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Philistine Cult Stands

Yavneh yields over a hundred Philistine cult stands

Long known as the birthplace of rabbinic Judaism in the first century C.E., Yavneh is rich in both Jewish and Christian history. We now know that a Philistine temple was located here as well: Recent excavations have produced thousands of eighth-century B.C.E. Philistine cult objects—all found in a repository pit in a single 5-square-meter excavation. What still lies buried here?

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Footnotes

1.

See Eilat Mazar, “Did I Find King David’s Palace?” BAR 32:01; Eilat Mazar, “Excavate King David’s Palace!” BAR 23:01; Michael Eisenberg and Arthur Segal, “The Spade Hits Sussita,” BAR 32:03; Vassilios Tzaferis, “Sussita Awaits the Spade,” BAR 16:05.

Endnotes

1.

The story is told in four versions: B. Gittin 56b. See also Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Version 1, 4, 22–24; Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Version 2, 6, 19; Lamentations Rabbah 1:5, no. 31. The four different versions are conveniently available in Jacob Neusner, Development of a Legend (Leiden: Brill, 1970).

2.

Raz Kletter, Irit Ziffer and Wolfgang Zwickel, Yavneh I—The Excavation of the ‘Temple Hill’ Repository Pit and the Cult Stands (Fribourg: Academic Press and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupert, 2010).

3.

See Kletter et al., Yavneh I.