Image Details

Israel Museum/Zev Radovan

The second-millennium B.C. earthenware altar was created for a residence in Syria or northern Mesopotamia. The platform is highly unusual because of its building-like form, the human and bull figures placed inside it and the fact that a lamp was apparently affixed to it. Since the bull was the symbol of the Syrian god of thunder, Baal-Hadad, it is possible that the human form represents the god himself.