A Temple Built for Two

By William G. Dever

055

First Publication: A Newly

Discovered House Shrine
Should We Ignore Unprovenanced
Artifacts?

A long, sometimes bitter debate has been going on in

BAR as to whether Yahweh, the God of ancient Israel, had a consort. One of
America’s most prominent Biblical archaeologists, William G. Dever, says that in
popular religion he sometimes did. Others question Dever’s evidence, even
doubting his concept of “popular religion.” a

Another kind of debate has also filled these pages: Should scholars look at
artifacts that come from the antiquities market? They may have been looted. At
worst, they may be forgeries. The two major professional associations of
archaeologists in the United States— ASOR (the American Schools of Oriental
Research) and AIA (the Archaeological Institute of America)— will not allow these
objects to be published in their journals, nor will they allow them to be presented
in papers at their meetings.

BAR (as well as many leading scholars) rejects these positions.b We will look at
the evidence. That is not to say that we approve of looting. And certainly not of
forgers. We agree that the missing contexts of looted objects considerably reduce
their significance and deprive them of much meaning. But, although looted objects
are worth less, they are not worthless. Moreover, averting our eyes from looted
objects does not reduce looting, as all admit. We believe that looting must be
stopped on the ground. Looters should be caught and jailed. Forgers belong in
the same place— only in smaller cells.

These two issues have recently come together. In 2005 we published several
previously unpublished house shrines from the collection of the well-known
antiquities collector Shlomo Moussaieff.c He acquired them on the antiquities
market. Our article was based on a manuscript written by three prominent scholars
in which they praised these particular house shrines for their “exceptionally rich
iconographic detail ... warranting the prompt publication.” But at the time they were
afraid to publish them under their own names, lest the academy take retribution.

As a result of this article in BAR, we learned of another important house shrine in

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 a private collection that should figure prominently in the debate about whether
Yahweh had a consort.

The owner wishes to remain anonymous, lest he be subject to the vitriol the
establishment now commonly heaps on collectors. Professor Dever, who is retired
and therefore not subject to academic retribution, has agreed to discuss this
house shrine here, but only if we “publish” it first.

Here it is, Bill.

The small house shrine published here for the first time provides significant support for the
contention that the Israelite God, Yahweh, did indeed have a consort. At least this was true in
the minds of many ordinary ancient Israelites, in contrast to the priestly elite.1 In what I call
folk religion, or “popular religion,” Yahweh’s consort is best identified as “Asherah,” the old
Canaanite mother goddess.2

Some of the most powerful evidence for this contention is in the Bible itself. The fact that the
Bible condemns the cult of Asherah (and other “pagan” deities) demonstrates that such cults
existed and were perceived as a threat to Israelite monotheism. Based on the Biblical texts
alone, we can conclude that many ancient Israelites, perhaps even the majority, worshiped
Asherah, Astarte, the “Queen of Heaven” and perhaps other female deities. Their sanctuaries
(ba¯môt, or “high places”), we are told, were “on every hill and under every green tree.” (The
phrase recurs numerous times in Kings and the Prophets.)

Some of the clearest physical evidence for the existence of a cult of Asherah is the growing
collection of small house shrines. The technical name is naos (plural, naoi), a Greek word
that means “temple” or “inner sanctum.”

Most of these naoi share several iconographic motifs: (1) two tree-like columns flank the
doorway into the inner chamber (the cubiculum); (2) crouching lions serve as column bases
near the entrance; (3) a large, 056flat entablature sits over the doorway, occasionally painted
in geometric motifs; (4) doves with extended wings perch on top of the façade or parapet.

The examples recently published in BAR are only the latest to be presented to the public.d
Not long after the Six-Day War in 1967, the distinguished classicist Saul S. Weinberg
acquired a splendid example on the Jerusalem antiquities market.3 I happened to be with
Saul at the time, since he was the outgoing visiting director and I was director-elect of the
Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Other
examples have appeared in catalogs and scholarly analyses in French and German.4 These
publications have been largely overlooked by most biblicists and even by archaeologists,
perhaps because they are reluctant to address “theological” issues.

Most, if not all, of these examples are said to have come

from Transjordan and are identified as Moabite (or perhaps
Ammonite). They are generally thought to date from the
ninth (or perhaps eighth) century B.C.E. According to an
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article in late 2007 by Larry Herr, the first well-stratified
naos was discovered in the 11th–10th-century B.C.E.
levels at Tall al-‘Umayri in Jordan.5

But there is also an indisputable Israelite example. It

comes from a professional excavation led by Père Roland de Vaux shortly after World War II
at Tell el-Far‘ah (north), the early northern Israelite capital of Tirzeh. The naos was published
in 1984,6 but has been largely overlooked by Biblical scholars until recently.

