**Irit Ziffer**

MUSA, Eretz Israel Museum Tel Aviv, 2 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6997501, Israel; irit.ziffer@gmail.com

Received: 6 January 2019; Accepted: 12 February 2019; Published: 25 February 2019

**Abstract:** The present article focuses on the imagery of the shrine model found at Tell el-FarȆah North, Biblical Tirzah, seat of the ruling dynasty of the Northern Kingdom in the early days of the Israelite monarchy. It examines the multiplicity of connotations, changeability and ambiguity in the representation of the lunar crescent image in the figurative language of the ancient Near East. Finally, the article offers a reconstruction of the model's place within the cult of the late 10th–early 9th century BCE.

**Keywords:** Tell el-FarȆah North; shrine model; moon; rain; womb; mercy; household religion

The present article seeks to examine the multiplicity of connotations, changeability and ambiguity in the representation of the crescent moon image in the ancient Near East in visuals and texts. My point of departure is the shrine model found at Tell el-FarȆah North, Biblical Tirzah, seat of the ruling dynasty of the Northern Kingdom in the early days of the Israelite monarchy. I shall look into the various qualities of the moon crescent and the multi-level figurative language it carried, and attempt a possible reconstruction of how the imagery was understood in its time.

The model under discussion (Figure 1) is a hand-built cubical house-shaped structure with a large front opening and a single niche, representing a shrine. The rectangular opening with a grooved threshold is flanked by two fluted pillars with applied capitals of inward curling volutes topped by buds. The fronton bears an applied crescent shape whose horns terminate in punctured pellets. The crescent form is filled with four columns delineated by incised lines, holding four (two outer columns), five and six punctures. Three dots punctured vertically flank the crescent shape. Incised zigzags lines appear above the capital volutes, the junctures of their lines emphasized by punctures.

**Figure 1.** Tell el-FarȆah shrine model (Keel and Uehlinger 1992: Figure 188a).

The shrine model, kept in the Louvre, Paris (AO 2689), was retrieved from pit 241 (therefore stratigraphic context not secure) dug in relation to house 149B near the city gate in stratum VIIb. Stratum VIIb is dated to the Late Iron IIA, late 10th–early 9th century BCE, after Omri had already moved the capital to Samaria (Kleiman 2018 and previous literature therein). A standing stone and a basin found near the city gate of testify to cultic activities that took place there (Chambon 1984, pp. 38, 77–78, Plan B; Bernett and Keel 1998, pp. 53–59). Fragments of two additional shrine models were unearthed at the site. One is a painted round column with drooping petals. The other, found on the floor of house 440, stratum VIIb, comprising the lower left corner of an architectural model similar to the complete shrine, seems to have been imported to Tell el-FarȆah from a distant workshop located in Phoenicia, according to petrographic analysis, or in Northern Israel, perhaps the vicinity of Tel Dan, according to Neutron Activation Analysis results (Muller 2002, pp. 53–54; Katz 2016, pp. 43–44, 60). Such shrine models were uncovered in tombs, private houses, temples and shrines as well as in temple-related context (Daviau 2008; Berkheij-Dol 2012: Appendix B; Kletter 2015). In the domestic context, they served as prophylactic amulets protecting the family and promoting procreation and the abundance of the home and were used in household ritual activity (Mazar 2016, pp. 32e–35e, 52– 54). They kept the real shrines and real images alive and kindled the devotion of those who possessed or dedicated them (van der Toorn 1999, p. 94; van der Toorn 2002, pp. 58–59).

Presumably, the niche, referring to the inner room in the real temple, the Holy of Holies, housed a figurine of a deity, its attribute animal or a scared emblem. Perhaps the niche was left empty, evoking rather than displaying the divine figure (Kletter 2015, p. 75).
