Horned Altar for Animal Sacrifice Unearthed at Beer-Sheva

001

The first horned animal altar ever unearthed in ancient Israel was recently excavated by Professor Yohanan Aharoni at Tell Beer-Sheva. The exacavator dates the altar from the 8th century B.C. and possibly earlier.

Altars with horns at each of their four corners are mentioned frequently in the Bible (Lev. 4:7, 18, 25; Ex. 29:12, 30:2; 38:2; 1 Kings 1:50; 2:28, etc.). Indeed the horns are the holiest part of the altar. The expiatory blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled seven times on the horns. A fugitive who managed to catch hold of the horns of the altar would obtain asylum (1 Kings 1:50). (However, the protection does not apply to a murderer, as Joab learned to his sorrow (1 Kings 2:28–34)).

008Horns are referred to on small incense altars (Ex. 30:2) and on larger altars for use in connection with animal sacrifice.

Several examples of small horned incense altars have previously been found in the Holy Land: at Megiddo, Shechem and elsewhere. The most recent—a 16-inch square altar with horns—was recovered by Avraham Biran at Tell Dan during the 1974 season. But the new altar from Tell Beer-Sheva is the first large horned animal altar ever discovered.

The Beer-Sheva altar is constructed of well-smoothed, hewn stones. As the Bible directs (e.g., Ex. 27:2; 30:2), the horns are of one piece with the altar; that is, each horn is an integral part of an ashlar which forms part of the body of the altar. (An ashlar is a hewn, squared stone.)

The excavators have been able to determine with certainty only the height of the Beer-Sheva altar.^a It measures 63 inches to the top of the horns, which is exactly three large (royal) cubits. Three cubits is the height prescribed in the Bible for the Tabernacle altar (Ex. 27:1).

009That the altar is made of hewn stones presents something of a problem to the archaeologists. In several places the Bible refers to the fact that stones of an altar must be unhewn; that is, not worked by hand. For example, “Joshua built an altar unto the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount. Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man has lifted an iron tool” (Josh. 8:30–31; see also Deut. 27:5–6).

Professor Aharoni suggests that perhaps this tradition of using unhewn stones was not followed in practice, or, perhaps, the Biblical proscription applied only to iron tools, but not bronze ones. (But Ex. 20:25 seems to proscribe any tool, whether bronze or iron.)

However, another explanation suggests itself. The Bible describes several kinds of altars: small altars on which incense is burned; larger altars on which the fat of a slain animal is burned and its blood sprinkled or where a grain offering is left; and finally the still larger altar on which the animal is actually sacrificed. Only the third type, according to this typology, was to be of unhewn stones. The Beer-Sheva altar may be of the second rather than the third type.

A division of this kind is suggested by the fact that the Biblical references to altars of unhewn stones never refer to the horns of these altars. Horns apparently were put only on the first (as we know from excavated incense altars) and second types. This makes sense because it would be difficult to put horns on an altar of unhewn stones. (Perhaps horns could be put on unhewn stone altars with mud or even lime plaster, but this would seem to contradict the requirement that the horns be of one piece with the altar.)

The Beer-Sheva altar was not found assembled in situ, but was discovered in secondary use—the stones of the altar had later been incorporated into a wall. That is why the excavators are not certain of all of the altar’s dimensions. But the fact that the altar had been disassembled and used to construct a wall may provide fascinating evidence of King Hezekiah’s religious reforms.

The Bible tells us that Hezekiah (c. 715–687 B.C.) was a righteous Judean king who cleansed and repaired the Temple; he restored the service of the Temple and suppressed worship at pagan shrines. The Bible also implies that Hezekiah attempted to centralize Israelite worship in the Jerusalem temple: When Sennacherib was about to besiege Jerusalem in 701 B.C., he sent a messenger to instill fear in the hearts of the Jerusalemites. The messenger’s speech in the hearing of the people is recorded in 2 Kings 18:19–35. He asks whether the people intend to rely on the Lord as their protection against Sennacherib. He then asks scornfully and rhetorically whether this is not the Lord “whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem.’” (2 Kings 18:22). Obviously, the removal of these other altars caused dissension, and some may have felt that Hezekiah’s centralization of worship offended the Lord. It was this sentiment that Sennacherib’s officer was obviously trying to exploit (See also 2 Chron. 29–31 on Hezekiah’s reforms).

Professor Aharoni believes that his Beer-Sheva altar was one of the altars which was dismantled as part of Hezekiah’s religious reforms. Its stones were then reused in an 8th century wall, and the wall itself was destroyed at the end of the 8th century, probably during Sennacherib’s Judean campaign of 701 B.C.

However, Professor Yigael Yadin of Hebrew University dates this wall more than 100 years later than Professor Aharoni. According to Professor Yadin, the wall was probably destroyed about the time the Babylonians captured and destroyed Jerusalem (587 B.C.). This is but one of many scholarly disagreements between these two leading Israeli archaeologists.

There is one final point of interest to the Beer-Sheva altar. One of the stones has clearly engraved upon it a curling snake. The snake was a fertility symbol widely employed throughout the ancient Near East. The staff which turned into a serpent was a symbol of Moses’ power (Ex. 7:15). Later, in the wilderness, when the people were attacked by poisonous snakes from the Lord, the Lord ordered Moses to make 015a bronze serpent. Those who had been bitten looked at the bronze serpent and were cured (Num. 21:4–9). This bronze snake later became an object of veneration to which sacrifices were offered even to the time of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). Hezekiah destroyed and presumably suppressed the elements of this serpent-worship. The strength of this tradition of snake-worship and the fact that it persisted as late as the 8th century, is dramatically confirmed in the engraving of a serpent on the altar stone of the Beer-Sheva altar.

(For further details, see Yohanan Aharoni, “The Horned Altar of Beer-Sheba,” The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 37, p.1 (1974); Yohanan Aharoni, “Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple,” The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 31, p. 2 (1968) Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, pp. 406–414).

015

Scientific Dating Techniques Reported

The University of Pennsylvania’s University Museum issues a publication called the MASCA Newsletter. MASCA stands for the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology and its Newsletter reports principally on recent advances in scientific dating methods. The best known of these methods is “carbon 14” or radiocarbon dating, which may be used on any formerly living matter, like wood, charcoal, grain, or papyrus. However, there are a number of other advanced scientific dating methods, most of which are still in the experimental stage. These dating methods have thus far had limited applicability to Biblical periods because their margin of error is considerably greater than field methods of dating based on such techniques as pottery forms. For example, the thermoluminescence technique, which, unlike carbon 14, can be used on pottery, was recently tested for the first time on slag—in this case on some Phoenician slag from an ancient silver smelting site. According to a report in the July, 1974 MASCA Newsletter, the thermoluminescence date for this silver slag was 400 B.C., plus or minus 280 years. However, based on associated materials the archaeologist studying the site dates the slag to 800–700 B.C.

Those who wish to pursue the subject further may be placed on the mailing list of the MASCA Newsletter by writing to the University Museum, 33rd and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174.

The first horned animal altar ever unearthed in ancient Israel was recently excavated by Professor Yohanan Aharoni at Tell Beer-Sheva. The exacavator dates the altar from the 8th century B.C. and possibly earlier.