A Moabite sanctuary at Khirbat Ataruz, Jordan: stratigraphy, findings, and archaeological implications

Abstract

The excavations of Khirbat Ataruz in central Jordan revealed a small cult building, with a portable stone altar with Moabite inscriptions on the body. This article concentrates on the stratigraphy and the analysis of building and vessel finds, most published here for the first time, associated with the inscription and sanctuary room. The building, dated to the mid/late 9th–early 8th centuries BCE, was constructed directly on top of earlier architecture, with substantive modification that is connected to the Iron IIA temple complex at the acropolis. This construction activity might relate to the story of a Moabite war against the ancient city of Ataroth mentioned in the Mesha Stele. Accordingly, the study of stratigraphic, ceramic and architectural evidence linked to the sanctuary and inscription offers a rare possibility to enhance our understanding of historical and archaeological issues related to the Moabites and the Mesha Stele.

Keywords:

• Ataruz
• cult building
• Mesha stele
• Moabites
• Iron Age

Notes

1 For the past decades, the conventional chronology of Iron Age IIA (10th century BCE) has undergone substantive revision and debate following the publication of the pottery from Jezreel. In the modified conventional sequence, the Iron IIA period dates from 980 to 830 BCE (Lee et al. 2013; Mazar 1997; 2005; 2011; Mazar and Bronk Ramsey 2008), even though Finkelstein and others (Finkelstein 1996; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2011) mark the beginning of the 8th century BCE as the end of the period. Further, Herzog and Singer-Avitz (2006) have demonstrated that the Iron IIA period can be broken down into an early and a late phase. The chronology of Iron IIA is beyond the immediate scope of this paper. The present paper, following the modified chronology, divides Iron IIA into two parts and tentatively dates the early and late phases to 10th century BCE and early–mid 9th century BCE.

2 In this paper, several abbreviations were adopted for convenience in designating architectural features: FP for field phase, B for building, I for installation, R for room, S for alley/street, W for wall, and Loc for locus.

3 FP A4–A2 are pertinent to the late Hellenistic, early Islamic, and mid Islamic, while FP A1 corresponds to the top soil stratum.

4 Herr (2012: 99–100, 109–11, 148–50) contends that the upright stance of this type of cooking pot is pertinent to early Iron II, but the horizontal stance of similar cooking pots should be aligned with late Iron II or the transition to the Persian period. This late form reportedly appears in large quantities at Hesban 16 (Herr 2012: fig. 2.37:1) and ‘Umayri (Berge and Willis 2002: figs 5.13:15, 5.21:5; Clark 2014: fig. 4.55:8–9; Lawlor 2000: figs 3.30:11, 3.33:17; 2014: fig. 3.39:2; Low 2000: fig. 6.16:20). To date Ataruz has produced only a couple of such examples, all from a domestic structure in Field G, dated to the 8th–7th centuries BCE.

5 Only one diagnostic sherd (drawing not presented) was found from the soil layer associated with FP E6. It seems to be part of an early Iron II jar that has a medium high neck and a straight, elongated rim. The inner face of the rim is stepped downward. Parallels might be located at Gezer IXB (Gitin 1990: pl. 5:3), Halif 6D (Cole 2015: pl. 5:24), Taanach IIA–IIB (Rast 1978: figs 20:2, 34:5), and Ashdod X (Ben-Shlomo 2005: fig. 3.71:2), all ascribed to 11th–early 9th centuries BCE.

6 This form of rim is also claimed to appear in the later assemblage at Iron II at ‘Umayri (Clark 2014: fig. 4.39:4). The exact date of this example, however, is as yet unclear because it was located in a soil locus between Iron I and mid–late Iron II strata. A limited number of Iron II published pottery from the locus also makes it hard to date the example with certainty.

7 Singer-Avitz (2018: 667; fig. 5:1, 4) connects this form of jar rim only to the northern sites of the Israelite kingdom; it has no southern parallels.

8 This type of painted ware appears to be absent, or at least limited in frequency, in FP E4c. The implication of this scarcity is as yet uncertain, but it is not impossible that it may be related to either the arrival of a new population group at Ataruz from the east or the introduction of a new pottery tradition into the site during the period of FP E4b.

9 In her study of Moabite sanctuaries, Dolan (2009) also considered Dhiban and Balua for comparison, but the evidence from these sites is, as yet, too scanty to confirm that temples or cultic rooms were found at either of these sites.

10 One may suggest that the WT-13 building follows a long-room plan. Yet, this is unlikely because no central cultic installations or architectural remains, other than water channels, have been noticed on the western section of the building, opposite the shrine entrance. The majority of cultic objects seemingly come from this section of the building, which implies that it was mostly used for the storage or exhibition of cultic paraphernalia (Daviau 2017: fig. 3.26).

11 My discussion is delimited to the public cult remains pertinent to Types V–VII. Examples of domestic or industrial cultic rooms and corners include G8005 Room at Halif (Schmitt 2012: 99–102), House 64 of Sa’idiyeh VII (Pritchard 1985: figs 5 and 177), Building 102 of Jawa VIII (Daviau et al. 2003: Schmitt 2012: 179–81), Room LA42K/43K of Hammam (Kobs et al. 2011: 612), House 440 of Far’ah VIIb (Chambon 1984: 136; pls 66.2, 78:4), House of Bullae at Jerusalem (Shiloh 1984), and Locus 12 of Amal III (Levy and Edelstein 1972: pl. 19). See Schmitt (2012) for the comprehensive list of non-public cultic remains.

