Reading religious artifacts:
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On the eve of their demise at the hands of Assyrian soldiers at the end of
eighth century BCE at least some Judahites living in the fortified border town
at Tell Halif (probably Biblical En Rimmon) were
actively engaged in ritual activity, specifically involving a ceramic
fenestrated incense stand, carved limestone blocks (masseboth,
pillars??), and the head of a pillar figurine, probably the goddess
`Asherah. While Biblical writers and theologians of the day (and later) both
condemned such "non-orthodox" or "heterdox" (Miller, 51)
activity as apostasy and claimed it as the cause par excellence for the
political and military disasters on the horizon, the evidence of such religious
activity ought not to be so easily dismissed (as apostasy), nor so quickly
discounted (as evil against the one true God.) It is better, I believe, to
interpret these artifacts and the associated rituals in terms in which they
originally appealed to those Halif Judahites who exercised them; i.e., what the
rituals accomplished for them, how the `Asherah religion functioned in their
individual, family, or corporate lives. Archaeology (while contributing
significantly to the understanding of the `Asherah/heterodox religions) has,
nonetheless, also consistently continued to err in this evaluation by
categorizing and, in effect, dismissing as non-consequential finds of pillar/Asherah
figurines either as indicators of apostasy from true Yahwism (alternately
heterodox Yahwism, but not true Yahwism/orthodoxy), or as attempts at syncretism
with Yahwism, both of which are imprecise and pejorative reductionisms to
aberrant activities of otherwise positive human exercises . Indeed, only in
recent years have Biblical scholars included
these "aberrant" or non-Yahwistic rituals in their considerations of
the religion of ancient Israel.
The discovery of the shrine-room in a pillared (four-room) house of Judahite Halif/Rimmon requires reconsideration of the role of this and other religious expressions practiced alongside Biblical Yahwism and to arrive at a more accurate evaluation of these religious artifacts and their associated rituals.
I. The Archaeological setting: Late Iron II Halif
In three seasons of excavation a row of houses, all built inside and against the curtain wall on the western edge of the fortified town, were exposed during the investigation of town planning and organization/utilization of space. Halif Stratum VIB had been destroyed by fire, probably in 701 BCE by forces attached to the Assyrian army in siege against nearby Lachish; a thick layer of ash, charred beams, and fired bricks from collapsed walls covered every floor in the houses excavated in Field IV (as well as in nearby Field III.)
These houses in Field IV had been constructed in variations of the standard “pillared
building” style of construction (also called four-room house) popular in
Judahite settlements of the ninth and eighth centuries BCE. The northernmost of
these houses, the one in which the shrine room was located, measured
approximately 11 m. X 10 m., and consisted of three
parallel “longrooms” separated by two rows of stone pillars and a “broad
room” perpendicular to them at the back of the house, which had also been
constructed directly against the town's curtain wall. This house likely had a
second floor, though no stairway either to the roof or to another floor has been
found. The sacred objects were located in the broadroom.
II. Architecture of the Shrine Room
The “broadroom” of this pillared building originally, in phase VIB2, had been divided into three small chambers, all originally accessible through doorways from the east; the northern chamber of the three, in addition, originally opened to the north through the outer wall of the house. In this earliest phase (Str. VIB2) the chambers of the broad room probably served domestic (non-ritual) activities exclusively.
In its final phase, at the time of the destruction of Stratum VIB1 by fire, the “broadroom” had been reapportioned and divided into two chambers, separated by a brick and stone dividing wall F8005. The smaller room at the north end of the so-called “broadroom” measured only 2.25 m. X 2 m. and had been entirely closed to access through its two entrances. Doorway/threshhold F7025, which originally opened from this small chamber to the interior of the house, had been intentionally blocked with boulders and bricks; subsequently installation F7008 (used in food preparation) was constructed in front of the now-closed entrance, clear indication that foot traffic no longer passed into the smaller chamber via this route. Similarly, the exit doorway in the north wall of this smaller chamber had also been blocked when wall F7012 was constructed across the access. The result was that the floor space of this smaller portion of the so-called “broadroom” apparently no longer functioned in the final phase VIB1 of the building. It was blocked entirely to foot traffic. These changes to the smaller division of the “broadroom,” done in the final architectural phase VIB1 of the house, may have been part of the preparation for creation of the shrine-room itself, possibly as a response to the “holy” present in the shrine-room immediately adjacent. On the other hand, the presence of ceramic vessels in this small chamber indicates that it may have still been used for storage, with access apparently limited to climbing over a low wall in the now blocked entrance or from above by way of a ladder.
