What did ancient Canaanite temples look like? What kind of activities took place in them, and which deities were revered? Although numerous Canaanite temples have been excavated, a recent discovery at Tel Lachish reveals new answers to these old questions.
Situated in the southern part of the Judean foothills (the Shephelah), Tel Lachish controlled a main road leading from the Mediterranean coastal plain to the mountains of Hebron and Jerusalem in ancient times. In the Hebrew Bible, Lachish is known as an important Canaanite city-state, which joined a coalition of Canaanite kings led by the king of Jerusalem against the invading Israelites. After a miraculous victory, Joshua and the Israelites chased the Canaanites to their cities and destroyed them. Lachish, we are told, was captured “on the second day,” and its population was killed (Joshua 10:32). Later in the Bible, Lachish reappears as an important Judahite city, fortified by Rehoboam, son of Solomon (2 Chronicles 11:9). The city features prominently in relation to the Assyrian campaign to Judah in 701 B.C.E. (2 Kings 18) and as one of the last fortified cities that stood against the Babylonians before Judah’s final destruction in 586 B.C.E. (Jeremiah 34:7).
Archaeological research at Lachish started more than 80 years ago. Several expeditions have excavated the site and uncovered important remains from the Canaanite and Judahite periods, as well as from the later Persian and Hellenistic periods. The archaeological investigation and historical sources show that Canaanite Lachish was established as a large fortified city around 1800 B.C.E., during the Middle Bronze Age. The Egyptians destroyed this city around 1550 B.C.E. On its ruins, a new city was built during the Late Bronze Age and became one of the most important Canaanite cities in the Land of 049Israel, controlling large parts of the Judean foothills. Close to the end of the Late Bronze Age, Lachish underwent two destructions: one around 1200 B.C.E. and a final catastrophic destruction around 1150 B.C.E., from which the Canaanite city never recovered. After about 200 years of abandonment, the site was resettled in the tenth century B.C.E., this time as a fortified Judahite city.
During 2013–2017, the Fourth Expedition to Lachish—under the co-direction of Yosef Garfinkel of the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Michael G. Hasel and Martin G. Klingbeil of the Institute of Archaeology, Southern Adventist University—conducted renewed excavations at the site of Tel Lachish.a One of our major finds was a temple from the last Canaanite city at Lachish, which existed during the first half of the 12th century B.C.E. The temple was found in the northeastern corner of the mound, hence the name given to it: the Northeast Temple.1
The Northeast Temple joins two previously known temples of Canaanite Lachish: the Fosse Temple, excavated by a British expedition led by James L. Starkey in the 1930s, and the Acropolis Temple, excavated by a Tel Aviv University expedition led by David Ussishkin in the 1970s and 1980s.2
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The Fosse Temple, one of the richest temples ever excavated in Israel, was located just outside of the city, at the base of the mound. It functioned for about 300 years, from the 15th century to the end of the 13th century B.C.E.
The Acropolis Temple was built after the Fosse Temple was destroyed, as part of the rebuilding of the city. It stood at the top of the mound probably close to the city’s palace and served as the main royal temple of the city. The Acropolis Temple was a monumental structure with several Egyptian elements, such as octagonal columns and painted plastered walls.
The recently uncovered Northeast Temple existed at the same time as the Acropolis Temple, but it probably had a secondary status, as indicated by its size and location in a lower part of the city.
The plan of the Northeast Temple includes an entrance space (an open area or a portico) located in front of the temple’s main entrance, which originally was flanked by two pillars. The western stone pillar base was found close to its original location, while another large stone that appears to be the eastern pillar base was found nearby. The two pillar bases were moved from their original place during the last phase of the temple’s existence or after its destruction, possibly by looters.
Flanking the entrance are two towers, of which only the western one is preserved. It seems to have been used as a staircase tower. The entrance led to the main hall of the temple, a large room with a roof originally supported by four pillars. In the eastern part of the hall was a stone platform, on which was a large stone basin. In the southwest, the platform abuts a circle of stones. Inside it, we found two fallen “standing stones” (massebot).
West of the main hall, we uncovered two side rooms. The southwestern room served as a granary and had a large wooden box with charred seeds. The northwestern room was used for storage. On the eastern side of the main hall was an additional side room, only parts of which were preserved. To the north of the main hall was the entrance to a northern unit that unfortunately was not preserved. This unit might have been a room, or merely a niche, which served as the temple’s “holy of holies”—the main focus of ritual activity in the temple.
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Compared to other Canaanite temples, Lachish’s Northeast Temple is modest in its dimensions. Yet its plan seems to be inspired by that of regional monumental temples, the so-called Tower Temples, known from Hazor, Megiddo, and Shechem. These temples are characterized by a symmetrical plan, pair of pillars flanking the entrance, pair of towers in the front, direct entrance, and central long hall that ends with a defined holy of holies.
