The Story of Naboth’s Vineyard and the Ancient Winery in
Jezreel
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The Story of Naboth’s Vineyard and the Ancient Winery in Jezreel
What light can archaeology shed on the significance and location of the vineyard?
Dr. Norma Franklin
Naboth refuses King Ahab his vineyard. Thomas Matthews Rooke (1842–1942) Russell-Cotes Art Gallery &
Museum
The Story of Naboth’s Vineyard in Jezreel
The well-known story of Naboth’s vineyard begins:
שׁר
ֶ א ֶכֶּרם ָהיָה ְלָנבוֹת ַהיְִּזְרֵעאִלי ֲא:מלכים א כא
ב: כא:מרוֹן
ְשׁ
ֹ מֶלְך
ֶ ְבּיִזְְרֶעאל ֵאֶצל ֵהיַכל אְַחאָב
מָך
ְ תָּנה ִלּי ֶֽאת ַכְּר
ְ מר
ֹ וַיְַדֵבּר אְַחאָב ֶאל ָנבוֹת ֵלא
תָּנה ְלָך
ְ תי וְֶא
ִ וִיִהי ִלי ְלַגן יָָרק ִכּי הוּא ָקרוֹב ֵאֶצל ֵבּי
תָּנה ְלָך
ְ מּנּוּ ִאם טוֹב ְבֵּעיֶניָך ֶא
ֶמ
ִ תּיו ֶכֶּרם טוֹב
ָ תְּח
ַ
ג:
א
כ
מר ָנבוֹת ֶאל אְַחאָב ָחִליָלה
ֶ וַֹיּא
:מִחיר ֶזה
ְ ֶכֶסף
:תי ָלְך
ַב
ֹ תּי ֶאת ַנֲחַלת ֲא
ִתּ
ִמ
ִ הוָה
ֹ -מי
ֵֽ ִלּי
1 Kings 21:1 Naboth the Jezreelite owned a vineyard in Jezreel,
near the hêḵal of King Ahab of Samaria. 21:2 Ahab said to Naboth,
“Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it as a vegetable
garden, since it is right next to my house, I will give you a better
vineyard in exchange; or, if you prefer, I will pay you the price in
money.” 21:3 But Naboth replied, “YHWH forbid that I should give
up to you what I have inherited from my fathers!”
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It continues with Ahab expressing his bitterness about Naboth’s response, and his wife, Queen Jezebel,
arranging false witnesses to charge Naboth with blasphemy, a capital offense. Upon Naboth’s execution, she
presents the vineyard to Ahab, spurring the prophet Elijah to make his famous declaration (v. 19), “Have you
murdered and then inherited?!” ( תּ
ָשׁ
ְ תּ וְַגם יָָר
ָ )ֲהָרַצְחand to inform Ahab that he, his wife, and his dynasty have been
condemned by God.
The fulfilment of this prophecy is narrated in 2 Kings 9, which describes Jehu’s assassination of Joram son of
Ahab near Naboth’s plot in Jezreel. After Joram is killed, Jehu explains his actions to his men:
שִׁלֵכהוּ
ְ שׂא ַה
ָ [שִׁלשׁוֹ
ָ ] מר ֶאל ִבְּדַקר
ֶ כה וַֹיּא:ט
שֵׂדה ָנבוֹת ַהיְִּזְרֵעאִלי ִֽכּי ְזֹכר ֲאִני
ְ ְבֶּחְלַקת
מִדים ֽאֲַחֵרי אְַחאָב אִָביו
ָ רְכִבים ְצ
ֹ תּה ֵאת
ָ וָאַ
ו
כ
:ט
ִאם
:שּׂא ַהֶזּה
ָמּ
ַ שׂא ָעָליו ֶאת ַה
ָ הוָה ָנ
ֹ -וַֽי
משׁ
ֶ תי ֶא
ִ מי ָבָניו ָרִאי
ֵ מי ָנבוֹת וְֶאת ְדּ
ֵ לֹא ֶאת ְדּ
תּי לְָך ַבֶּחְלָקה ַהֹזּאת ְנֻאם
ִמ
ְ שַׁלּ
ִ ְהוָה ו
ֹ -ְנֻאם ְי
-שִׁלֵכהוּ ַבֶּחְלָקה ִכְּדַבר ְי
ְ שׂא ַה
ָ תּה
ָ הוָה וְַע
ֹ -ְי
:הוָה
ֹ
9:25 He ordered his officer Bidkar, “Pick him (Joram) up and throw him
into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember how you and I were
riding side by side behind his father Ahab, when YHWH made this
pronouncement about him: 9:26 ‘I swear, I have taken note of the blood
of Naboth and the blood of his sons yesterday—declares YHWH. And I
will requite you in this plot—declares YHWH.’ So pick him up and throw
him unto the plot in accordance with the word of YHWH.”
