20961 king hezekiah biography

Biography: from the Greek bios (life) and graphia (writing) – a written account of someone’s life as recorded by another person

Archaeology: from the Greek arkhaois (ancient) and logia (to speak about) – the study of the material culture of ancient humans.

What if we combined the two?

20961 king hezekiah biography in the bible

What if we used archaeology as a means to write about someone’s life. An archaeological biography, or a bioarchaeography, if you will. (Yes, I know that’s not a “real” word; it’s a term I coined. We’ll see if it catches on.)

In this new series, we’ll be exploring biblical people using archaeological artifacts relating to their lives.

We’ll begin with a bioarchaeography of King Hezekiah.

Hezekiah reigned as King of Judah from 716 to 687 BC, after having ruled for approximately 13 years in a co-regency with his father Ahaz.¹  In 2 Chronicles 29:1-2 we read, “Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he r