8.1.4. The Lack (or Extreme Rarity) of Burials

As already noted, hardly any Iron Age burials are known in the highlands prior to the 8th century BCE, an issue discussed at length by Kletter (2002) and myself (Faust 2004; see also Tappy 1995, pp. 65–66; Ilan 1997a, p. 385; 1997b, p. 220; Barkay 1994, p. 160, note 211; Dever 2003; Suriano 2018, pp. 59–60). This stands in sharp contrast to the Late Bronze Age in all parts of the country (highlands and lowlands; e.g., Gonen 1992a; Gonen 1992b, pp. 240–45), and to the Iron Age I in the lowlands (Bloch-Smith 1992; Kletter 2002; see also Lehmann and Varoner 2018). Tombs and burials could form an important channel for the transmission of messages of social difference and status, and they clearly served this purpose in the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Bunimovitz 1995, p. 326). While there was a variety of burials in Late Bronze Age Canaan, which could result from several reasons of which social hierarchy is but one, the Iron I lacks even the "multiple cave burials" that characterized the highland throughout most of the second millennium BCE (Gonen 1992b, p. 245), therefore breaking a continuity that prevailed through wide segments of Canaanite society for almost 800 years (Bunimovitz 1995, p. 331). Even if a few Iron I burials are identified in the highlands (Bloch-Smith 2004; see also Livingstone 2002), the general pattern is striking: during the Late Bronze Age the highlands were only sparsely settled but many tombs are known (Gonen 1992a; 1992b, p. 240–45; Eisenstadt et al. 2004; Peleg and Eisenstadt 2004; Peleg 2004), while during most of the Iron Age the area was filled with settlements, but such burials are practically absent (until the appearance of the Judahite tomb in the late 8th century BCE; Faust and Bunimovitz 2008, and many references). This means that in the kingdoms of Israel the tradition of burying only in simple inhumations prevailed until the destruction of the kingdom in the 8th century BCE. Notably, the egalitarian ethos was maintained even in the Judahite tomb, by the equal treatment accorded to all the dead (e.g., Barkay 1999, p. 97).25

Clearly, most individuals during this period were buried in simple inhumations (Faust 2004), but the lack of any observable burials is a clear reflection of an egalitarian ideology (not reality!), and exhibits a

<sup>24</sup> Notably, this trait is very noticeable already in the Iron Age I, when it stands in contrast to the reality in the lowlands regions at the time (Faust 2006a), as well as to the situation during the closing phase of the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Franken and London 1995).

<sup>25</sup> It is possible that the few similar tombs that were unearthed in the territories of the kingdom of Israel suggest that the tombs began to appear in the kingdom's last days, in tandem with the development of the Judahite tomb, only that the Assyrian conquests prevented its development and wider acceptance in this polity. It is more likely, however, that most such tombs in the territories of the kingdom of Israel are related to activities of Judahites in these territories during the period of Assyrian rule or even after its collapse. One way or the other, no such burials were apparently used in the kingdom of Israel during most of its existence.

sharp contrast to Late Bronze Age Canaanite traditions. As burials have an important social role, they are a chief vehicle through which such an ideology can be expressed and channeled.26

### 8.1.5. The Four-Room House

As claimed elsewhere (Bunimovitz and Faust 2002, 2003; Faust and Bunimovitz 2003, 2014), an egalitarian ideology is reflected in the plan of the four-room house. This can be seen most clearly in an analysis of movement within this house. The four-room plan enables easy access to every room, and is lacking any hierarchy in the structuring of the rooms; unlike other dwellings (cf., Gilboa et al. 2014), there are hardly any movement restrictions, and once in the central room, one can go directly to the desired space. Again, this seems to reflect an ideology of egalitarianism.

#### *8.2. Israel's Ethos and Israelite Temples*

This is not the place to discuss any of these traits in details, as each of them deserves an article of its own (see also Faust 2004, 2006a, 2011; Faust and Bunimovitz 2014), but the important thing is that they all attest to the same phenomenon—that the Israelite population had an ideology of simplicity and egalitarianism (such accordance between various facets of culture is expected; see Deetz 1996; David et al. 1988, p. 378; Hodder and Hutson 2003). Thus, while society was stratified, the ideology influenced behavior in many ways that are reflected in the finds. No society is truly egalitarian, and the Israelite society was clearly not, especially during the Iron Age II (the period of the Monarchy). The ideology, however, influenced many traits, as we have seen here, and although reality was different and stratification can clearly be seen in many settlements (even if not in all, and see detailed discussion in Faust 2012), the ethos had a major influence on Israel's material culture and the extreme rarity of temples was possibly one of them. As noted above, it is possible that rarity of temples should also be examined within a more religious context, and while this question is beyond the scope of the present paper it is clear that the discussed ethos at least enabled the Israelite society accept the scarcity of temples, although it run counter to the practice in most other ancient Near Eastern societies.

