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“Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord.”
(DEUTERONOMY 12:11)
In 2012, archaeologists from the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) made a jaw-dropping discovery that is still puzzling archaeologists and biblical scholars. They discovered a temple at Tel Moẓa, less than 4 miles northwest of Jerusalem. It apparently stood, operated, and welcomed worshipers throughout most of the Iron Age II, from its establishment around 900 B.C.E. until its demise sometime toward the end of the Iron Age (early sixth century B.C.E.). But what is a temple doing at Tel Moẓa during this period, when the Bible says the only temple in Judah was in Jerusalem?!
Could a monumental temple really exist in the heart of Judah, right outside Jerusalem? Did Jerusalem know about it? If so, could this other temple possibly have been part of the Judahite administrative system? After all, the previous excavators of the site, Zvi Greenhut and Alon De Groot of the IAA,1 had identified it with biblical Mozah—first mentioned in the Book of Joshua 18:26 as a city in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin—and labeled it a royal granary that primarily supplied Jerusalem.2
The Bible details the religious reforms of King Hezekiah and King Josiah, who assertedly consolidated worship practices to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and eliminated all cultic activity beyond its boundaries (2 Kings 18; 2 Kings 23; 2 Chronicles 29-31; 2 Chronicles 34-35). These reforms should correspond to the late eighth century and the late seventh century B.C.E., respectively.
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With the biblical text echoing in our ears, we were initially apprehensive about our identification of the Moẓa temple. However, our analysis of the archaeological finds and biblical texts clearly demonstrates that the temple at Moẓa conforms to ancient Near Eastern religious conventions and traditions and to biblical depictions of cult places throughout the land.
Setting aside the volatile topic of the formation of cult in Judah (the so-called Israelite religion that scholars continue to debate), it has become clear that temples such as the one at Moẓa not only could but also must have existed throughout most of the Iron II period as part of the official, royally sanctioned religious construct. Indeed, the temple at Moẓa is not an anomaly at all; rather, it is the exception that proves the rule!
Simply put: Despite the biblical narratives describing Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s reforms, there were sanctioned temples in Judah in addition to the official temple in Jerusalem. Allow us to explain.
The discovery of the Moẓa temple—and other remains excavated there between 1993 and 2013—produced an array of possibilities for the study of cult and state formation in Judah during the Iron Age II, the period Solomon’s Temple stood (from the tenth century B.C.E. until its destruction in 586 B.C.E.). Enough archaeological and historical questions emerged that enticed us to return to the site to fully unearth the temple complex.
So in the fall of 2018, when construction on the new highway—which had triggered the site’s initial excavation—was complete, and the IAA conservation department began removing the massive sand backfill that had covered and042 protected the site, the time had come to return to Tel Moẓa.
The IAA conservation team started work on the remains, and the temple was once again brought to light. The first season of the Tel Moẓa Expedition Project, which we directed on behalf of Tel Aviv University, took place in the spring of 2019 with participants from Tel Aviv University and Charles University in Prague (the Czech Republic). Work during this season focused on small-scale probes and collection of soil and organic samples.
Excavation under the temple’s earliest floor revealed a cultic structure that predated the temple complex and is attributed to the tenth century B.C.E. Based on this superposition and the pottery found in the temple’s foundation, we can date the construction of the temple to the early ninth or possibly late tenth century B.C.E. It is now evident that the site exhibits continuity in function—both administrative and cultic—from the early stages of the Iron II period.
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Two more excavation seasons are planned, for the springs of 2020 and 2021. Our aim is to excavate the entire temple complex and unearth additional parts of the earlier cultic structure. Our discoveries thus far have fundamentally changed the way we understand the religious practice of the Judahites.
Located on a slope overlooking the ancient route connecting the Shephelah (the Judean foothills) to the west and the central hill country and Jerusalem to the east, Tel Moẓa is surrounded by water sources and has ample fertile soil. Because044 of these favorable conditions and the temperate weather, the region served as a prime location for settlement and agriculture.
