More than 40 years after re-excavating Tel Gezer’s dramatic “High Place,” archaeologist William Dever has now published his final excavation report. It is indeed welcome.
The High Place consists of ten monumental standing stones, some more than 10 feet tall, and a puzzling squarish basin about 6 by 5 feet with a rectangular impression in the bottom.
The Gezer High Place was originally excavated by Irish archaeologist R.A.S. Macalister between 1902 and 1907.
064
But, alas, he did more damage to the site than good. As Dever describes Macalister’s analysis, “There is little reason to probe further through Macalister’s tortuous discussion of his excavation of the ‘High Place.’ It is impossible to glean any significant information from the mixture of fact (?) and fancy.”
In supposed association with the standing stones, however, Macalister also discovered several burial jars containing the bones of infants. Macalister estimated the infants were less than one week old. Some of the infants’ bodies had been burned. On this basis, Macalister interpreted the area of the High Place as a site for infant sacrifice.
Again, Macalister errs. The High Place and the infant burials cannot be associated with one another, as Dever explains. The huge stones of the High Place and the jars containing infant bones come from different periods. From his careful excavation and analysis, Dever demonstrates that the High Place was a one-period installation dating to Middle Bronze IIC, between about 1650 and 1500 B.C.E. (and almost 500 years before Israel’s appearance on the historical stage). Below the stratum with the High Place, in an earlier stratum, the infant burials were found.
So if the Gezer High Place isn’t a site for infant sacrifice, what is it?
One interpretation is that the stones were bamot (singular bamah) and the site was a cultic high place consisting of standing stones. Dever regards the term bamot as “too vague and [with] too many meanings to be of much help in interpreting” the Gezer High Place.
Another possibility is that the standing stones are massebot (singular massebah), whose Hebrew etymology means to stand up. Massebah “refers to any stone set up to commemorate a person or an event.” Thus, as we can conclude from the Biblical references, a massebah can (1) memorialize a dead person, (2) locate the presence of a deity, (3) commemorate an event often perceived as the act of a deity, or (4) witness a legal transaction such as delimiting a boundary or sealing a contractual (or covenantal) obligation.
The Gezer High Place cannot reasonably be interpreted as a memorial to a dead person, as a marker to locate the presence of a deity, or as a witness to 065 an event. This leaves us with the most likely explanation. The Gezer High Place probably celebrates and commemorates a covenant or contract.
Taking the next step, Dever reasons that this High Place is too monumental to commemorate a covenant among ten individuals. Therefore, it almost certainly commemorates a covenant among ten tribes (or perhaps towns).
In Deuteronomy 27:2–8, a massebah is set up to commemorate Moses’ covenant with the 12 tribes of Israel. In Exodus 24, Moses erects 12 massebot to commemorate God’s covenant with the tribes of Israel. These are the analogies that Dever finds most persuasive. The Gezer High Place commemorates a covenant of tribes or towns. This is the land out of which Israel emerged.
The discovery of some bone-fragments, as well as some teeth that could be identified as belonging to sheep and goats, at the level of the High Place suggested to the Gezer excavation crew that the covenant memorialized at the High Place was renewed in an annual ceremony. If this is so, the large basin was probably used for ritual washing of the animals or bloodletting.—H.S.
More than 40 years after re-excavating Tel Gezer’s dramatic “High Place,” archaeologist William Dever has now published his final excavation report. It is indeed welcome.
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