The new naos being published here in BAR (see First Publication: A Newly Discovered
House Shrine) bears striking resemblances to the examples from the Moussaieff collection
previously published in BAR, although it comes from another antiquities collector. These
resemblances suggest to me, however, that they all come from the same source, probably
Biblical Moab in southern Jordan (perhaps even from the same site, looted as long ago as the
1960s).

Before discussing the naoi from the Moussaieff collection and the one being published here, I
should 057say that I have agreed to make these comments despite the predictable objections
of some colleagues. I would not want to be the one to present these objects in a scholarly
journal because of professional principles. Yet I am convinced that once artifacts of such
potential significance are known to the public, scholars have a right, perhaps even an
obligation, to draw out their meaning.

The Moussaieff naoi, like the one published in this issue of BAR,
are so unexpected, so exotic, if you will, and so fraught with
potential importance that some may regard them as the work of
skillful forgers. Having examined a few of the naoi in private
collections, I am convinced that they are genuine.

Both the Moussaieff naoi and the new one published here exhibit
many of the same iconographic motifs: (1) two tree-like columns
with drooping fronds flanking the doorway; (2) lion bases for the
columns; and (3) a dove with extended wings perched on the roof
of the large façade over the entrance.

One motif, however, sets this new example— perhaps we can call it the BAR naos— apart
from all the other Transjordanian (or Israelite) examples. It is the clear double throne in the
cubiculum. I know of no other double thrones like this. Obviously it is for two figures, sitting
side by side in a model temple.

Are the gods, in this case paired, “at home”? Who are they? And
why are they not graphically represented, rather than only by the
outline of the throne? After all, we have hundreds and hundreds
of examples of graphically represented Iron Age terra-cotta
figurines of deities.

Oddly enough, there is no description or even allusion to these

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naoi, or house shrines, in the Hebrew Bible. That they are
model temples is beyond reasonable doubt. They are clearly
miniature 059“houses for the gods,” as witnessed both by their
clear architectural form and by the fact that in all West Semitic
languages (Canaanite, Phoenician, Punic, Aramaic, Hebrew,
etc.) the word ba¯yit/bêt is translated as both “house” and
“temple.”

But what deity was worshiped in these house shrines? All of

their motifs, fortunately, are reasonably well attested and
understood. And nearly all are connected with well-known
female deities, particularly Canaanite/Israelite Asherah and
Phoenician Tanit (Asherah’s later reflex in the wider
Mediterranean world).

The palmette capitals of the tree-like columns are not lotus-

blossom capitals, as Weinberg and other classicists once
supposed, much less “proto-Aeolic” capitals as William F.
Albright thought. The late Israeli archaeologist Yigal Shiloh
clearly demonstrated that they are stylized palm trees,
especially typical of Iron Age royal and temple architecture.7
More recent research has shown that the symbolism
responsible for the adaptation of the tree motif for columns in
ancient Israel (and in Aramean and Phoenician monumental
architecture) is probably deeply rooted in the old Canaanite
identification of Asherah as a tree-goddess.

In an important article in BAR, for example, the late Ruth

Hestrin brilliantly established the connection between the
symbols of a stylized tree, a pubic triangle and a nurturing
goddess. She even found representations in Egyptian art of the
goddess with a tree trunk as a torso, a branch offering a breast
to a nursing infant (in this case, the Pharaoh’s son).e

In short, these tree-like columns were thought to 061be

particularly appropriate in model temples dedicated to the tree-
goddess Asherah.

To clinch the argument that tree-columns are associated with the

goddess Asherah, in one of the Moussaieff naoi two nude female
figures face directly to the front of the functioning tree-columns,
complete with palm-volutes. Who are these nude females?
Priestesses? Temple prostitutes? Unlikely. Ordinary human
worshipers? Hardly. Most likely, these females are symbolic of
Asherah, “at home in her house,” and beckoning to her devotees.

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The most explicit link between these naoi and Asherah can
be seen in roughly contemporary Phoenician examples
from Cyprus. In one complete naos from Idalion, now in the
Louvre, a nude goddess stands in the doorway and also
looks out the windows.8

The identification of these house shrines with the tree-

goddess Asherah is further buttressed by a second
iconographic motif, the lion, which is also widely
associated with Asherah. In one of the now-famous
Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions found in the Sinai, there is a
reference to “Asherah,” and a drawing portrays a lion. In the
equally famous tenth-century B.C.E. Israelite cult stand
from Taanach, Asherah is pictured between two lions with
a hand on the head of each of them.

