Between 2007 and 2012, excavations were undertaken at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Ela Valley, discovering the ruins of a large fortified city surrounded by an impressive casemate wall. Burned pits of olives discovered on-site and sent for carbon 14-testing led to the dating of the city to the early 10th century B.C.E. – the period of David. In addition, further discoveries have shown that the city was unquestionably an Israelite – not Philistine – habitation.
The existence of a Judean city of this size attests to the fact that the wave of urbanization characterizing the transition to the Iron Age II did in fact occur at the beginning of the unified kingdom, and that at the time of David's monarchy, fortified cities already existed in Judea.
These new findings have had a significant impact, and the supporters of the "low chronology" have been hard-pressed to explain them.
At the same time, the question of why more artifacts from the period of the unified kingdom have not been discovered to date in Jerusalem must be addressed. It is reasonable to assume that this phenomenon is the result of Jerusalem having undergone continuous construction from the Middle Bronze Age up until modern times, such that it is difficult to find artifacts from the Bronze and Iron Ages. It is relatively easy to find artifacts from destroyed layers of cities, and this explains why findings testifying to the destruction of the Second Temple have been discovered. By contrast, no buildings whatsoever have been found from the Persian or early Hellenistic periods, even though no-one questions the existence of the city during these times.
Throughout Sefer Shmuel, we find many descriptions of wars, including their geographical and strategic aspects, attesting to a high level of proficiency in this material on the part of the author. It is very difficult to propose that an author during a later period could have provided these descriptions of events, field conditions, and roads which were sometimes far removed from the areas where these books are assumed to have been written.
The fundamental argument of adherents of the "low chronology" is that the narratives about David were created at a later time, with a view to glorifying the founder of the dynasty. This approach utterly ignores the simple fact that there is no character who is criticized so closely and sharply in Tanakh as David. Why would anyone seeking to glorify the royal house of David and Shlomo want to describe all the difficult and complex episodes involving its first two kings? To date, no satisfactory explanation has been offered for this phenomenon.
