Bible Synapse
Shiloh (Khirbet Seilun)
Site · 12th–11th centuries BC · Before the kings · also called Tel Shiloh, Khirbet Seilun, Shiloh
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- 12th–11th centuries BC (the Iron Age village and its burning)
- Found
- Khirbet Seilun, West Bank, 1926. Identified with Shiloh by Edward Robinson in 1838. Excavated by a Danish team under Hans Kjær (1926–1932), by Israel Finkelstein (1981–1984), and in later seasons.
- Now
- At the site, Khirbet Seilun, West Bank
- Passages
- Joshua 18:1, 1 Samuel 1:3, 1 Samuel 4:3–4, Psalms 78:60, Jeremiah 7:12–14
What it is
A hilltop ruin in the hills north of Jerusalem, first settled in the Middle Bronze Age, when it had a massive wall and a sloping rampart. In the Iron Age I period (12th–11th centuries BC) it held a village with a pillared public building, silos and many collared-rim storage jars. Finkelstein’s excavations showed that this settlement ended in a fierce fire, which he dated to about 1050 BC.
How it connects to the Bible
The Bible makes Shiloh Israel’s first central sanctuary, where the tabernacle was set up (Joshua 18:1) and where Eli and Samuel served (1 Samuel 1–4). After the ark is lost to the Philistines, Shiloh drops out of the story, and Jeremiah later points to its ruin as a warning: “go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh”. Many archaeologists link the burnt Iron Age village with this account, though no trace of the tabernacle itself has been identified.
What scholars debate
The date of the destruction, and whether the Philistines caused it, are debated.