While the ethos had earlier "origins" (Faust 2015), it was adopted as a major factor in Israel's self-identification in the Iron I, when society was fairly simple and the ethos was more in line with reality (although society was not egalitarian even at this time). Still, the ethos continued to be a dominant feature in Israel's self-perception also in the Iron II, and although society became more and more stratified, various material traits betray the existence of this ethos. The rarity of temples was just another reflection of this ideology, and we should attempt to understand the "local" reasons for the existence of each of the few temples that did exist, rather than assume that they are representatives. It is likely that the mere existence of this ethos made it easier, at a later stage, for society to accept the idea of a centralized cult. For our purpose, sufficient it is to note that it is likely that the ideology of egalitarianism and simplicity was one of the reasons for the scarcity of temples in Iron II Israel and Judah or, in the least, it allowed its wide-scale acceptance.

#### **9. Summary and Conclusions**

Temples have an important role in many periods and societies, and are therefore abundant in many cultures, dominating the cultural and even the built landscape of many regions. Still, despite the exposure of large areas—sometimes almost complete settlements—hardly any Iron II Israelite buildings devoted to cultic activity were unearthed by archaeologists.

Given the many excavations and the large exposure of Iron II settlements in Israel and Judah—exposure that greatly exceeds that of other periods and regions—this rarity seems to be

<sup>26</sup> For examples where burials reflect an egalitarian ethos, although the society is highly stratified, see Metcalf and Huntington (1991, p. 134) regarding Saudi Arabia, and Parker Pearson (1982) regarding England. For a detailed discussion, see (Faust 2004); forthcoming, and references.

a significant aspect of Israelite religion. No matter how the Israelites practiced their religion, the archaeological evidence suggests that it was not usually performed in temples or buildings erected for cultic purposes. The observation that in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah built temples were rare is an important step in understanding the religious practices within those polities.

It is possible that the causes for the rarity of temples are connected to the Israelite ethos of simplicity and egalitarianism and the associated worldviews. But even if other reasons are responsible for the phenomenon, the discussed ethos is at least responsible for the acceptance of this unique type of religious expression among the Israelites. This ideology is expressed in a variety of texts, as well as in the lack (or, in the likely event that such will be discovered, in the extreme rarity) of royal inscriptions, in the extreme rarity of decoration on pottery vessels, in the extreme rarity of imported pottery, in the spatial configuration of the four-room house, and more. It is not surprising that temples, whose mere existence contradict this ideology, are also extremely rare, in accordance with this ethos. One way or the other, we must acknowledge that unlike its neighbors, Israelite cult was only rarely practiced in temples. The next step should be to study the settings in which the cult was actually practiced, both within the household (a topic that does receive some scholarly attention) and outside of it.

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


Albright, William F. 1961. *The Archaeology of Palestine*. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Albright, William F. 1993. Beit Mirsim, Tell. In *The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land*. Edited by Ephraim Stern. New York: Simon and Schuster, vol. 1, pp. 177–80.


*Religions* **2019**, *10*, 106


Hodder, Ian, and Scott Hutson. 2003. *Reading the Past*, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University.


Kelso, James L. 1968. *The Excavations of Bethel (1934–1960)*. AASOR 39. Cambridge: ASOR.


Markoe, Glenn E. 2000. *Phoenicians*. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California.


Niditch, Susan. 1997. *Ancient Israelite Religion*. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Noel-Hume, Ivor. 1974. *A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America*. New York: Knopf.


Shapira, Amnon. 2009. *Democratic Values in the Hebrew Bible*. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (In Hebrew)


Zevit, Ziony. 2001. *The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches*. London and New York: Continuum.

Zorn, Jeffrey. 1993a. Tell en- Nasbeh. In *The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land*. Edited by Ephraim Stern. New York: Simon and Schuster, vol. 3, pp. 1098–102.

Zorn, Jeffrey. 1993b. Tell en-Nasbeh: A Re-Evaluation of the Architecture and Stratigraphy of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age and Later Periods. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Berekely, CA, USA.

Zwickel, Wolfgang. 1994. *Der Templkult in Kanaan und Israel (FAT 10)*. Tubingen: J.C.B Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

© 2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