A significant difference between the Northeast Temple and those Tower Temples (apart from its dimensions) is the presence of side rooms. This feature is known in small Canaanite temples as well as later temples during the time of the Judahite monarchy, such as the biblical Temple of Solomon and a Judahite temple recently uncovered at Moẓa (near Jerusalem).b
The Northeast Temple was burned during the final destruction of Canaanite Lachish, leaving in its debris a rich assemblage of pottery and unique objects. In front of the entrance to the holy of holies, we uncovered two bronze figurines, a cultic scepter head, a variety of gold, carnelian, and faience beads, gold leaves, a scarab, and pieces of a special bronze situla, among other finds. The situla was coated in gold and engraved with a hieroglyphic inscription containing the cartouche of Ramesses II, one of the most powerful and influential pharaohs in Egyptian history.
The two figurines depict warlike males, brandishing a weapon (a mace or club). They are made of bronze with remains of a silver coating, especially on their faces. Below their feet are pegs, used to attach them to wooden stands. The figurines seem to have been adorned with necklaces, as evidenced by beads found around 052them and attached to one body. In addition, one of the figurines seems to have worn a small silver pendant as a necklace. The figurines may represent one of the warlike Canaanite gods, such as Baal or Resheph.
With the two figurines, we also found a cultic scepter head, consisting of a rectangular plaque and a broken peg. On one side, the scepter head’s plaque was coated in silver. Such scepter heads are rare; only one other example has ever been found, and that was within a cultic context in Hazor. Notably, a statue found in the great temple of Megiddo depicts a seated Canaanite god holding a miniature scepter, which is remarkably similar to the scepter head we found in Lachish. This supplements our understanding of how those scepters were once held and perceived as attributes of Canaanite deities. In the case of our temple, it was probably seen as an attribute of the warlike god, the temple’s main deity.3
In addition to the warlike god, it seems that his consort was worshiped at the temple. A silver pendant uncovered on the temple’s floor depicts a naked goddess holding two stems of lotus flowers or papyrus. Her distinctive hairstyle is a known attribute of the Egyptian goddess of love and beauty, Hathor. In Canaan, this Egyptian hairstyle was applied to local Canaanite fertility goddesses, such as Anat and Astarte.4
Hathor herself was depicted on a faience ring, also uncovered on the main hall’s floor. The depiction, now quite worn, shows the Egyptian goddess flanked by two serpents.
In the temple, we also uncovered an alphabetic inscription incised on a pottery sherd, once part of a storage jar. Unfortunately, because the inscription is so fragmentary, its reading is not clear. The middle line plausibly reads “spr,” a word made of a root meaning “to count, document, or inscribe.” Notably, this inscription holds the first known occurrence of the Canaanite or Hebrew letter samekh, the equivalent to the English letter “S.” 5
We found a fragment of a clay mask in the temple’s courtyard. This mask was probably related to some subsidiary religious cult, with worship performed by the general public outside the temple.
During the construction of the Northeast Temple, three deposits were buried, two of which contained large bronze cauldrons. Two cauldrons were found together in a pit in front of the entrance to one of the side rooms, and the third cauldron was in a pit below a large stone basin. These cauldrons are rare, with only two similar cauldrons ever being found in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I contexts in the southern Levant. Traces of soot on the cauldrons indicate that they were used 053before their deposition, perhaps in the dedication ceremony of the temple.
The third deposit was placed in the foundation of one of the walls of the holy of holies. This deposit contained gold and carnelian beads, gold earrings, a bronze arrowhead, a bronze dagger, and a bronze axe head. The deposit was originally wrapped in cloth, remnants of which can still be seen on the dagger and an earring.
Decorated with a rare engraving of a bird, the axe head is noteworthy. Birds (usually identified as doves) are well-known attributes of goddesses in the ancient Near East, as seen in various representations throughout the second millennium B.C.E. (and later). Therefore, the bird on the axe might be a symbolic representation of the goddess worshiped in the temple. The axe’s engraving seems to mark it as an offering dedicated to this deity.
The main religious activities probably took place in the temple’s courtyard in front of the main entrance, an area accessible to wide segments of the community. Access to the temple structure itself would have been restricted to priests who conducted the rituals.
In the temple itself, an idol, venerated as the actual presence of the temple’s main deity, was probably placed in the holy of holies.
Besides the holy of holies at the northern end of the building, cult activity also took place in the southeastern side of the main hall, marked by two standing stones (massebot). Their location indicates that they may have been associated with the cult of minor deities or perhaps deified ancestors, entities possibly perceived as mediators between the worshipers and the temple’s main deity, who dwelled in the holy of holies.
