What Matters Now to archaeologist Erez Ben-Yosef: King David's tent-dwelling monarchy

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

A small agile nation takes advantage of an unprecedented window of opportunity. As that start-up nation’s influence quickly spreads throughout the Holy Land, it gains the begrudging admiration of its neighboring frenemy states.

Sound familiar? But of course, we're not talking about the modern state of Israel’s hi-tech scene, rather the period in which ancient Israelites founded the biblical United Monarchy some 3,000 years ago.

“It’s exactly the time when things changed dramatically. The Egyptian empire that was the ruler of the region collapsed, so the stabilizing force that was here to make sure that these nomads do not interfere and do not disrupt trade and the livelihood of the city-states, this force was not here anymore,” Tel Aviv University Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, the head of the ongoing Timna Valley Archaeological Expedition, told The Times of Israel this week.

While excavating at Timna, Ben-Yosef realized that it was not the commonly thought ancient Egyptian empire that ruled the copper mines at their prime, but rather the Edomites, a nomadic biblical kingdom.

This led Ben-Yosef to propose a theory that the beginnings of the United Monarchy under King David — as described in the Bible — was also nomadic, but equally complex. If true, his theory of a nomadic, largely tent-dwelling kingdom would explain why there is a general paucity of architectural evidence of grand palaces during this Iron Age era.

So this week, as the Jewish people return to temporary dwellings during the festival of Sukkot, we ask Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, what matters now.

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