Ancient Israelite Stone Pillars, Altars, and Lamps

Stone Pillars (Matsevot)

Many sanctuaries featured stone pillars (matsevot, singular matsevah) as a focus of worship. Apparently, these symbolized a deity or served as its residence, and sacrifices were offered to them. Such sacred pillars are mentioned frequently in the Bible; Jacob, for example, erected one for YHWH at Bethel (Genesis 28:18–22). Biblical law prohibits them as an idolatrous practice (e.g., Deuteronomy 12:3; 16:22), perhaps because the distinction between pillars to YHWH and to other deities was difficult to maintain. Archaeologists have found pillars both at Israelite sites (e.g., the sanctuary at Arad) and at non-Israelite ones, showing that the biblical prohibitions against them were not accepted or known everywhere.

Altars and Offering Stands

Altars were platforms on which offerings were rendered to a deity. The Bible mentions large altars for animal sacrifices and small ones for incense offerings. Such altars, usually made of stone (unlike the altars of metal-plated wood prescribed in Exodus 27:1–8 and 30:1–5), have been found by archaeologists. Some had hornlike projections rising from their corners, like those prescribed in Exodus. It is assumed that the small altars were used for incense, and sometimes for other substances (altars found in the Arad sanctuary had a residue of fat on them). Other types of small ritual stands, typically hollow and cylindrical or conical, have been found at sanctuaries and domestic sites. They were made of pottery or, less often, stone or metal, and were used to hold incense or other types of offerings, such as liquid for libations, vegetables, or grain. Some had a bowl on top to hold the offering, and some were decorated with architectural motifs and vegetal, animal, or anthropomorphic images. Some stands and altars from sites in northern Israel, where a Canaanite population remained, included iconography that may reflect surviving Canaanite religious and artistic traditions, perhaps combined with Israelite Yahwistic symbolism.

Ceramic Containers

Containers, particularly ceramic containers, are ubiquitous at archaeological sites. A wide variety of ceramic containers were used in Israel, including bowls, bottles, decanters, juglets, cooking pots, and large storage jars (pithoi). Apart from cooking pots and most storage jars, Israelite pottery was typically decorated very simply with “slip”—a thin mixture of clay (usually red) and water—and burnished. It rarely had painted decoration like the pottery of Israel’s neighbors in Philistia, Phoenicia, and Transjordan. Pottery containers are datable by their different shapes and styles, which change over time; this makes them an indispensable tool for dating the archaeological finds associated with them. Some containers were used to hold offerings. Some had inscriptions indicating that the container, or its contents, was sacred.

Lamps

The most common type of lamp was a ceramic saucer with a pinched spout for the wick (examples may be seen among the ceramic containers in Assemblage of Containers from Ketef Hinnom). From sacral contexts there are some seven-spouted lamps with high pedestals, such as one from the sanctuary at Tel Dan. The Bible mentions an elaborate seven-branched golden lampstand in the Tabernacle and ten lampstands in Solomon’s Temple (Exodus 25:31–35; 1 Kings 7:49). No excavated lampstands from the biblical period resemble the description given there. For a postbiblical artistic depiction of it, see Lampstand (Menorah) Depiction from Roman Period Jerusalem.