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© The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority

THE ROYAL CAPITAL. This proto-Aeolic capital from Ramat Rah.el displays elegant curved palmettes and is an excellent example of the decorative type used in royal Israelite and Judahite architecture from the tenth to eighth centuries B.C.E. Archaeologist Yigal Shiloh clearly demonstrated that the fronds on many naos columns do not represent these proto-Aeolic capitals (as Albright proposed) but rather are stylized palm trees, which were common elements in temple architecture of the Iron Age.