A possible parallel to this can be found in the Epic of Aqhat, a Canaanite myth that describes the duty of a son to place a standing stone in the temple after his father’s death, in dedication to an ancestral deity. The cult of standing stones is well known throughout the Levant and also appears in biblical traditions, sometimes as a positive practice, such as in the story of Jacob in Bethel (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 35:14), and sometimes as a 054negative practice characterizing Canaanite worship (e.g., Deuteronomy 16:22; 1 Kings 14:23-24; 2 Kings 17:10-11).
Ritual activity also seems to have taken place on the temple’s roof, where a mudbrick platform (possibly an altar) stood. This platform collapsed during the temple’s destruction and was found on top of the destruction debris in the center of the main hall. The rituals performed on the temple’s roof would have been visible throughout Lachish’s rural surroundings. Such ceremonies are known from ancient written sources. For example, in the city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast, the king sacrificed on temple roofs during different festivals.
Before the temple’s destruction, signs of crisis can be seen: An installation and a flimsy partition wall were carelessly built in the main hall, thus disrupting the building’s original symmetry. Additionally, a large number of storage jars and bowls, together with several cooking pots and kraters, were found smashed on the temple’s floor. The storage jars were found near an oven and a large grinding stone. All this indicates domestic rather than cultic activity in most parts of the temple just before the destruction.
Yet ritual activity seems to have continued in the holy of holies and its immediate vicinity, as evident from the concentration of special finds, including the “smiting god” figurines and scepter head.
The crisis phase is also observed in other parts of Lachish. Together, it seems that refugees flocked to the city in the last days of Canaanite Lachish and took refuge in its public structures. Those refugees, probably from the villages surrounding Lachish, fled to the city in fear of the approaching threat. In the destruction layer of a pillared building on the western edge of the site, Ussishkin’s expedition even found the remains of some of these refugees: skeletons of a woman, children, and infants.6
After the catastrophic destruction of the temple and the entire city, only one final activity in relation to the temple can be detected archaeologically. Into the mudbrick debris of the ruined temple, someone placed a deposit of pottery vessels, consisting of a lamp inside a bowl covered by two other bowls. Deposits of this type, known as lamp-and-bowl deposits, are well known from other Canaanite sites and usually served as offerings embedded in buildings’ foundations. Judging from the pottery types, this activity likely took place shortly after the city’s destruction and was carried out by survivors who remembered the temple and deliberately chose to bury an offering in its ruins. By this act, they may have wished to pay their last respects and perhaps symbolically express their hope that the temple would one day be rebuilt.
Recent excavations of a temple found at Tel Lachish offer a window into Canaanite worship in the mid-12th century B.C.E., just before the powerful city-state was destroyed. Our authors examine the rich array of cultic and ritual objects found amid the destroyed remains of the site’s Northeast Temple and explain what these finds reveal about Canaanite religious practice.
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1. I wish to thank professors Yosef Garfinkel, Michael G. Hasel, and Martin G. Klingbeil, who jointly direct the renewed excavations at Lachish. Much of this text derives from their contribution to our joint publication: Itamar Weissbein, Yosef Garfinkel, Michael G. Hasel, Martin G. Klingbeil, Baruch Brandl, and Hadas Misgav, “The Level VI North-East Temple at Tel Lachish,” Levant 51.1 (2019), pp. 76–104.
2. Olga Tufnell, Charles H. Inge, and G. Lankester Harding, Lachish II (Tell ed-Duweir): The Fosse Temple (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1940); David Ussishkin, “Area P: The Level VI Temple,” in David Ussishkin, ed., The Renewed Archaeological Excavations at Lachish (1973–1994), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Emery and Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology, 2004), pp. 215–281.
3. Yosef Garfinkel, “Sceptres of Life-Size Divine Statues from Canaanite Lachish and Hazor,” Antiquity 94.375 (2020), pp. 669–685.
4. Itamar Weissbein, Yosef Garfinkel, Michael G. Hasel, and Martin G. Klingbeil, “Goddesses from Canaanite Lachish,” Strata 34 (2016), pp. 41–55.
5. Benjamin Sass, Yosef Garfinkel, Michael G. Hasel, and Martin G. Klingbeil, “The Lachish Jar Sherd: An Early Alphabetic Inscription Discovered in 2014,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 374 (2015), pp. 233–245.
6. Gabriel Barkay and David Ussishkin, “Area S: The Late Bronze Age Strata,” in David Ussishkin, ed., Renewed Archaeological Excavations, pp. 316–410.