Thus, the lions as column bases and as guardians at the entrance

to the naos temples are particularly appropriate as symbols of
Asherah “at home in her house.”

Finally, the dove perched on the parapet of the naoi— presiding,

as it were, over the whole cultic scene— is transparent.
Everywhere in the Mediterranean world, the dove is the symbol
par excellence of Tanit, the Phoenician and later Punic
embodiment of Asherah (and also of her old counterpart Astarte).
Hundreds and hundreds of such doves as symbols of Tanit and
her shrines are known.9

The links between these naoi and the goddess Asherah

lead us back to the original query about the identification of
the unique double throne in the BAR naos being published
here. That there are two chairs is clear from the two panels,
emphasized by the clearly visible upright on the back. If this
is a throne in a model temple, it was obviously intended for
the observer to imagine two deities sitting there: Asherah—
and who else but her consort Yahweh, at least in the
Israelite example?

062

That Asherah was coupled with a male deity, especially

Yahweh, in ancient Israel should be no surprise in view of the
overall picture we now have of folk religion. Thousands of terra-
cotta figurines are known from Israel and Judah. Virtually all of
them are female, identified by most scholars as Asherah, either
directly or seen as votives functioning in her cult. Yet not a
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single indisputably male figurine from a clear Israelite context
has ever been found. What does this phenomenon mean?
It suggests that while representational or anthropomorphic
depictions of Asherah, the female deity, were widely
tolerated, similar representations of the male deity Yahweh
were proscribed.

In short, “true” Israelite religion was not “aniconic,” despite

traditional scholarship and synagogue and church traditions that have maintained otherwise.
I have recently argued that there are plenty of anthropomorphic symbols of Yahweh in the
artifacts that have survived from ancient Israel.10 Yet if Israelite religion was not completely
aniconic, there does seem to have been a certain reluctance to portray Yahweh himself, “in
person,” as it were. That reticence may explain our invisible deities in the BAR naos: Only
the outline of the double throne is depicted.

Recently, a terra-cotta pair of figurines seated on a sort of throne has come to light. It was
acquired on the antiquities market and published by Christoph Uehlinger.11 It nicely
illustrates what the throne on the BAR naos might have looked like if it had been portrayed
rather than outlined.

I have already mentioned the one clear Israelite naos— from Tell el-Far‘ah. Like the other
naoi that may have come from Transjordan, the Israelite example features tree columns
topped by curving palmette volutes. On the entablature is a crescent moon and stylized stars.
Like a dove on other naoi, these symbols are often connected with embodiments of the great
Mother Goddess, specifically Astarte, as well as later Tanit.12 The Tell el-Far‘ah naos was
probably dedicated either to Astarte or Asherah.

Although the Tell el-Far‘ah naos is the only complete Israelite example, another Israelite
naos has recently been recognized from fragments recovered in 1935 at Megiddo. It is still to
be properly appreciated. Only partially restorable, this naos features two tree-columns topped
by female-capitals.13

Asherah was, of course, finally driven underground by the reformist parties that edited the
Hebrew Bible. In its final form she is written out of the text. Hence, she disappeared and all
her cult imagery with her when Jewish monotheism at last triumphed in the period after the
Israelites returned from the Babylonian exile.f But Asherah was once alive and well; modern
archaeology has in fact resurrected her. Her “houses,” now vacant, were once occupied. Here
she was “at home” for many of the masses in ancient Israel.

Footnotes:

a. See Shmuel Ahituv, “Did God Really Have a Wife?” BAR September/October 2006;
William G. Dever responds to Shmuel Ahituv, Q&C, BAR, November/December 2006;
Shmuel Ahituv responds to Dever’s response, Q&C, BAR, May/June 2007.
b. See Frank M. Cross, “Statement on Inscribed Artifacts Without Provenience,”
September/October 2005 and “Should Scholars Look at Finds That May Have Been
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 Looted?” BAR, September/October 2005.
c. Hershel Shanks, “Scholars Fear to Publish Ancient House Shrine,” BAR,
November/December 2005.
d. Hershel Shanks, “Scholars Fear to Publish Ancient Household Shrine,” BAR,
November/December 2005.
e. Ruth Hestrin, “Understanding Asherah— Exploring Semitic Iconography,” BAR,
September/October 1991.
f. See André Lemaire, “The Universal God,” BAR, November/December 2005, and The
Birth of Monotheism (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2007).