A key feature of both parts of the story is Naboth’s plot or vineyard. What light can archaeology shed on this
vineyard and its place in Jezreel?
The Fertile City of Jezreel
The ancient site of Jezreel was built on a rocky spur in the foothills of Mount Gilboa, overlooking the
fertile Jezreel Valley, which was named after it.[1] The city sits opposite Shunam, with its rich, agricultural
fields, [2] and by a nearby a perennial spring, mentioned in 1 Samuel 29:1 (the story of Saul’s final battle):
.שׁר ְבּיְִזְרֶעאל
ֶ חִנים ַבַּעיִן ֲא
ֹ שָׂרֵאל
ְ ִוְי
Israel was encamping at the spring in Jezreel.
The spring, which still exists today, provided water for both city dwellers and travellers, and was guarded by the
recently discovered lower city of Jezreel (Tel ‘Ein Yizre’el). The rich land surrounding Jezreel provided ideal
conditions for agriculture and grazing.
Excavations and Findings of the LiDAR Scan
The present Jezreel expedition, which I (Norma Franklin, University of Haifa) am co-directing with Jennie Ebeling
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(University of Evansville, Indiana), was founded in 2012
with the aim of surveying, excavating [3] and documenting
the site of greater Jezreel over a long period of time.[4]
A LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scan was
commissioned and a large selection of maps, aerial
photographs and archival material was utilized prior to a
traditional landscape survey conducted in June of 2012. A
three-to-four square kilometer area to the west, north, and
east of the upper tel of Jezreel was divided into survey
areas based on the LiDAR model. More than 360 features
were documented, among them 57 agricultural
installations such as wine and olive oil presses.[5]
Also, over 100 rock-cut bottle-shaped pits, scattered over
the summit of the hill, were found. Some were hewn for
use as cisterns, and others as temperate underground
storage pits.[6] Likely some of these were used to store
wine; at ancient Gibeon, 63 rock-cut, bottle-shaped
storage pits or cellars, one with in-situ wine jars, served
just this purpose.[7]
Evidence of a Vineyard?
Vineyards do not leave archaeological remains, but
circumstantial evidence suggests that Jezreel likely had
one. Kibbutz Yizre’el alerted us to the fact that they had
independently conducted a soil analysis and found a plot
Jezreel Spring 2015
LiDAR map of Jezreel area (Winery in Area K).
Airborne LiDAR works by scanning the ground with a
laser from an aircraft; data obtained are then used to
create to an accurate 3D model of the land surface.
This model was examined to identify historic and
natural features and geo-referenced with aerial
photographs (the earliest of which dates to 1918) and
provided information about the landscape before
mechanized farming and other modern surfacechanging events took place.
of land with proper quality for growing grapes, whereas the soils in the fields further west were found to be better
suited to growing olives.[8] This plot is immediately north of an ancient winery, and during the biblical period wine
processing areas were generally located next to vineyards.[9]
The Winery Complex
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Jezreel Winery – Area K
In Area K, a particularly impressive installation was carved into the limestone bedrock at the foot of the hill of
Jezreel, north-east of the area excavated in the 1990s, and directly south of a large fertile terrace that sloped
towards the spring of Jezreel. The complex covers an area of approximately 12 square meters (insert Figure 2),
and its characteristics indicate that it was a winery:
A square rock-cut treading floor measuring 3.2 meters on each side
Two adjacent rock-cut vats each ca. 1.3 meters square and over one meter deep.
The treading floor, which slopes down toward a vat, Vat 1, and is connected to it by a 15 centimeter long,
5 centimeter wide, rock-cut channel.
A sump for collecting liquids in the northwest corner of Vat 1.
Another vat, Vat 2, located to the east of the treading floor but not connected to it.
A deep circular basin, northeast of the treading floor, ca. 1 meter in diameter, that possibly functioned as
another vat.
How the Winery Worked
The wine in Jezreel was made by traditional grape-stomping. The benefit of treading grapes by feet as opposed
to using a wine press is that it prevents the pips (little grape seeds) from being smashed and changing the taste
of the wine. A roughly triangular depression in the center of the treading floor was probably used to collect the
grape skins, pips and stalks that formed a block around which the juice flowed toward the primary fermentation
vat (Vat 1).
