Society in Israel from Solomon to the Fall of Samaria

Society in Israel from Solomon to the fall of Samaria is one of the Ancient Societies options in Section II (25 marks). You answer one question with three or four parts; one part is worth 10–15 marks and the others are short answers, often based on a source. The syllabus asks you to study the society through its evidence:

• Historical and geographical context: the land, its resources and sites such as Jerusalem, Samaria, Megiddo, Hazor, Dan and Shechem.
• Social structure and political organisation: Davidic kingship and the kings of Israel, the Jerusalem temple and the priests, the prophets (Elijah, Amos, Hosea), officials and merchants, women, the army.
• The economy: agriculture, crafts and technology, trade (Phoenicia, Judah, Damascus, Assyria), fortified cities.
• Religion, death and burial: the worship of Yahweh, Baal and Asherah, priests and prophets, high places and temples, burial customs.
• Cultural and everyday life: art and architecture (the Samaria ivories), writing (biblical narrative, the Samaria ostraca), daily life and leisure.

Dates are BC and approximate. The period runs from Solomon (about 970–930) to the fall of Samaria to Assyria (722, or 721 in some reckonings).

This option depends on three kinds of evidence, and good answers say which kind they are using.

• The Hebrew Bible: the books of Kings, and prophets such as Amos and Hosea. The Bible is a sacred text for Jews and Christians and also an important historical source. Kings was compiled and edited later, mostly in Judah, by writers who judged rulers by their loyalty to Yahweh and the Jerusalem temple. Treat it with respect and with the same questions you ask of any source: who wrote it, when, and why.
• Archaeology: sites, buildings, pottery, ivories, seals and short inscriptions written in Israel itself (the Samaria ostraca, the Gezer calendar).
• Foreign inscriptions: the Moabite Mesha Stele, the Aramaic Tel Dan Stele (which mentions the ‘house of David’) and Assyrian royal inscriptions (the Kurkh Monolith, the Black Obelisk, Sargon II's annals). They give outside views and fixed dates.

Historians debate how far archaeology confirms the biblical picture of Solomon's large kingdom; many date major building works to the 9th-century Omride kings instead. You do not need to settle the debate, but you should know it exists.

The land

The land is small but varied: the coastal plain, the hill country of Samaria and Judah, the fertile Jezreel Valley, Galilee in the north and the Jordan Valley in the east. Rain-fed farming produced grain, olives and grapes. Major trade routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia passed through the region, which made it rich but also a target for great powers.

Key sites

• Jerusalem: capital of David and Solomon, and later of Judah; Solomon's temple and palace.
• Samaria: capital of the northern kingdom, founded by Omri (about 880); royal acropolis with fine ashlar masonry; the ivories (mostly 9th–8th century) and ostraca.
• Megiddo, Hazor, Gezer: fortified cities with six-chambered gates, water systems and large public buildings.
• Dan and Bethel: the royal sanctuaries set up by Jeroboam I.
• Shechem: where the northern tribes rejected Rehoboam.

Kingship and the divided kingdom

• Solomon ruled a united kingdom from Jerusalem. 1 Kings describes twelve administrative districts, forced labour (corvée), the temple and palace, and alliances with Hiram of Tyre and through marriage.
• About 930 the northern tribes rejected Solomon's son Rehoboam and made Jeroboam I king. From then on, Israel (north) and Judah (south, ruled by the house of David) were separate kingdoms.
• The north was less stable, with several dynasties. The Omrides (Omri, Ahab) were powerful: the Kurkh Monolith credits Ahab with 2,000 chariots at the Battle of Qarqar (853), and the Mesha Stele says Omri ‘oppressed Moab’.
• Jehu overthrew the Omrides (about 841); the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III shows Jehu, or his envoy, bowing before the Assyrian king.
• Jeroboam II (8th century) ruled a prosperous kingdom; soon after, Assyria under Tiglath-pileser III demanded tribute and took territory, and Samaria fell in 722.

Priests and prophets

Priests served at the Jerusalem temple and at royal and local sanctuaries, offering sacrifices and teaching. Prophets claimed to speak for Yahweh and often challenged kings: Elijah and Elisha in the 9th century; Amos and Hosea in the 8th, who criticised injustice and unfaithfulness to Yahweh.

