DATING THE IRON AGE I/II TRANSITION IN ISRAEL: FIRST INTERCOMPARISON RESULTS

Abstract

Nearly a decade ago, a different chronology than the conventional absolute chronology for the early Iron Age

in Israel was suggested. The new, lower chronology transfers Iron Age I and Iron Age IIA contexts in Israel, traditionally

dated to the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, to the 10th and 9th centuries, respectively. Thus, it places the Iron I|IIA transition

at about 920900 BCE. This alternative chronology carries important implications for Israelite history, historiography, and

Bible research, as well as for the chronologies of other regions around the Mediterranean. Relevant radiocarbon data sets published

to date, which were measured at different sites by different laboratories, were claimed to be incompatible. Therefore,

the question of agreement between laboratories and dating methods needs to be addressed at the outset of any study attempting

to resolve such a tight chronological dilemma. This paper addresses results pertaining to this issue as part of a comprehensive

attempt to date the early Iron Age in Israel based on many sites, employing different measuring techniques in 2

laboratories. The intercomparison results demonstrate that: a) the agreement between the 2 laboratories is well within the

standard in the 14C community and that no bias can be detected in either laboratory; and b) calculating the Iron I|IIa transition

in 3 different ways (twice independently by the measurements obtained at the 2 labs and then by combining the dates of both)

indicates that the lower chronology is the preferable one.