The biblical warrior Goliath may not have been so giant after all
The width of his home city’s walls were possibly used to metaphorically represent the champion’s height
![David and Goliath illustration](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/112020_bb_goliath_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1)
The biblical warrior Goliath is best known for losing a fight with the underdog David.
mashuk/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
By Bruce Bower
Early versions of the Bible describe Goliath — an ancient Philistine warrior best known as the loser of a fight with the future King David — as a giant whose height in ancient terms reached four cubits and a span. But don’t take that measurement literally, new research suggests.
Archaeological findings at biblical-era sites including Goliath’s home city, a prominent Philistine settlement called Gath, indicate that those ancient measurements work out to 2.38 meters, or 7 feet, 10 inches. That’s equal to the width of walls forming a gateway into Gath that were unearthed in 2019, according to archaeologist Jeffrey Chadwick of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Rather than standing taller than any NBA player ever, Goliath was probably described metaphorically by an Old Testament writer as a warrior who matched the size and strength of Gath’s defensive barrier, Chadwick said November 19 at the virtual annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
People known as Canaanites first occupied Gath in the early Bronze Age, roughly 4,700 to 4,500 years ago. The city was rebuilt more than a millennium later by the Philistines, known from the Old Testament as enemies of the Israelites (SN: 11/22/16). Gath reached its peak during the Iron Age around 3,000 years ago, the time of biblical references to Goliath. Scholars continue to debate whether David and Goliath were real people who met in battle around that time.
The remains of Gath are found at a site called Tell es-Safi in Israel. A team led by archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel — who Chadwick collaborated with to excavate the Gath gateway — has investigated Tell es-Safi since 1996. Other discoveries at Gath include a pottery fragment inscribed with two names possibly related to the name Goliath. Evidence of Gath’s destruction about 2,850 years ago by an invading army has also been recovered.
![Iron Age gateway at et-Tell](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/112020_bb_goliath_inline_680.jpg?resize=680%2C510&ssl=1)
Archaeologists have long known that in ancient Egypt a cubit corresponded to 52.5 centimeters and assumed that the same measure was used at Gath and elsewhere in and around ancient Israel. But careful evaluations of many excavated structures over the last several years have revealed that standard measures differed slightly between the two regions, Chadwick said.
Buildings at Gath and several dozen other cities from ancient Israel and nearby kingdoms of Judah and Philistia, excavated by other teams, were constructed based on three primary measurements, Chadwick has found. Those include a 54-centimeter cubit (versus the 52.5-centimeter Egyptian cubit), a 38-centimeter short cubit and a 22-centimeter span that corresponds to the distance across an adult’s outstretched hand.