The young, unfiltered grape juice, called “must,” would have started to ferment as soon as it came into contact
with the yeast that occurs naturally on the grape skins. Primary fermentation would have continued in Vat 1 for a
number of days; a number of ancient sources specify that this first stage took place for three days in open jars or
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in the collection vat.[10] The wine was then strained into jars that
were stored in a cool place for secondary fermentation. The
bottle-shaped pits found at Jezreel are identical with those at
Gibeon, and were ideal temperate storage places for secondary
fermentation.
The Jezreel winery was typical for this area and general period.
An extensive survey of 117 wine treading areas southwest of
Jezreel was conducted in the 1960s. The majority consisted of
a rectangular treading floor with a rectangular vat, similar to the
Jezreel winery, and were usually located outside of a village and
cut into the edge of the bedrock outcrop next to the fields.[11]
The Date of the Jezreel Winery
It is difficult to date ancient rock-cut agricultural installations, [12]
and the winery in Area K is no exception. During the time it was
in use, any pottery or other artifacts that could help date the
complex would have been cleared away on a regular basis
because they would have interfered with wine production.[13]
The one thing we can say about the dating is that it is preHellenistic, since from the Hellenistic period onwards wineries
used a beam or screw press, and the Jezreel winery does
not.[14]
Comparison with Samaria
Treading floor draining to into vat 1
As Jezreel was an important city in ancient Israel, it is likely that
winery dates from this period. This would also fit with the
current assumptions about the winery in the capital, Samaria, where a 5 by 10 meter treading floor and some
smaller treading areas were excavated by the Harvard Excavations in the early 1900s. Their dating has been
recently reevaluated and attributed to the earliest phase of building (called “Building Period 0” since it is the
earliest layer), 10th or 9th century BCE. [15]
A Valuable Commodity for a King
Evidence from Assyrian texts show that at the same time that Naboth is pictured as tending his grapes (Omride
period), Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria is described as having provided 10,000 wineskins at an inaugural party at his
new palace in Calah, where he wined and dined 70,000 guests.[16] Although we don’t have textual evidence of
quite such lavish entertaining in ancient Israel, wine also flowed freely at the Israelite capital, Samaria.
Archaeologists have recovered over one hundred wine dockets (receipts for taxes paid in wine), in the form of
ostraca (inscribed pottery sherds), that testify to wine having been brought in to the capital.
Furthermore, between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C.E., wine was also listed among basic military
supplies.[17] Jezreel in the Iron Age was a military center, probably the main mustering station for Ahab’s chariot
force, and he would have used his own vineyard to provision the army.
Strangely, the biblical narrative relates that Ahab wished to purchase the vineyard in order to turn it into a
vegetable garden but this makes no sense when we know the importance of viticulture at that time and likely
points to it having been a later addition to the narrative.
Naboth the Jezreelite
The Bible names the owner of the vineyard as Naboth the Jezreelite. The use of this gentilic implies that he
resided somewhere else as well, otherwise he would not have required a qualifier. A person with a residence in
one place and a vineyard in another is a wealthy person, and one might imagine that such a person lived in the
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capital city, Samaria. Whether or not the “Naboth the Jezreelite” is a historical character, whoever owned that
plot of land and its vineyard was certainly well off and not a simple, poor farmer.
We cannot know if any part of the account of Naboth’s vineyard is historical, but its author knew at least that
ancient Jezreel had a vineyard (and a winery), and this area was near the large instillation that probably served
to house the king (among others) when he was in Jezreel. Moreover, the editor of Kings is clearly picturing a
vineyard located east of Jezreel and close to the main highway, the Via Maris. The location of the winery, east of
the Jezreel enclosure and near the junction of the Via Maris with the Ridge Route to Jezreel and on to Samaria,
correlates well with the story.
___________________
Dr. Norma Franklin is a Research Fellow at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology of the
University of Haifa and an Associate Fellow of the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological
Research in Jerusalem. She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. Her dissertation is
titled: State Formation in the Northern Kingdom of Israel– Some Tangible Symbols of
Statehood. Her research interests include the three key sites Samaria, Megiddo, and
Jezreel during the 9th – 7th c. BCE, the archaeological evidence for Assyrian involvement
in Israel and Judah, and ancient technology. She was a founder member of Tel Aviv
University’s Megiddo Expedition in 1992, and currently co-directs the Jezreel Expedition
with Dr. Jennie Ebeling. Among her articles are: “Dispelling the fog ( )אפלaround the Ophel (
עֶפל
ֹ ),” “Correlation and Chronology: Samaria and Megiddo Redux,” “Samaria: From the
Bedrock to the Omride Palace,” and “The Tombs of the Kings of Israel. Two Recently Identified 9th Century
Tombs from Omride Samaria.”
