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DESERT SHRINE. The most important of Timna’s desert shrines was built in the early 13th century B.C.E. and dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Despite its formal associations with the foreign goddess, the shrine was built open to the air and against a cliff face, in the tradition of religious architecture common to the desert peoples of the south. Worshipers left votive gifts within the sanctuary, where fire and metallurgical rituals were carried out. When Egypt abandoned Timna in the mid-12th century B.C.E., local desert peoples continued to use the shrine and recycled older cultic elements, such as the standing stones.