Image Details

ZEV RADOVAN / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

CANAANITE LEGACIES. This 1.75-foot-tall four-tiered terracotta stand, which may have been used to burn incense, was discovered at the city of Taanach, near Megiddo, and has been dated to the tenth century BC. On the lowest register, a goddess fig-ure stands grasping two lions, while two registers above, ibexes feed from a tree of life. This imagery is associated with the goddess Asherah, the consort of the Canaanite god El and perhaps also of the Israelite god Yahweh (who some believe is depicted in the uppermost register as a solar disk on the back of a calf). Such evidence points to a popular religion in Israel that preserved various Canaanite elements, including the veneration of the old gods even as the official cult of Yahweh was ascendant.