05/23/2017
[1] Nadav Na’aman, “Pharonic Lands in the Jezreel Valley in the Late Bronze Age. Appendix: The Ancient Name
of the Jezreel Valley,” in Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E.: Collected Essays Volume 2 (Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2005) 233–241 [239].
[2] For a description of Shunem as having agricultural fields, see 2 Kings 4:1–44, 8:1–6.
[3] Excavations commenced in June 2013in four very different areas—K, M, P and S..
[4] The first large-scale excavations at Tel Jezreel were conducted in the 1990s by David Ussishkin of Tel Aviv
University and John Woodhead of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, and it focused on excavating
the remains of a 9th-(more likely 8 th) century-BCE military enclosure. David Ussishkin and John Woodhead
“Excavations at Tel Jezreel 1990–1991: Preliminary Report,” Tel Aviv 19 (1992): 3–56; David Ussishkin and John
Woodhead, “Excavations at Tel Jezreel 1992–1993: Second Preliminary Report,” Levant 26 (1994): 1–71; David
Ussishkin and John Woodhead, “Excavations at Tel Jezreel 1994–1996: Third Preliminary Report,” Tel Aviv 24
(1997): 6–72. See my discussion of this complex in my “Jezreel: A Military City and the Location of Jehu’s
Coup ,” TheTorah.com (2017).
[5] Jennie Ebeling, Norma Franklin, and Ian Cipin, “Jezreel Revealed in Laser Scans: A Preliminary Report of the
2012 Survey Season,” Near Eastern Archaeology 75.4 (2012): 232–39.
[6] Most, if not all of these pits were originally hewn ca 10 – 9the c. BCE and ca. 100 other examples can be
found at Samaria and other hill-top sites from that period. Franklin, “Samaria,” 190–195; Franklin, “Jezreel,” 46.
[7] James B. Pritchard, Winery, Defences, and Soundings at Gibeon (Philadelphia: The University Museum,
University of Pennsylvania, 1964). I discuss the function of these bottle-shaped pits in detail in my forthcoming,
“Exploring the Function of Bell-Shaped Pits: With a View to Iron Age Jezreel.”
[8] The kibbutz told us this in response to inquiry about whether they had taken in any soil to analyze. They did
not know about the discovery of the winery and their information about soil conditions was totally unexpected.
The kibbutz planted a large olive growth in the western fields but did not attempt a vineyard in the area to the
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north—sadly the rich vineyard-friendly soil north of the ancient winery was not large enough for the economics of
a modern-day vineyard.
[9] Rafael Frankel, Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 54.
[10] Michal Dayagi-Mendels, Drink and Be Merry: Wine and Beer in Ancient Times (Jerusalem: The Israel
Museum, 1999), 30.
[11] Rafael Frankel, Wine and Oil Production, 27, 52, 56.
[12] Ahlström “Wine Presses,” 19–21.
[13] Gösta W. Ahlström, “Wine Presses and Cup Marks of the Jenin–Megiddo Survey,” Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research 231 (1978): 19–49 [48].
[14] Though not the case for Jezreel, some early wineries were undoubtedly altered in later periods and
continued to function. See, Carey E. Walsh, The Fruit of the Vine: Viticulture in Ancient Israel (Harvard: Harvard
Semitic Museum Publications, 2000), 149-150.
[15] Norma Franklin, “Samaria: From the Bedrock to the Omride Palace,” Levant 36 (2004): 189–202 [190–94].
[16] See discussion in Marvin A. Powell, “Wine and the Vine in Ancient Mesopotamia: the Cuneiform Evidence,”
in The Origins and Ancient History of Wine (eds., Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz;
Amsterdam: Overseas Publishers Association, 1996), 97–122 [118-119]; David Stronach, in The Origins and
Ancient History of Wine (eds., Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz; Amsterdam:
Overseas Publishers Association, 1996),175-195 [175]; Albert Kirk Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First
Millennium B. C. (1114–859 BC) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 292–298. This is in stark contrast
with festivities that took place during the vernal equinox when palace employees also received wine, but just a
modest 1 kāsu, 0.2 litres or one ordinary glass. See, Frederico Mario Fales, “A Fresh Look at the Nimrud Wine
Lists,” in Drinking in Ancient Societies (ed. Lucio Milano; Padova: Sargon Srl, 1994) 361–380 [369].
[17] The fermentation process enhances the nutritional content and preservation of food, including wine.
However it was probably the antimicrobial and anti-oxidant properties present in the alcohol and polyhydroxy
aromatic compounds, the latter stronger than even carbolic acid, properties essential to preserve health.
(McGovern et al 1997:17). Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viticulture
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 17.
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