Other architectural changes were also made in adapting the “broad room” to
its final function as shrine room. The size of the chamber was, in the first
place, increased. This was accomplished by dismantling phase VIB2 chamber walls
G8014 and H8006 to floor level, thereby joining the original middle and southern
chambers of the "broadroom." Finally, Wall G8002, constructed directly
against the inner face of the town’s fortification wall, was added to the
lengthened chamber, in effect isolating the "shrine room" from direct
contact with it; a new floor was set atop Str. VIB2 cobbled floor G8015,
covering it with smaller cobbles G8005. Access to the newly elongated
"shrine room" was then altered by blocking
doorway F7031, which originally opened into the middle of the three “broadroom”
chambers from the east; entrance was routed to a newly created approach from the
southeastern end of the now enlarged chamber of the “broadroom”; with these
alterations the longer chamber (ca. 2.25 m. X 7 m.) became the
"shrine room.”
III. Artifacts in the Shrine Room
It is important to note that the context in which the cultic materials were placed represents "ordinary" architecture, artifacts and human behavior, cultic materials notwithstanding. No claim to uniqueness of the shrine room or the finds within it is suggested or can be supported. At best, these together may be termed a house shrine, a phenomenon likely common in late eighth century BCE Judah.
On cobbled floor G8005, beneath fallen bricks and ash, were a collection of household items. Ceramic artifacts constituted the largest portion: two "lamelek" type storage jars, one hole-mouth "pithos" jar, three small bowls (drinking bowls?), two small cooking pots, a jug, a pitcher, one large bowl, a black juglet and a fenestrated "incense burner" or censor (on this object see below.) Tools and other implements on the floor included two small grindstones, a hammerstone/pestle, two other worked stone artifacts, several pieces of pumice, a bone tool used in weaving (also called "spatula"), an iron projectile point and a bovine horn core. Other items were a smooth, flat stone (fractured by the heat of the fire that destroyed the house), which may have served as a "table" or food-preparation area (but also see below), the molded head of a ceramic "pillar figurine" and two carved limestone blocks, one on either side of the incense burner.
Each pottery vessel pictured at the right hand of this page leads to an
individual page with full descriptions, several photos, Virtual Reality
three-dimensional "movies," and information on context. This composite
photograph displays all vessels found on the floor of the "shrine
room." The location of the ceramics at one end (the north end; entrance is
at the southeastern end) of the shrine room presents a tight grouping of ceramic
pottery and ritual objects. The ceramic artifacts, carefully plotted during
excavation, are represented in original locations in the shrine room in the
drawing on the left. Note that the collection includes no lamp, and that both
vessels and cultic objects were found together at one end of the room.
Soil samples from accumulations on floor G8005 and from between cobbles yielded important information: seven samples of occupation debris were found to contain large numbers of grape pips, cereals (mostly wheat) and legumes (Rosen 1992). In addition, fish bones were recovered from samples 1 and 27. The seeds were charred; however, since little charred wood remains were found in the samples, Rosen concluded that the room was used for food preparation but not for cooking, a conclusion supported by absence of a tabun or hearth in the room and the presence of a beachrock mortar fragment in sample 10 (Rosen 1992: 273).
IV. The Cultic Artifacts
The ceramic "pillar figurine" head, the fenestrated incense
burner/censor, the two carved limestone blocks, what appears to be a specialized
jar or bottle (and perhaps also the heat-cracked flat stone) on floor G8005
indicate that people (also) performed ritual activities in the room.
