An Ancient Winery in Jezreel: An Abstract

 Norma Franklin,  Jennie Ebeling, Philippe Guillaume
Beit Mikra - Volume 60 (2015), No. 1, The Bialik Institute

The Bialik Institute

Recent excavations have shown that Jezreel was important both strategically and economically from late prehistory to the present, including the biblical period. Although Omri founded a dynasty and established his capital at Shomron, the important string of events (1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9-10) that led to the demise of the dynasty after only four decades took place not at the capital, but in the city of Jezreel. The excavations by Tel-Aviv University and The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem at Tel Jezreel in the early 1990s revealed a 9^thcentury BCE military enclosure.

Subsequent surveys and excavations carried out by the Jezreel Expedition sponsored by the University of Evansville, USA, and the University of Haifa since 2012 have unearthed a large and impressive winery complex that may also date to the Iron Age. This paper discuss's Jezreel's strategic and economic importance in antiquity and highlight the newly-discovered winery located between Tel Jezreel and ‘Ein Yizre’el to its north. Is there a connection between this impressive wine-making area and the story of Naboth in 1 Kings 21?