls, a model sanctuary, and Four room house
Four room house
The Four room house is the name given to the typical mud brick Israelite house in the iron age Levant. It is so named because its floor plan, the only portion typically remaining in excavated archeological sites, is divided into four sections...

s. The figurines include cow heads, cows nursing calves, horses, tambourine players, and figurines representing Asherah
Asherah
Asherah , in Semitic mythology, is a Semitic mother goddess, who appears in a number of ancient sources including Akkadian writings by the name of Ashratum/Ashratu and in Hittite as Asherdu or Ashertu or Aserdu or Asertu...

.
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