The head of the pillar figurine (4.6 cm. high, 4.13 cm. wide, 2.85 cm. deep) was moldmade, fired and later painted (traces of white paint still visible). The head is typical of the category of "pillar figurines" found universally in Iron II Judahite settings; as an artifact type this head is identified with `Asherah, as shown by several investigators (Holladay, Coogan, McCarter, Dever 1984:22). The ceramic incense burner or censor was wheelmade with a broad bell-shaped base; both rectangular and circular "windows" had been cut through the walls before firing. A ridge low on the inside of the vessel establishes that a bowl or platform had once been attached as an original part of the vessel; the bowl or platform, connected below the level of the "windows" near the base of the object, presumably held embers or burning incense. The object is otherwise without decorative additions. In effect, this artifact served in the same manner that a censor did. Vessel G822B4, a jar or bottle possibly shaped to imitate a pomegranate, may have also been an element of the ritual in the room.
The two carved limestone blocks had been carefully prepared, one end of each tapered smaller, edges beveled and faces smoothed. Dimensions of the two blocks are: Obj. 2103, 14.5 cm. wide on the narrower end, 20 cm. on the broad end, 26 cm. in height/length; (Obj. 2054) 16.2 cm wide on the narrower end, 17.5 cm. on the broad end, 25 cm in height/length. The function of the two blocks, as well as their stance, calls for speculation. I have assumed that they originally stood upright, the broader ends functioning as bases; the narrower ends thus become the "tops" of the stones. However, no visible remains of burning or other activity, but for the preparatory smoothing, appears on the "tops" or elsewhere. The general shapes suggest that they may have been masseboth similar in function to ones found in other cultic sites. The suggestion that masseboth are funerary stelae may come close to their use in this private house; see Peckham (1987:80). Others suggest they functioned in fulfillment of oaths. A smooth, flat, heat-splintered stone near the two carved stone blocks/masseboth, may have served as an offering table (but see the interpretation suggested above as a "table".)
Holladay (1987) suggests, on the basis of ceramics found with cultic materials at various shrines, that meals (sacred or communal) were eaten in the sacred areas. The fact that no "votive" vessel was found in the Halif "shrine room" agrees with his conclusion that drink and food offerings were not made in what he calls these "Nonconformist" religious ceremonies. In agreement with Holladay's observations, the vessels recovered in the Halif "shrine room" do include three small (drinking?) bowls and a large bowl (for communal eating?) of the types associated with distribution and consumption of food.
The Halif Shrine and Religion in Judah
Often the explanation of items such as the pillar figurine and masseboth found in the excavation of Judahite towns is to declare them as "syncretism" or vestiges of an illicit pagan practice. Kenyon's explanation, for example, of the hundreds of animal and pillar figurines in a cave (which she originally named a favissa, in itself an indicator of a positive cultic activity) in Jerusalem essentially dismisses the artifacts from further consideration by relegating them to remnants of an illicit religious practice; in suggesting that their broken condition gives signs of the purification of the legitimate cult in Jerusalem she has finished her interpretation of their meaning (Kenyon 1974:141-143). The evidence, however, actually suggests otherwise.
The designation "syncretism" is not an adequate explanation for these materials; for there are few instances in the archaeology of Judahite cult which correspond to an "effort to bring together into a synthesis or harmony different beliefs or practices from several religious traditions to create a new union." (Livingston 1989:385) The evidence suggests rather that religious traditions remained, in general, active alongside each other, sometimes (perhaps frequently) practiced by the same persons, a simultaneous, parallel exercise of two or more religions. The term "syncretism" is inaccurate as an explanation of such phenomena as those found in the Halif "shrine room" and elsewhere, because (as shown below) there is no evidence for the forging of a "new union." It does not appear that the Judahites have assumed or forced such an identity between the cult of Yahweh and the cult of Asherah. Quite the contrary for the shrine at Halif, all of the material fits well with what is known of the Asherah cult; there is no evidence to suggest syncretistic developments.