12 In terms of architectural typology, Lachish 49 is reminiscent of Shrine 300 of Qasile XI–X (Mazar 1980: 27–28; figs 6 and 9) and the Iron I temple at Ai (Marquet-Krause 1949: pl. XVVII; Zevit 2001: 153–56). These Iron I Type V temples were built according to a broad-house temple template and had a raised platform and benches along the interior walls. All these features are similar to those found in Lachish Building 49. Yet, the Ai shrine is estimated to be rather larger in size than Building 49 at Lachish and Shrine 300 at Qasile.

13 This bent-axis design is also visible in the Iron I Philistine temple of Qasile X (temple 131; Mazar 1980: fig. 13).

14 Horvat Qitmit is very much reminiscent of ‘En Hazeva in terms of chronology and cultic objects (Ben-Arieh 2011; Cohen and Yisrael 2015; 2016). The abundance of cultic vessels at ‘En Hazeva IV testifies to the potential existence of an Edomite shrine at the site in the 7th–6th centuries BCE, but its architectural plan is unknown at this point as all the vessels were discovered in a pit, or favissa, dug into the earlier Stratum V fortress.

15 Ashdod Building 1010 would be of interest because it has a cult room of hexagon shape that was potentially square-roomed in original design, but modified when a long auxiliary room was added onto its north-west corner (Dothan and Freedman 1967: pl. 7). The cult room was accessed from the back, around the altar at the centre of the room, through a platform, or raised walk, connected with the entrance at the south-eastern corner. The rear entry was rare in Iron II cult places and reminiscent of the Sanctuary that was also entered from the back door on the south-east.

16 A morphological approach to Levant cultic buildings was proposed by Wright (1971) who grouped temple plans into six types: long-room; broad-room; bent-axis; (centralized) square; courtyard format; and general high place. Mierse (2012: 159) pointed out that the morphological approach would be useful in the study of ancient religion because building plans can explain how Iron II architects perceived spatial relations and manipulated and modified space. Moreover, according to Mazar (1992), the sudden appearance of a different temple plan at a site can be indicative of the arrival of a new population group at the site. In this sense, notice that the use of the square-room template for the Sanctuary was something new at Ataruz, a plan not previously found in connection with the Iron IIA temple at the acropolis (Ji 2011; 2012). It may imply the arrival of a new group of people, with a different religious tradition, at the site during the late 9th century BCE.

17 Temple 200 possibly fits into Type V-2 or V-5/6 depending on whether or not it is perceived as making up one building unit with Shrine 300 at the rear side of the temple (Mazar 1980: 27, fig. 6).

18 For the source of Moabite square sanctuaries, one may look at the square centralized temples of the Late Bronze period, such as the temple of the storm god at Carchemish, the Amman airport temple, and the temple at Mount Gerizim. Mierse (2012: 187–88), however, correctly points out that this connection is dubious because these earlier centralized forms are quite different from the later non-centralized square ones in terms of architectural essence and the cultic nature of the sites.

19 The Ekron and Mudayna corpora are comprised of various forms of altars, while those from Megiddo, Beer Sheba, Dan, Shechem, Gezer and Arad seem to be pretty homogenous with regards to typology. Ekron and Mudayna ath-Thamad were both industrial centres with olive and/or textile production, which would have drawn diverse group of people with different religious traditions. The diversity in small altars from Ekron and Mudayna ath-Thamad might be the result of frequent human migration from nearby regions and cities, to the industrial centres in search of labour and economic wealth.

20 Steiner (2009) mentions the presence of CP-6 cooking pots at Deir Alla and Tall Mazar in the Jordan Valley: they are now also reported from Safut on the trade route that connected northern Moab with the Jordan Valley (O. Chesnut pers. comm.). These findings raise the possibility of Moabite presence in the Jordan Valley, and/or the existence of itinerant Moabite potters travelling along the trade route, which may have made it possible for the Moabites to interact with the Philistines from the coast or in the Jordan Valley thereby learning about Philistine- or Egyptian-style cult buildings in those regions.

21 The material of the Beer Sheba altar is not specified in the final report (Ziffer 2016: 1236). Two altars from Jerusalem and Malhata are reportedly of basalt stone, which look like the only examples from stratified Iron II contexts (De Groot and Bernick-Greenberg 2012: 347, fig. 10.2:3; Freud and Reshef 2015: 590, fig. 12.1.2:5). Two basalt altars from Dan were found on the surface (Biran 1981: pl. 19:3).

22 Excavations of the Temple also yielded several regular, non-stand-type, cup-and-saucers similar to those from the aforementioned sites, positing that the two types of cup-and-saucers were concurrently in use at the Ataruz Temple during the Temple Period II.

23 This also stands for Iron IIB–IIC buildings at Horvat Qitmit and Damiyah, those associated with the Edomites and probably Ammonites, respectively. Human and animal figurines are reportedly absent in the Pella Iron IIA temple.

24 The cone-head figurine from Hazor temple 3283 is made of bronze and dated to the early 10th century BCE (Yadin et al. 1961). Further, it has come from a foundation deposit or a favissa, inside a jug buried beneath the floor. Similarly, excavations of the Moza temple yielded male, horse, and horse-rider figurines, but they were found near a refuse pit at the temple courtyard (Kisilevitz 2015).