Endnotes:

1. I have surveyed the vast array of both textual and archaeological evidence in a recent
popular book, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).
2. As early as 1967, a somewhat eccentric polymath, Raphael Patai, wrote a book titled
The Hebrew Goddess, which was panned by scholars at the time, but which now
seems prescient. A third edition has recently appeared that includes some of the
supporting archaeological evidence that I have noted in my own book, cited in the
previous endnote.
3. It was published in S.S. Weinberg, “A Moabite Shrine Group,” MUSE 12 (1978), pp.
30–48.
4. J. Bretschneider, “Architekturnodelle in Vorderasien und der östlichen Ägäis vom
Neolithikum bis in das 1. Jahrtausend,” Alter Orient und Altes Testament 229
(Neukirchen: Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1991); B. Muller, “Les ‘maquettes
architecturales’ du Proche-Orient: Mésopotamie, Syrie, Palestine du IIIe au Io millénaire
av. J.-C,” Bibliothèque Archéogique et Historique 160, 2 vol. (Beruit: Institut Français
d’Archéologique du Proche-Orient, 2002).
5. Larry G. Herr, “The Late Iron Age I Ceramic Assemblage from Tall al-‘Umayri, Jordan,”
in S.W. Crawford, et al., eds., “Up to the Gates of Ekron”: Essays on the Archaeology
and History of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honor of Seymour Gitin (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 2007), pp. 135–145.
6. A. Chambon, “Tell el-Far‘ah I: L’âge du fer.” Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations,
Mèmorire 30 (Paris: A.D.P.F., 1984), pl. 66.
7. Yigal Shiloh, “The Proto-Aeolic Capital and Israelite Ashlar Masonry,” Qedem 11
(Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979).
8. On two sixth-century B.C.E. stone capitals from Kition in Cyprus, the capital is
surmounted by a female head wearing the Egyptian-style so-called Hathor wig,
identifying the figure beyond doubt as Asherah, who is coupled with Hathor in Egypt
and given the Canaanite name Qudshu, the Holy One. See Weinberg, “A Moabite
Shrine Group,” pp. 44, 45. Even more decisive, this goddess Asherah actually wears a
naos on her head, like a hat— and there are two more female caryatids, plus the nude
goddess again, standing in the doorway.
9. S. Moscati, The World of the Phoenicians (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968),
pp. 41–47, 152.

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 10. W.G. Dever, “Archaeology and Ancient Israelite Iconography: Did Yahweh Have a
Face?” pp. 461–475 in A.M. Maeir and p.de Miroschedji, eds., “I Will Speak the Riddle
of Ancient Things”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on
the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006).
11. See Christoph Uehlinger, in Karl van der Toorn, ed., The Image and the Book: Iconic
Cults and Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East
(Leuvens: Peeters, 1997), p.150.
12. Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images in Ancient Israel
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 163, 323, 324, and references there; see
Weinberg, “A Moabite Shrine Group,” p.38.
13. Another possible Iron Age comparison has recently turned up at Tel Reh.ov in the
upper Jordan Valley, only published in preliminary fashion. Belonging to about the early
ninth century B.C.E. (Stratum V), it features both a stylized tree and two female figures
flanking a double door into the square shaft-like structure. See A. Mazar, “The
Excavatons at Tel Rehov and Their Significance of the Study of the Iron Age in Israel,”
Eretz-Israel 27 (2003; Hebrew), pl. 13 (photo only). How ethnically “Israelite” Tel Reh.ov
was, however, even in the early ninth century B.C.E., is uncertain. Finally, another
fragmentary, possibly non-Israelite naos (or cult-stand) is known from an approximate
tenth-century context at Pella, in the northern Jordan Valley on the east bank. Again,
female figures stand at either side of a door or possibly a window; the artifact is
fragmentary. See T.E. Potts et al., “Preliminary Report on a Sixth Season of Excavation
by the University of Sydney at Pella in Jordan 1983/84, ” Annual of the Department of
Antiquities of Jordan 29 (1985), pl. 42). This artifact is apparently a ceramic offering
stand; but it seems like others that similarly represent a multi-storied “model temple,”
with features that link it to the naoi.

Home for two. This house shrine, or naos, published here for the first time, now resides in a
8
private collection and most likely originated in Biblical Moab, in southern Jordan. In addition
to several common symbolic elements often linked to the goddess Asherah, such as tree-
columns, lion column bases, and a dove perched on the entablature, this naos also contains
one unique feature: the representation of a double throne inside. The question is: Who sat on
this throne?

© The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority

THE ROYAL CAPITAL. This proto-Aeolic capital from Ramat Rah.el displays elegant curved
palmettes and is an excellent example of the decorative type used in royal Israelite and
Judahite architecture from the tenth to eighth centuries B.C.E. Archaeologist Yigal Shiloh
clearly demonstrated that the fronds on many naos columns do not represent these proto-
Aeolic capitals (as Albright proposed) but rather are stylized palm trees, which were common
elements in temple architecture of the Iron Age.