Other groups

Royal officials (scribes, a recorder, governors of districts, stewards whose seals survive), the army (chariots, infantry, fortified garrisons), merchants and craftsmen, farmers who made up most of the population, and slaves, often debt slaves. Women were mostly under the authority of fathers and husbands, but queens such as Jezebel and queen mothers were influential, and women appear in the Bible as prophets and as heads of households.

Agriculture

Grain, olives and vines were the core. The Gezer calendar (10th century) lists the farming year: olive harvest, sowing, late sowing, flax, barley, wheat, vine-tending (pruning) and summer fruit. It is earlier than the divided kingdom but shows the rhythm of farming. Terraces, cisterns and olive presses are common finds.

Administration and taxation

The Samaria ostraca record deliveries of wine and oil from villages and estates to the capital, probably taxes or officials' income. Storehouses and large buildings at Megiddo and Hazor show the state collecting and storing goods.

Crafts, technology and trade

Pottery, weaving, metalwork and ivory carving; large water systems at Megiddo and Hazor; and, in Judah just after this period, Hezekiah's Siloam Tunnel (about 700), which shows the engineering skills of the region. Trade with Phoenicia (timber, luxury goods, craftsmen), Damascus and Judah; Solomon's trade in the Red Sea and in horses is described in Kings. Assyrian tribute demands in the 8th century, such as the thousand talents of silver Menahem paid, drained wealth.

Fortified cities

Six-chambered gates, casemate walls and water shafts at Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer. Kings links these cities with Solomon; many archaeologists date at least some of the works to the Omrides. Either way, they show a strong state.

Yahweh, Baal and Asherah

Yahweh was the national god of both kingdoms, but Canaanite and Phoenician gods were also worshipped. Under Ahab and Jezebel, Kings describes a temple of Baal in Samaria; Elijah opposed it and Jehu destroyed it. Inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud (about 800), a way-station in Sinai, bless people by ‘Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah’, and the Samaria ostraca include names formed with Yahweh and with Baal (though ‘baal’, lord, could also be a title). Clay figurines of women, often linked with fertility, are common in houses. All of this suggests that popular religion was more varied than the biblical ideal of worshipping Yahweh alone.

Places of worship

The temple in Jerusalem; royal sanctuaries at Dan (where a large cultic platform of debated date has been excavated) and Bethel; and local open-air shrines, the high places (bamot), which the biblical writers condemned.

Death and burial

Families buried their dead in rock-cut tombs, often with benches on which bodies were laid; the bones were later gathered into a repository with those of earlier generations, a practice many scholars link with the biblical phrase ‘gathered to his fathers’. These bench tombs are best known from Judah. Grave goods included pottery, lamps and jewellery. Kings were buried in their capitals.

Art and architecture

The Samaria ivories, carved plaques in Phoenician style showing sphinxes, lotus flowers and figures, decorated royal furniture (compare Amos' ‘beds of ivory’). Royal buildings used fine ashlar masonry and proto-Aeolic capitals (stone capitals with volutes). Most houses were the ‘four-room house’, with a courtyard and rooms for animals, storage and living.

Writing

The Hebrew alphabetic script was used for short inscriptions such as the ostraca, seals and the Gezer calendar. The biblical narratives and prophetic books were written down and edited over time.

Everyday life and leisure

Life followed the farming year and religious festivals tied to the harvests. Music, feasting and family celebrations appear in the prophets' criticisms, and the household was the centre of work and worship.

• Treating the Book of Kings as a neutral record. It is a religious history with a viewpoint; say so, and use other evidence.
• Confusing Israel (north, capital Samaria) with Judah (south, capital Jerusalem).
• Saying Solomon's building works are certainly proven by archaeology. Their date is debated.
• Writing about the Babylonian exile (586) or Hezekiah as if they belonged to the northern kingdom. They are later, and in Judah.
• Disrespectful or dismissive language about the Bible. Evaluate it as evidence, not as belief.

• Name the type of evidence you use: biblical text, archaeology or foreign inscription.
• For a source, use its words, then add own knowledge, and comment on its purpose (royal propaganda, prophetic criticism, administrative record).
• The strongest answers show where different kinds of evidence agree or disagree.
• In the 10–15 mark answer, begin with a clear judgement and keep linking back to the question.
• Historians' views are credited if used accurately, but they are not required.

• Personalities in their Times — Sennacherib: the same Assyrian empire a generation later, when Sennacherib campaigned against Judah (701).
• ANC-PER (Persia): the later Persian rulers who allowed the temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt.