Four-horned altars, such as this reconstructed one from Beersheba, have been found throughout Iron Age Israel, but is it the orthodox one according to the Biblical text? What do Iron Age altars tell us about Biblical sacrifices and worship in ancient Israelite religion? Photo: Tamarah/Wikimedia Commons.

The Bible contains many detailed sections regarding worship and the proper ways in which to conduct worship. These pronouncements go beyond instructions on how to worship both in [...]

Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August September/October 2019

In the July/August/September/October issue of BAR, Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott writes about Tell Halifa and its focus on the study of the daily lives of the ancient Israelites.  According to Dr. Shafer-Elliott, the unearthing of a grinding installation suggests that the primary purpose of the living space at one of the eighth-century four-room houses excavated– A8 House– was food production: grinding grain into flour.

In 2015 , Dr. Shafer-Elliott [...]

THE PYRAMID OF PHARAOH DJOSER (27th century B.C.E.), in Saqqara, was the first built in stone. Rooted in the tradition of monumental architecture built with mudbricks and light materials, Djoser’s pyramid complex exhibits many features developed for those materials, only “translated” into stone. This includes the pyramid itself, which consists of multiple mastabas (bench-shaped structures) piled on top of each other; hence the nickname, the Step Pyramid. Photo: Xiquinhosilva; CC BY-NC-SA.

Contrary [...]

On this stela from El-Amarna, Egyptian King Akhenaten is seen with his wife Nefertiti and their daughters bearing offerings to the sun-disk Aten.

Defying centuries of traditional worship of the Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten decreed during his reign in the mid-14th century B.C.E. that his subjects were to worship only one god: the sun-disk Aten. Akhenaten is sometimes called the world’s first monotheist. Did his monotheism later influence [...]