*3.4. Ataruz*

At Khirbat Ataruz in ancient Moab, a large temple complex has been excavated from 2000 onwards. The first phase of this building consisted of a main room with a niche with a pedestal-like installation and a platform. In the courtyards around the building a possible 'high place' and an altar were found (Ji 2012).

In the next and final phase II, the complex consisted of a multi-chambered building with at least three parallel long rooms fronting a courtyard (Figure 4). The main room (8.5 × 11 m) had a large unhewn stone slab standing upon a pedestal built in the niche and contained a variety of objects, among which were a large pottery bull, jars decorated with bulls heads and a fenestrated altar with two male figures. The other rooms featured a square stone-built hearth of 2 × 2 m in one room and two stone-built platforms in the other. All in all, "hundreds of cultic objects" have been retrieved from the temple complex (Ji 2012, p. 210). According to the excavator, the principal deity is symbolized by the standing stone in the main sanctuary room and by the bull figurine; which deity this is remains a question mark (Ji 2012, p. 218).

**Figure 4.** Plan of phase II building at Khirbat Ataruz (Courtesy Chang-Ho Ji).

The stone pedestal of an incense altar with an inscription was recently discovered in one of the smaller courtyards. The text has not yet been published, but Rollston writes on his web blog that it is written in the Moabite language and he dates the writing 'comfortably' in the 9th century BC on paleographic grounds.<sup>2</sup>

The excavator dates both phases to the end of Iron Age I and the beginning of Iron Age II, late 10th to early 8th centuries BC (Ji 2011, 2012). The site was destroyed by fire. Very little pottery has been published so far, which hinders a more precise dating of the complex.

After the fire that destroyed this building complex, the town was rebuilt and the eastern side of the large courtyard continued to be used for cultic activities in Iron IIB–C (7th century BC), but on a much smaller scale, according to the excavators (Ji and Bates 2014, p. 51). Not much information is as yet available on this phase III. This new town was destroyed at the end of Iron IIC.

The architecture of the building at Ataruz in phases I and II and the overwhelming number of special vessels leave no room for doubt that this is a cultic building, a large temple. It closely resembles the temple at Arad in Israel, also dating to the Iron IIB. Both have more or less the same dimensions, they have stone-built platforms, large stone altars for offering and niches. Whether the temple at Ataruz was dedicated to Jahweh or Kemosh or both is a matter of debate. Cultic activities seem to have continued in some form into the later Iron Age II (phase III).
