Shaaraim (), possibly meaning Two Gates, is an

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

city mentioned several times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Khirbet Qeiyafa Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...

, an archaeological site on a hilltop overlooking the

Valley of Elah The Valley of Elah, Ella Valley ("Valley of the terebinth"; from the ), or Wadi es-Sunt (), is a long, shallow valley in the Shephelah area of Israel. It is best-known from the Hebrew Bible incident where David defeated Goliath ( 1 Samuel 17:2 a ...

in the

Judean Mountains The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills (, or ,) are a mountain range in the West Bank and Israel where Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and several other biblical sites are located. The mountains reach a height of . The Judean Mountains can be div ...

.Julia Fridman
''Crying King David: Are the ruins found in Israel really his palace?''
at

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

, 26 August 2013.

Biblical references

The city appears in the city list of Judah's tribal inheritance, after Sokho and Azekah (). After

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

killed

Goliath Goliath ( ) was a Philistines, Philistine giant in the Book of Samuel. Descriptions of Goliath's giant, immense stature vary among biblical sources, with texts describing him as either or tall. According to the text, Goliath issued a challen ...

, the

Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...

ran away and were slain on the "road to She'arayim" (). In the city list of the

tribe of Simeon According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Simeon (; ''Šīm‘ōn'', "hearkening/listening/understanding/empathizing") was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Book of Joshua locates its territory inside the boundaries of the Tribe of Judah ...

, She'arayim is mentioned as one of the cities "unto the reign of David" ().

Identification with Kh. Qeiyafa

After excavating the site,

Yosef Garfinkel Yosef Garfinkel (Hebrew: יוסף גרפינקל; born 1956) is an Israeli archaeologist and academic. He is a professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Yosef G ...

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

and others believe that

Khirbet Qeiyafa Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...

is She'arayim. Fieldwork uncovered a wall that makes a nearly complete circuit with two gates. Garfinkel says it is the only contender for She'arayim, as all other sites dating to the period have a single city gate. Carbon dating and the absence of pig bones strengthen Garfinkel's argument that Qeiyafa is Israelite She'aryaim and not a

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ite fortress.Oldest Hebrew inscription Discovered in Israelite Fort on Philistine border, Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2010, p. 52.

Israel Finkelstein Israel Finkelstein (; born March 29, 1949) is an Israelis, Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the a ...

claimed that

Tel Megiddo Tel Megiddo (from ) is the site of the ancient city of Megiddo (; ), the remains of which form a tell or archaeological mound, situated in northern Israel at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley about southeast of Haifa near the depopulate ...

and several other ancient towns in Canaan had two gates. Nadav Na'aman of

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

doubts that Sha'arayim means "two gates" at all, citing multiple scholarly opinions that the suffix ''-ayim'' in ancient place names is not the dual suffix used for ordinary words. Na'aman proposes instead that the name means just "gate", perhaps "because it was located on the western border of Judah with Philistia, a place that was seen as the gateway to the kingdom of Judah."

References

{{reflist Hebrew Bible cities Archaeological sites in Israel Valley of Elah