**5. To Which Gods?**

To which deities these temples and cult sites were dedicated remains unclear. Except for Deir Alla, no inscriptions mentioning a god have been found, nor any statues that could be identified with known deities.

The Balaam inscription at Deir Alla (Section 3.1) mentions an interesting combination of gods: El, Shagar, the Shadday gods and Ashtar. El was the supreme deity of the Canaanite pantheon, while Ashtar is probably the male counterpart of the female Ashtarte. Shagar, the acting deity in this story, is a goddess not known in the Canaanite or Phoenician pantheon. The Bible mentions 'the shagar of thy cattle and the ashtarot of thy sheep' (Deut. 7:13, 28:4, 18, 51). This is usually translated as 'the fruit of thy cattle and the flocks of thy sheep'. With this translation, of shagar as 'fruit' and ashtarot as 'flocks', the translators don't seem to do justice to the original text. Apparently, Shagar and Ashtarte were goddesses guarding the fertility of the flocks, and were well known in ancient Israel. The Shadday-gods seem to represent a particular group of gods. In the Bible, El Shadday is one of the names of the god of Israel.

The temple of Ataruz (Section 3.4) may have been dedicated to the main deity of Moab, Kemosh. The excavator, however, interprets the building as a temple dedicated to the god of Israel, JHWH. No solid proof is available for either position.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Several cult places have been excavated in the area east of the river Jordan, from large temples to smaller shrines to open-air complexes. The architectures and inventories of these sites show a wide variety, with stone-built altars, standing stones possibly representing deities, and the deposition of votive objects in pits and on benches. Meat offerings may have been presented next to libations and the burning of aromatics. The shrines may have been locally used or may have served a wider region. Some temples were undoubtedly dedicated to the main state deities Milkom, Kemosh, and Qos, or the god of Israel, JHWH, while smaller shrines seem to be related to other gods, such as the cult room at Deir Alla where Shagar is mentioned.

Although not all cult sites have as yet been fully published, they are an important addition to the corpus of cult places known from the areas west of the river Jordan.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

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

#### **References**


*at the University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, 28–30 May 2010*. Edited by Jens Kamlah. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 159–202.


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

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