*3.2. Pella*

Some 30 km north of Deir Alla and on the edge of the highlands lies Pella, a large site consisting of two tells and a Roman/Byzantine city located between the tells. In recent years, a temple complex has been excavated here, with six superimposed temples, the earliest one from the Middle Bronze Age I, ca. 1900 BC (Bourke 2004, 2012).

The uppermost temple was built ca. 950 BC. It is much smaller (ca. 12 × 8 m) than its Bronze Age predecessors and built in a 'bent-axis' design (Figure 2). It consists of a central room with benches around its north and west sides and what appears to be a stepped podium for the display of votive objects. This room was found empty except for several red-slipped plates. The smaller northern room was filled with baskets of lentils and bags of grain burnt in the final destruction which took place around 800 BC. This destruction may be the result of the same earthquake that destroyed Deir Alla, although the excavator does not exclude "a human agency in the destruction" (Bourke 2012, p. 191).

**Figure 2.** The uppermost temple at Pella (Courtesy Stephen Bourke).

To the east of the room is an open courtyard with several pits and a stone-built altar. Many objects were recovered from these 'votive offering pits' and from the destruction debris besides the altar. These include ring kernoi, petal-garlanded chalices, fragments from several square stands, a model shrine with bulls-head protomes, incense cups and fragments of at least one large cauldron with ceramic bulls-head protomes. Not many figurines were found, but these include a fragment of an Ashdoda figurine and a male head wearing a polos headgear.

A variety of basalt and limestone vessels, braziers, and scoops were among the non-ceramic finds. Household vessels were abundant, such as large storage jars, cooking pots and bowls. According to the excavator, this may indicate a less strict division between sacred and profane than in the earlier temples or a remarkable change in offering rituals (Bourke 2012, p. 190). Burnt offering seems to have taken place in the courtyard, as many pits contained animal bones, mostly of young sheep and goat.

This building can be identified confidently as cultic because of the continuity with the earlier Bronze Age temples, the presence of special pottery vessels such as the kernoi, chalices and model shrines, and the altar and favissae in the courtyard. To which deity the temple was dedicated remains a mystery, however. Bourke (2012, p. 191) tentatively connects this temple with a change in religious beliefs and practices, possibly connected with the arrival of Aegean-type people in the Jordan valley. His arguments are based on parallels with the Iron Age II Level X temple at Tell el-Qasile and the finds of the incomplete Ashdoda figurine and the scoops, as these objects are supposed to have an Aegean origin.
