As part of a Route 90 roadtrip in 2016, and again in spring 2017, and on several other occasions, I had tried to find Gilgal. And I am not alone, for finding Gilgal has been a quest of biblical archaeology for many years. The late Professor Adam Zertal of the University of Haifa―who discovered the site of an iron-age altar on Mt Ebal near Shechem (Nablus), where Joshua led the people to build an altar to reaffirm their covenant with God―was fascinated by the notion of the Gilgal.
The word Gilgal (its root means "circle") appears 38 times in the Tanach (Hebrew Bible), where it does not refer to a specific location, but is a common name for a camp with an altar. For instance in the book of Deuteronomy, when God lays before the Israelites his famous choice ("Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse," Deut. 11:26), the place at which the Israelites must choose―Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal―is described as being "on the other side of the Jordan, way beyond, in the direction of the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the plain, opposite Gilgal, near the plains of Moreh" (Deut. 11:30). The book of II Kings refers (at 2:1–2 and 4:38–44) to a Gilgal as the place from which "they went down to Beth-El." The Gilgal mentioned in the description of the frontier of Judah near "the ascent of Adummim" (Joshua 15:7; but called Geliloth in Joshua 18:17) is unidentified, and the Gilgal whose king Joshua defeated (Joshua 12:23) is also unidentified. A Gilgal became an important cultic center during the time of Samuel, and a Gilgal was the place where some men of Judah welcomed David back from exile following his son Absalom’s death (1 Samuel 7:16; 2 Samuel 19:15). Gilgal is not mentioned again until it appears in the Minor Prophets as a site of apostate worship (Micah 6:5; Hosea 4:15; 9:15; 12:11; Amos 4:4–5; 5:5).
However the best-known Gilgal is that described in the Book of Joshua, 4:19-5:12, as the place where the Israelites first camped after crossing the Jordan River (often referred to as Gilgal-Jericho). After setting up camp, Joshua orders the Israelites to take twelve stones from the river, one for each tribe, and place them there in memory.
“And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever. [...]And the Lord said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. And he called the name of the place Gilgal to this day. And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and they made the Passover sacrifice on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho.”
Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant, Benjamin West, oil on wood, 1800 [public domain, courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales
During 1996-2008, Professor Zertal led a survey team in the area of Samaria and the Jordan valley whose findings included five potential Gilgals where the Israelites might have camped on their entry to the promised land, along the path from the crossing of the Jordan to Mt Ebal. These sites are all dated to the early Iron age (12th-13th century BCE)―the time of the Israelites’ arrival―and were in use until the 9th century BCE. They share in common the unique shape of a human right footprint, which may be attributed to a Torah verse using the feet as a symbol of ownership and conquest: “Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be” (Deuteronomy 11 24). The layout of the five Gilgal sites―whose areas very from 15 dunams (15,000 square metres) at three sites to eight dunams (8,000 square metres) at two sites―indicate that they were used as large communal gathering places.
The first site to be published was el-‘Unuq (the necklace), just north of Hamra overlooking Wadi Far'ah (Nahal Tirzah). The Arabic name refers to its elliptical walled enclosure, whose wall is 272 yards long and six feet wide. Although the site lacks permanent living quarters, it contains considerable pottery, the earliest of which dates to the 13th and 12th centuries BCE and closely resembles pottery from the altar the author excavated on Mt Ebal. In addition, the monumental size of el-'Unuq's enclosure wall suggests a fortification. This evidence supports the identification of el 'Unuq as a fortified camp from the early Iron I period, the period of Israel's earliest history in Canaan.
Two of the other sites (at Bedhat esh-Sha'ab, just south of Argaman; and Yafit 3, about 10 km south of Argaman, just west of Yafit) were excavated in the years 2002-2005, under the directorship of Dr Ben-Yosef and the guidance of Professor Zertal. The findings―mostly of clay vessels and animal bones―date their foundation to the end of the 13th century BCE, and one of them endured up to the 9th or 8th century BCE unchanged. Paved circuits, some two metres wide, were found around the structures, probably used for ceremonial processional encirclement, an important element in the ancient Near East: the origins of the Hebrew term chag (festival) in Semitic languages is from the verb chug, which means “encircle.”
