**Jeremy Smoak \* and William Schniedewind \***

Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

**\*** Correspondence: smoak@humnet.ucla.edu (J.S.); williams@humnet.ucla.edu (W.S.)

Received: 31 January 2019; Accepted: 13 March 2019; Published: 19 March 2019

**Abstract:** The discovery of early Hebrew inscriptions at the site of Kuntillet ޏAjrud has generated considerable discussion among scholars over the past few decades. The fact that the inscriptions contain explicitly religious themes led some to conclude that the site had a cultic function. In the present article, we challenge this assumption and argue that the inscriptions with religious themes are embedded in daily life as religion converges with scribal curriculum in ancient Israel. The inscriptions provide insights into conceptions of the Israelite pantheon, divine theophany, and theomachy in early Israelian religious ideology.

**Keywords:** Kuntillet ޏAjrud; theomachy; theophany; blessings; religion; Hebrew inscriptions; scribal curriculum

The inscriptions from Kuntillet ޏAjrud form what are perhaps the most significant textual data outside of the biblical literature for the religion of the northern kingdom of Israel during the early Iron Age. While the inscriptions are most often studied for what they reveal about the history of the goddess Asherah, they also provide glimpses into the pantheon of the northern kingdom. Since the inscriptions date to the late ninth and early eighth centuries, they provide a unique window into the pre-Deuteronomic religious landscape of Israel and Judah. Several of the inscriptions feature poetic descriptions of theophanies and theomachies involving El, Baal, and Yahweh. These poetic texts represent some of our earliest examples of Hebrew poetry from the early Iron Age and offer a unique window into the background of early biblical poetic compositions (i.e., Ex 15; Judg 5; Deut 33, etc.). And, the complete corpus of inscriptions attest to the breadth of literary genres that Israelian scribes learned as part of the scribal curriculum in the early Iron Age.

Significant discussion of the site has focused on its function. Following the initial publications, most studies (with some exceptions) interpreted the site as a religious site. These interpretations were particularly influenced by some of the artistic representations as well as the references to blessings in the name of "Yahweh and his <sup>ގ</sup>*asherah*". The complete publication of the site (Ah. ituv and Eshel 2015; Meshel 2012); however, now calls for the different approach to the site, its inscriptions, and its religion (e.g., Schniedewind 2014; Blum 2013). The approach that we take here differs from previous studies by arguing that the inscriptions attest to the role that religion played within the scribal curriculum of early Iron Age Israel and Judah. More than graffiti, the inscriptions were executed elegantly and reflect the religious landscape of scribes learning their trade. We contend that Kuntillet ޏAjrud was not a religious site. Instead, the inscriptions represent the embeddedness of religious ideas and practices within the Israelian scribal education. At this site we have a window into the way that religious discourse permeated multiple streams of Israelian administration from epistolary conventions and personal names to the composition of poetic texts. The knowledge of divine names, religious blessings, and poetic hymns about the gods not only had some role in daily life in ancient Israel, it also formed a crucial part of scribal curriculum and practice.

#### **1. The Interpretation of the Site**

Kuntillet ޏAjrud sits in the barren wilderness of the central Sinai. The site itself was first discovered in 1869 by Palmer (1871), who believed that he had found Gypsaria, an old Roman trading fort on the road between Eilat and Gaza. However, later archaeological investigations refuted his dating and identification. Still, Palmer correctly intuited that the site must have been a strategic location along the ancient trade route. This route from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is known today as the *Darb el-Ghazza* in Arabic, that is, "the Gaza Road". This route would have begun at the Red Sea near the site of ancient Eilat and/or Ezion-geber (Tell el-Kheleifeh), gone past Kuntillet ޏAjrud, then towards Kadesh Barnea (Tel-Qudeirat), and up to Gaza, where it reached the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, with respect to its location, it would have served as a caravanserai. The site of Kuntillet ޏAjrud itself lies just off the direct path of this route via the Wadi Quraiya, about 10 km to the west. The other major caravanserai along this route, Kadesh Barnea, also lies just off the direct route from Eilat to Gaza. In this respect, neither Kuntillet ޏAjrud nor Kadesh-Barnea lie on the most direct *Darb el-Ghazza* route, but they both provided convenient water sources along this trade route.