Five seasons of salvage excavations of the site between 1993 and 2013 revealed remains from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (eighth and seventh millennia B.C.E.) through modern times, when the slope hosted the Arab village of Qaluniya. The most expansive and dominant remains date to the Iron II period (mid-tenth century to 586 B.C.E.). Aside from the temple, most of the Iron II features were used for grain storage. These include dozens of silos and parts of two storage buildings, one of which contained more than 130 hole-mouth storage jars in a single room.
Five silos date to the Iron IIA period (tenth to early ninth centuries B.C.E.), with one silo physically sealed by the later temple built over it. Therefore, the site functioned as an administrative and economic center prior to the temple’s construction. The remaining dozens of silos date to the eighth century B.C.E., indicating substantial economic growth during this time. The subsequent introduction of storage buildings, which cut through and replaced some of the silos during the Iron IIB–C period (late eighth to early sixth centuries B.C.E.), suggests increased use and industrialization of the site. Additional buildings built during this period likely served administrative—and religious—purposes.3
The surge in construction mirrors the demographic and economic growth witnessed throughout Judah during the Iron IIB–C period.045 The administrative and functional development of Moẓa as a storage and redistribution center highlights the site’s centrality in the region. And it is in this light that the construction of the Tel Moẓa temple should be viewed.
The temple complex has an east-west orientation and consists of a courtyard and a large rectangular building. It has the conventional in antis north Syrian-style temple plan, which prevailed in the ancient Near East from the third millennium B.C.E. and became typical of temples in the southern Levant as early as the second millennium B.C.E.—including the Late Bronze Age temples at Hazor (Areas A and H), the temples at ‘Ain Dara and Tell Ta‘yinat in Syria, and also Solomon’s Temple as described in the Bible. This plan consists of a long room, usually segmented into two spaces. A smaller “holy of holies” was located at the back, where the central object of worship—often a statue—was placed, while a larger forward chamber was connected to a front portico, with two columns flanking the entrance.
Although the southern part of the portico is not preserved due to later construction and erosion, we assume that the building was likely symmetrical, meaning that the portico consisted of two column bases flanked by evenly spaced antae (ends of walls acting like pillars) on either side of the entrance. The temple’s walls are not perfectly aligned, creating a slightly offset polygonal structure, but it has a conventional outline with a wide entrance in the eastern wall. Aside from the massive northern wall, measuring between 5 and 8 feet wide and serving as a retaining wall against the slope, the temple’s walls measure 3 feet in width. The northern and eastern walls were lined with benches built of fieldstones. The excavated temple measures 62 by 43 feet, but this calculation does not include the width of an additional chamber that may have existed to the south.
Segments of two floors were found: a packed-earth-and-plaster floor near the entrance in the eastern part of the building and, at a higher elevation, a fragmented-stone pavement to the west. Five fieldstones, probably serving as sacred stones (masseboth), had intentionally been placed on the plaster floor against the northern bench. The absence of an earlier floor under the stone pavement, revealed in the 2019 excavation season, indicates that the plaster floor and stone pavement were contemporary. Accordingly, the higher floor in the west can be understood as an architecturally designed ascension within the building: as one progresses toward the “holy of holies,” one physically steps higher and higher. Although no partition wall was found within the temple, the variation in the floor’s material composition may offer a further physical distinction between the front chamber and the “holy of holies.” The plaster floor represents the main chamber of the temple, while the stone pavement represents the innermost chamber, the “holy of holies.” This reconstruction allows for an unusually large space at the back of the temple and might indicate a tripartite building, with the “holy of holies” located at the western edge of the building.
The temple courtyard was paved with a packed-earth floor, only patches of which remain. Within the courtyard, a prominent stone altar, refuse pit, and other installations were046 discovered. Built of unhewn fieldstones, the altar stands at the center of the courtyard, directly in front of the temple’s entrance. It measures roughly 4.5 by 4.5 feet.
