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 In 2005 we published several previously unpublished house shrines from the collection of the well-known antiquities collector Shlomo Moussaieff.c He acquired them on the antiquities market.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 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 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 BARnaos— 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 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.
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 BARnaos 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 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 BARnaos: 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 BARnaos 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.
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 […]
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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.
2.
See Frank M. Cross, “Statement on Inscribed Artifacts Without Provenience,” September/October 2005 and “Should Scholars Look at Finds That May Have Been Looted?” BAR, September/October 2005.
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.
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.