The site of Kuntillet ޏAjrud itself is situated on a solitary hill overlooking Wadi Quraiya (M.R. 094954) approximately 50 km south of Kadesh-barnea. The excavators of Kuntillet ޏAjrud found several shallow wells nearby that would have provided a perennial water source suitable for a small fortress, and the Arabic name actually means "hill of the water-well" (Meshel 2012, p. 3). Since the central Sinai receives less than three inches of rain per year, Kuntillet ޏAjrud provided one of the few water sources along the *Darb el-Ghazza*.

The function of the site has been hotly debated subject in the scholarly literature (see Hadley 1993, 2000, pp. 106–20; Dijkstra 2001, pp. 17–21; Mastin 2005, 2009; Singer-Avitz 2009, pp. 115–17; Hutton 2010, pp. 187–89; Na'aman 2011, pp. 314–19, 2013, pp. 40–45, 50–51; Schmidt 2013). Ze'ev Meshel's official publication of the site is subtitled, "An Iron Age II Religious Site" (Meshel 2012). However, the revised Hebrew edition of the site eliminates this reference to a religious site, and it also replaces the original chapter by Pirhiya Beck on the art that argued for a religious interpretation with a chapter by Tallay Ornan that interpreted the art within the context of the palace and state (see Ah. ituv and Eshel 2015). Indeed, the evidence for a specifically religious function in Meshel's original site report as well as in the secondary literature is unconvincing. While the site has inscriptions and drawings with religious themes, this does not necessitate a religious interpretation for the site as a whole. Rather, religion was part of the daily life of soldiers, scribes, and merchants that used the site.

To begin with, the religious interpretation of the site stems from the two well-known inscriptions that seem to mention "Yahweh and his ގ*asherah*". In addition, many of the drawings seem to have religious themes. Thus, the site is often deemed a religious site populated by priests (according to Meshel) despite the fact that, as pointed out by Judith Hadley, the site has no temple, shrine, or cultic objects (see Hadley 1993). Hadley's objections are cogent, and her view has been followed by some scholars (e.g., Schniedewind 2014, pp. 272–75). Nevertheless, many scholars have offered explanations for the lack of a shrine or cultic objects at a religious site. For example, Brian Schmidt focuses on the drawings and inscriptions in the bench room while admitting that the site has "None of the standard diagnostics—altars, conventional figurines, or zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, and composite vessels—indicative of cult were found in the bench room or in locus 13" (Schmidt 2016a, p. 21). Schmidt shares the view of Etan Ayalon and Zeev Meshel that non-ritual objects, such as a chalice, could have been used for ritual purposes (see Ayalon 2012, p. 271n8). Another approach is offered by Nadav Na'aman and Nurit Lissovsky, who invent a new cultic focus for the site without a shrine or cultic objects: "The point of departure for the discussion is the conjecture that a prominent sacred tree (or a sacred grove) grew in the vicinity of the site" (Na'aman and Lissovsky 2008, p. 198). The appeal to a sacred tree, of course, links with both the mention of the goddess Asherah in the inscriptions as well as Asherah imagery in the drawings on the site. There was water, so it does stand to reason that there were trees in the vicinity, but this is hardly a sound basis for a religious interpretation of the site.