To the northeast, nearly adjacent to the altar, is a 6-by-4-foot oval pit dug about 3 feet deep into the packed-earth floor. It was filled with earth, ash, pottery sherds, and a large amount of bones—mostly sheep and goat remains, some burned and some with butchery marks. The pit probably functioned as a disposal pit associated with the sacrifices performed on the altar.
About 3 feet north of the refuse pit was a rectangular stone installation, or “podium,” measuring approximately 3 by 2 feet, and about 1 foot high. An assemblage of cult artifacts and pottery sherds was found scattered along a narrow strip of the courtyard floor between the disposal pit and the podium. This assemblage includes four figurines (two anthropomorphic and two zoomorphic), fragments of chalices (one with traces of burning), stands (including fragments of a large decorated cult stand), and pendants (one shaped like a pomegranate). These artifacts had been intentionally broken, deposited, and covered with a thick layer of earth and pieces of plaster. The podium appears to have served in the cultic rituals that took place in the courtyard, likely as an offering table on which the figurines (and plausibly additional cult artifacts) had been originally placed.
Modeled out of local clay, the four figurines exhibit similar features and production techniques, indicating that they were made in a local workshop. The anthropomorphic figurines, of which only the heads are preserved, are fashioned “in the round” out of a solid piece of clay. Onto each figurine, clay appliqués were attached to form hair, round headdresses with raised edges, and facial features, including punctured pellet eyes and puncturing on the chin to simulate a beard. These heads may have originally belonged to full-bodied figurines, and perhaps one was even the mounted rider of a large horse-and-rider figurine. Alternatively, the heads may have been attached to a vessel or another object.047 Regardless, their craftsmanship implies that they were free-standing figures.
Whereas the temple building would be understood to be the literal house of god, a haven only the high priest was allowed to access occasionally, the temple courtyard was the focal point of most human cultic activity. The courtyard was where the public could access the religious sphere and where offerings and votives were brought, placed, and used as mediators in rituals designed to communicate with the god or gods.
Since it was continuously in use, this temple space had the greatest variety of archaeological features (i.e., various installations, artifacts, vessels, etc.) and the highest number of stratigraphic phases. In all, we noted four phases from the Iron Age II in the temple courtyard, the first of which is the best preserved and comprised the cultic assemblage, offering table, pit, and altar. These were eventually covered with fills and were sealed under a plaster floor marking the second floor of the temple courtyard. This deposition does not signify a break in religious traditions but rather a religious ritual during which cultic paraphernalia were decommissioned to make room for new items.
The temple’s architecture, the artifacts’ morphology (type) and typology (shape), and the iconography exhibited in them all conform to the religious traditions of the ancient Near East that had prevailed since the third millennium B.C.E. The Iron IIA period was a formative one, during which new political entities emerged throughout the Levant, including the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It stands to reason that, especially during those formative years, they rooted themselves in the prevalent, innate religious practices, supplying their rulers with divine legitimacy and providing their people with a connection to their past. While maintaining their individuality, the artifacts from Tel Moẓa fit well within the larger Iron IIA tradition, which is characterized by the application of religious motifs to cult artifacts that are generally handmade and thus unique.
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Since Tel Moẓa functioned as a granary throughout the Iron Age II, becoming a royal granary catering to Jerusalem and part of Judah’s larger economic framework by the eighth century B.C.E., it seems that the construction of the temple—and the worship conducted in it—were related to its economic significance. The economic and administrative functions of the site are, in fact, the very reason the temple existed!
The link between religion and economy has been well established in the ancient Near East, including at the Jerusalem Temple. But the economic component of ancient temples is more than just the collection of taxes, safeguarding of wealth, and distribution of aid. A link between economic subsistence, production, and the development of religious elites during the Iron IIA period has been suggested at several sites. The economic role of food and goods dispensation is known from Tell el-Mazar in modern Jordan. Metallurgical and agricultural industries are known from the temple at Tel Dan in northern Israel. The discoveries at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in the Sinai, Tell el-Hammah in the West Bank, and Tel ‘Amal in northern Israel illuminate the textile industry. Similarly, the temple at Tel Moẓa was built as an addendum to the agricultural structures.