Several scholars have interpreted the Kuntillet `Ajrud finds as evidence of syncretism; the term also fails here. The dedicatory inscriptions, target of the syncretism claim, which contain the phrase "Yahweh...and his 'asherah", have received much attention; the explanation often suggested is that elements from two religions (Israelite Yahweh cult and Canaanite 'Asherah cult) have been brought together artificially to form a synthesis or a new union; i.e., a syncretism. That conclusion is possible, however, only because the remaining religious elements in the `Ajrud corpus have been excluded from the reading. Inscriptions dedicate to or mention at least two other deities, El and Ba`al. In addition, at least some of the drawings found at 'Ajrud were associated with religious activity not all of which can be interpreted as Yahwistic. If, for example, Beck (1982) and Meshel (1978) are correct, there is at least one representation of Egyptian Bes. The "tree of life" flanked by ibexes may be another example of non-Yahwistic religious items.
A diversity of cultic artifacts and religious elements cohabited Kuntillet `Ajrud, with no apparent attempt to unify or harmonize religious strands. The "unifying" factors are the building(s) in which they were found and the perspectives of the "pilgrims" who used the facility with no apparent difficulty in belief or in ritual; indeed, it must be acknowledged that the ritual activity at Kuntillet `Ajrud probably seemed not only appropriate but efficacious to the "pilgrims."
The failure to recognize these factors about Kuntillet `Ajrud derive from the fact that, although much attention has been applied to the Yahweh-inscriptions, the context of the inscriptions has been largely ignored (but see Beck 1982). In order properly to understand even the Yahweh-inscriptions all of the (material and epigraphic) evidence at Kuntillet `Ajrud must be taken together in order to represent the religious motives involved. In fact, were it not that a name of a deity, otherwise associated with a "monotheistic" cult, appears there (had this been, for example, a site in west India with names of Indian deities), the energy expended on simply two or three inscriptions from among a large number of religious data would be perceived, as it in fact is, by the scholarly world as myopic. Contrary to the ways these Yahweh-inscriptions have been interpreted to date, in the context of Kuntillet `Ajrud they fit naturally, though not as elements of a syncretism.
Nor may they (or the Halif house shrine) be dismissed as aberrations from the norm of orthodoxy. Quite apart from the fact that "orthodoxy" is anachronistic in this context, to judge either as an aberration or an illicit activity is to miss the (multi)cultural-(multi) religious framework in which the dedicatory inscriptions at Kuntillet `Ajrud and the house shrine at Halif functioned. Simply stated, people in eighth c. BCE Judah tended to maintain a variety of religious practices, and at Kuntillet `Ajrud several cults simultaneously.
The modern study of religion helps clarify this archaeological picture: at the junctures of cultures a common response has been acceptance of various religious means as legitimate, and active participation in several simultaneously. For example, the Moghuls, upon entering India not only introduced Islam, but also adopted the cultural and religious expressions of India. One Scandinavian response to Christianity was to accept it while continuing the older ways of the indigenous religion. The two were perceived as complementary. These examples provide a way for understanding the Halif shrine and the Kuntillet `Ajrud religious expressions: the strategy of people at the historical juncture of cultures with differing religious traditions was often to adopt a multi-religious practice. This is not the same as joining parts of religious traditions to form a hybrid religion (syncretism); it is the practice of one religion for the benefits it provides in one arena of life, and of another for the benefits it yields in another arena.
Since there was room in religious sentiment of 8th c. Judah for several religious traditions side by side, the associated artifacts and practices must, likewise, be perceived from a positive perspective as another means humans have adapted for managing life: the Halif, Kuntillet `Ajrud, Jerusalem, etc. features are signifiers of a strategy of adaptation and interpretation of the world. Seen, then, as strategy, rather than as secretive undercutting of legitimate Yahwism, the archaeological remains afford a view of the ways people may have worked toward, e.g., peaceful coexistence; in this case, religious activity becomes quasi-political strategy, nonetheless positive strategy. The Halif materials, likewise, reflect strategy for meeting and comprehending a changing/changed world. Since religion functions to provide (among other things) a means of "making sense" of the human world, then the coexistence of Yahwism and other religious practices also functioned from that positive vantage.