Another possible Gilgal is believed to exist east of Jericho at Jaljala on the ancient path from Hogla to Tel Jericho, and several ruins remain there which have not yet been excavated. Then the site known as Gilgal I, which was first excavated by by Tamar Noy in 1979, with further excavations conducted by Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University and Mordechai E Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Bar-Ilan University, which found caches of selectively propagated fig seeds, stored together with wild barley, wild oat, and acorns in quantities too large to be accounted for even by intensive gathering, at strata dating to around 11,000 years ago. The dig also unearthed the remains of thirteen round buildings made of mud and rock. Nearby Kibbutz Gilgal was named for it. Ofer Bar-Yosef also excavated a Gilgal at Tel el Baghlat (Tall al Bughaylat)―just south of Kibbutz Gilgal―unearthing Neolithic and pre-Neolithic remains.
So we tried to visit at least one of these Gilgals in 2017, but at the time of the trip I did not have any details where they were precisely, and they are not signposted or shown on maps. We knew about the Gilgal at Tel el Baghlat, on a small hill west of Route 90. But all we found was a set of abandoned military buildings converted into some sort of tourist-oriented Gilgal-centred educational site, which in any event was run down and deserted. But we had to ourselves some great views of the Jordan valley from there.
Abandoned converted military buildings at Tel el Baghlat
Panorama of the Jordan Valley looking east towards Jordan from Tel el Baghlat
But in the summer of 2017 we found one of the most impressive and well-preserved Gilgal sites, Gilgal Argaman, at Bedhat esh-Sha'ab.
Gilgal Argaman
Situated a kilometre south of the village of Argaman, beneath the Umm Kharubeh ridge, this huge 169 metre by 88 metre sandal- or foot-shaped open enclosure, surrounded by a low, 370 metre enclosure wall―1.5 metres wide on average―made up of medium-sized locally-sourced stones. The height of this wall is thought to be unaltered, due to the lack of fallen stones around it, and the smooth tops of the stones. The wall forms a single course, laid in a trench lined with soil, in which were found pot sherds dating to the 13th-12th centuries BCE. After the wall was built, soil was brought inside the enclosure to level it somewhat. There is a clear, funnel-shaped entrance (pictured right).
The site was first discovered in 1989, as part of the ongoing Manasseh Survey (since 1978). Excavations in 2002-2003 showed that there were no archaeological strata to the site, meaning that it had been used at a single point in time and not altered since, and was very well preserved.
Aerial View of Gilgal Argamon [Credit: A Solomon, annotated by the author]
The enclosure―especially the "forefoot," its lower, northern part―is partially paved with small field stones. In this area are the remains of a small, circular structure presumed to be an altar (pictured right), since it is of insufficient height and command to be a tower―in any event unprecedented for this period―and because bones from kosher animals were found around it.
The "heal" of the enclosure, to the south, is enclosed by a built road of pavers and kerbs. This road―dubbed the "processional road"―begins at the entrance to the enclosure and ends on the opposite side, following the enclosure wall; its use is surmised to be for ceremonial or cultic use.
At the centre of the enclosure―between the heal and the forefoot―is a further, square enclosure, dubbed the "central courtyard" (pictured left), surrounded by a well-built metre-wide and metre-high wall. The interior forms a flat, empty platform, which has not yet been excavated, and whose use is unknown.
Gilgal Argaman from the air [Adam Zartal, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31668676]
The site is today isolated and deserted, but it is the hope of the Moreshet (Heritage) Foundation Israel―a project of the Christian organization, Father’s House Educational Foundation―to change that. Since they were established in 2006, they have leased the land in and around the Gilgal site from Moshav Argaman, and they hope to develop the site into a viable public venue. To date they have constructed road access and levelled out a parking area, as well as building a curiously-purposeless dry-stone, roofless tower of huge blocks of limestone! As well as being a site for worship, apparently, they intend to build a visitor centre. Although such developments are often to be welcomed, in this case it seems a pity to develop a site―uniquely untouched by human activity for thousands of years―whose deserted peace and quiet, and sense of energy and spirituality, can only be adversely effected by such a project.
For those of you who believe in strange and mysterious energies, on both occasions I visited―I came back some months later―my mobile phone became mysteriously locked, in a way that has not happened before or since, after I tried to take photographs! I cannot explain it, and would have put it down to chance, had it not happened both times!
The mysterious tower (right)