The community maintaining the granaries at Tel Moẓa depended on agricultural success for their livelihood (i.e., ample rainfall, fertility of the land, and a bountiful harvest) and likely sought it out by worship of the god(s). The construction of a central cult place with regulated worship dedicated to this purpose is a natural progression for a growing community. According to this premise, when the site’s function as a granary intensified, a temple was constructed to ensure economic success.
With time, the elite used religious belief and ritual practices to ensure the integrity of the administrative system. Cult corners or possible temples built to support industrial production have been identified in the Iron IIA period apiary at Tel Rehov in the Jordan valley, in an Iron IIA period textile production center at Tell es-Safi/Gath in Philistia, and in the Iron IIC period olive oil industrial production area in Ekron in Philistia.
But we must ask the big question: Who was this agricultural community that established the site and built the temple at Tel Moẓa?
It is commonly accepted that the site was part of Judah’s economic and administrative system during the Iron IIB–C period, meaning it would have officially been sanctioned by the Kingdom of Judah. But attributing a monumental temple complex to a kingdom centered in Jerusalem in the late tenth and early ninth centuries B.C.E. seems impossible given the current state of our archaeological knowledge of Jerusalem.
Instead, we suggest that the Tel Moẓa temple was the undertaking of a local group, initially representing several extended families or perhaps villages049 that banded together to pool their resources and maximize production and yield. As they grew and expanded, so did their site, which eventually grew to house a cult place, constructed and established as a monumental temple. The erection of the temple is a hefty undertaking that necessitated administrative organization and exhibited a high level of craftsmanship and knowledge of ancient Near Eastern conventions. The construction of the Tel Moẓa temple should be viewed as a reflection of the complexity of the local community and an indication of a level of civic administrative formation by the early ninth century B.C.E. in this region—perhaps even an autonomous Moẓa polity.
Who exactly constructed the temple in the early ninth century B.C.E.? And were these people associated with the rise of Jerusalem and the emergence of the Kingdom of Judah? And how did this temple operate successfully in the shadow of the Jerusalem Temple throughout its entire lifespan, especially when the Bible makes no mention of any such temple and, moreover, says all other shrines were destroyed?
All we know so far is that when it was constructed, the Moẓa temple was likely the undertaking of a local group, but by the Iron IIB period, it was clearly under Judahite rule and must therefore have been royally sanctioned by the realm.
The rest remains to be discovered.4
A puzzling discovery of an Iron Age II temple at Tel Moẓa, only 4 miles outside of Jerusalem, challenges the biblical claims that King Hezekiah centralized worship at Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and eliminated all rival shrines. In reality, the Tel Moẓa temple fits into the greater economic and administrative context of Judah and reflects an advanced level of localized civic administration in the early ninth century B.C.E.
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Endnotes
1.
The first three seasons of excavations at Tel Moẓa were conducted by Zvi Greenhut and Alon De Groot, assisted by Hamudi Khalaily and Anna Eirikh. In 2012 excavations resumed under Anna Eirikh, Hamudi Khalaily, Shua Kisilevitz, and Zvi Greenhut, assisted by Daniel Ein-Mor and David Yeger. They were carried out in advance of the construction of a new segment of Highway 1, near the entrance to Jerusalem, on behalf of the IAA and financed by the National Roads Company of Israel. The excavation areas and the depth to which these were excavated was determined primarily by the requirements of the planned constructions.
2. See Zvi Greenhut and Alon De Groot, et al. Salvage Excavations at Tel Moza: The Bronze and Iron Age Settlements and Later Occupations, IAA Reports 39 (Jerusalem: IAA, 2009), p. 223.
3.
Two of the structures excavated in 2012-2013 may have continued into the Babylonian and perhaps early Persian periods (586-332 B.C.E.). If so, the site was not destroyed during the Babylonian conquest as previously believed but continued to function as an economic center for several decades after the fall of Jerusalem and the demise of the Kingdom of Judah. This tentative assertion is pending further examination of the material.