According to 1 Kings 21:1-2, Naboth’s vineyard was located next to King Ahab’s heikal. A heikal is a large, important building, possibly of a military or religious nature. Unfortunately in this context, and in this context only, heikal is always translated into English in the Hebrew Bible as “palace.” In all other instances the word armon is used to denote a palace. We know that the Hebrew word heikal is related to the Akkadian ekallu, a military compound. There is now archaeological and textual evidence that many Assyrian cities contained an ekallu. The fact that Jezreel was the mustering place for the Israelite army means that there probably would have been a large military structure here, a heikal.
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 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]
Image Credit: Tercatin, By Rossella. “Archaeologists Might Have Identified Jezreel Winery Featured in Bible.” The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com, 7 June 2020, www.jpost.com/israel-news/archaeologists-might-have-identified-jezreel-winery-featured-in-bible-630642.
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