Image Details

A view of the altar from the side, showing the requisite unworked stones prescribed in Exodus 20:22 and the five by five by three cubits dimension (approximately 7.5 by 7.5 by 4.5 feet) described in Exodus 27:1. When the Israelites built this altar, they used the few remaining stones of the earlier altar (lower left) as a step. The altar also preserves an even earlier cultic tradition; it is built on the site of another platform that may have been a Kenite shrine in the 12th century B.C.