© The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority

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THE TREE OF LIFE takes on a different meaning in ancient goddess iconography. The
symbols of the life-giving tree, the pubic triangle and the nurturing goddess were so intimately
connected in the ancient world that they became virtually interchangeable. All three symbols
are represented on this pendant of the Canaanite goddess ’Athirat/’Elat.

In an Egyptian painting from the burial chamber of Tuthmosis III, the tree has actually
replaced the goddess completely, while an arm from the branches supports a breast to nurse
the pharaoh. As these two objects suggest, the tree-columns on the naoi, or house shrines,
discussed in this article would have been understood as representations of the goddess
herself.

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Ardon Bar Hama

Erich Lessing

BECKONING TO DEVOTEES, the women who stand like columns in front of the house
shrine from the Moussaieff collection emphasize the relationship between the tree and the
goddess. These figures most likely represent Asherah standing at her shrine, much like a
Cypriot example from Idalion, now in the Louvre. Excavated from a grave in the Idalion
necropolis, this house shrine dates to about the sixth century B.C.E. A female— probably the
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goddess Astarte— stands in the doorway and at the windows on either side of the naos. The
hollows along the top are dovecotes, which house doves, a symbol of Astarte.

Ardon Bar Hama

FLIGHT MOTIF. Perched proudly on the parapet of one of the Moussaieff naoi, a dove
surveys the scene. Doves were considered the quintessential symbol of Tanit, the later
Phoenician counterpart to the Canaanite goddess Asherah/Astarte, and can be found on
numerous house shrines from the eastern Mediterranean region.

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Ardon Bar Hama

IDOL OR VOTIVE? Whether this terra-cotta figurine represents the goddess or is a votive
offering from one of her worshipers, it and the thousands of others like it from Israel and
Judah are undeniably linked to the cult. No similar figurines of males have been found,
however. This indicates that, while representations of the goddess were common in ancient
Israelite religion, people may have been reluctant to create images of the male deity,
Yahweh.

Courtesy Dr. Ze’Ev Meshel

OF LIONS AND TREES. The lion was a common symbol of Asherah throughout the ancient
Near East; she is frequently depicted standing on a lion. At Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in the Sinai, a
pithos, or storage jar, was found with an inscription that speaks of Yahweh (the Israelite God)
and his Asherah. An accompanying drawing on the pithos portrays a lion with a tree on top
flanked by ibexes. The BAR naos depicts tree-columns standing on crouched lions,
demonstrating that it, too, was associated with Asherah. The photo at top shows the Kuntillet
‘Ajrud drawing re-assembled from the fragmentary and sometimes indistinct potsherds from
which the modern drawing below was created. We are grateful to Dr. Ze’ev Meshel of Tel
Aviv University, the excavator of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, for making this hitherto-unpublished photo of
the original pithos available to BAR and its readers.

Additional evidence of Asherah’s connection to lion symbology comes from the famous tenth-
century B.C.E. Taanach cult stand. In the bottom register Asherah places her hands on two
lions’ heads. A similar scene with lions is repeated in the third register from the bottom, but
this time the goddess figure has been replaced by a tree and two heraldic goats.

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Courtesy Dr. Ze’Ev Meshel

© The Israel Museum, Jerusaem

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Bible+Orient Foundation, Fribourg, Switzerland/Bildarchiv Marburg

A THRONE IN 3-D. Two figures are seated on a double throne in this terra-cotta piece
published by Christoph Uehlinger. This gives some idea of what the throne in the BAR naos
might have looked like if it had included the inhabitants of the throne. The absence of figures
on the BAR naos throne is especially significant in an Israelite context, since graven images
were prohibited by the Hebrew Bible.

Bible+Orient Foundation, Fribourg, Switzerland

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PAM, Courtesy L’École Biblique

INDISPUTABLY ISRAELITE, this naos was discovered in the 1940s during a professional
excavation led by Père Roland de Vaux at Tell el-Far‘ah (north), the location of the early
northern Israelite capital. It, too, bears tree-columns and palmette volutes, but the dove is
replaced in this case by a crescent moon and stars, a motif that also symbolizes the mother-
goddess. This shrine was probably dedicated to Astarte or Asherah.

Magazine: Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2008

Volume: 34
Issue: 2
Source URL (modified on 2016-08-09 18:27): https://members.bib-arch.org/biblical-archaeology-review/34/2/11

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