The evidence for a religious function offered by Meshel's site report is also fragile. One argument is that an unusual amount of linen was found at the site, and this is supposedly related to the wardrobe of priests. In the chapter on textiles, Avigail Sheffer and Amalia Tidhar point out that according to Ezek 44:17–18, priests were required to wear linen in the temple as opposed to wool (Sheffer and Tidhar 2012, p. 307). However, this is a rather thin thread to bear the weight of a religious interpretation of the site. The authors seem to feel that finding linen garments would be surprising in the desert. Yet, as Susan Ackerman intuits, it is likely the arid climate for this trading post rather than the religious function that explains the preservation of linen (Ackerman 2008, p. 28). Moreover, it is not even clear whether the linen was worn, traded, or both. The problematic nature of this argument is confirmed by the acknowledgement that Meshel tucks away in an Appendix, namely that the presence of linen "has ceased to be unique since the discovery of similar textiles at Kadesh Barnea" (Sheffer and Tidhar 2012, p. 308). Meshel is thus forced to posit that there were also priests at Kadesh Barnea, citing 1 Chr 26:30–32. Of course, it is possible that priests or Levites traveled this trade route, but it is unlikely that they choose these sites specifically to establish as cultic sites. In addition, the presence of linen in the archaeological record or the possibility that there were trees near the site hardly makes a good case for interpreting the overall site as having a religious function.

The narrow religious interpretation of the site is centered in the interpretation of the inscriptions and drawings. Here, a religious interpretation seems to be required only when we do not sufficiently acknowledge that religion is part of daily life—not just something done at cultic shrines. With regard to the drawings, for example, Tallay Ornan has shown that all the Kuntillet ޏAjrud drawings have direct parallels in neo-Assyrian *palace* reliefs, not cultic shrines (Ornan 2015, 2016). As Ornan also points out, "The image of the king on the entrance pilaster of Building A define it as a royal edifice ... ", and Ornan concludes, "Like other state-supervised centres in the Negev [e.g., Arad], the outpost of Kuntillet ޏAjrud included a cultic architectural unit" (Ornan 2016, p. 22). In other words, there is no reason to associate them narrowly with a religious site. It is also worth pointing out that there are four inscriptions with the military title "Commander of the Fortress" (*sr´* ޏ*r*) at the site. Three of these inscriptions on located on storage jars and one on the plastered walls of the fortress (Ah. ituv et al. 2015, pp. 80–81, 113; Schniedewind 2019). Now that the entire corpus of inscriptions has been published, a contextual examination suggests that the pottery inscriptions are mostly ephemeral texts related to a trading post or elementary scribal exercises likely composed by military scribes (Schniedewind 2014). In sum, the inscriptions and art nicely complement the architecture of the site, which looks like a typical desert fortress that built for the use of the Israelian state. The supposed unique character of the site likely more reflects its builders—namely, the Israelian state—rather than any unique religious character.

Finally, the identity of the occupants of the fortress is itself a matter of some discussion and begs the question as to whose religion the site should be related. The fortress is usually assumed to be Israelian based on the personal names that use the distinctively Israelian *-yaw* theophoric as well as the references to "Yahweh of Samaria" (Ah. ituv 2014, p. 31). Although the location of the site within the central Sinai would normally point to a Judean hegemony, the pottery excavated at the site also points strongly to the Israelian heritage of its occupants (see Ayalon 2012). In this respect, the Israelian personal names and the references to "Yahweh of Samaria" dovetails nicely with the material culture. With regard to the script, Ziony Zevit correctly points out that the "Phoenician" script likely reflects an early stage in the development of a Hebrew national script (Zevit 2001, p. 377–78). Thus, the label "Phoenician" is anachronistic, because distinctively Hebrew script was only beginning to emerge during the occupation of the site in the late ninth and early eight century BCE. In the final report, Meshel follows the scholarly consensus that the script may be Phoenician, but linguistic features like spelling and morphology are Hebrew (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 122). Zevit's hypothesis also highlights the problem with describing the "Hebrew" national script as a unified script. We must allow that the Israelian and Judean scripts may have had their own separate histories, with the Israelian script retaining its connection with the Phoenician coast longer than the Judean script. At this point, the

evidence is insufficient, but Kuntillet ޏAjrud suggests some independence in the development of the Israelian script. This observation also underscores the importance of not conflating Israelian and Judean religion. Kuntillet ޏAjrud is a site that gives evidence of Israelian religion during the Iron IIB period (ca. 840–721 BCE).
