Bible Synapse
Kuntillet Ajrud
Site · c. 800 BC · Israel and Judah · also called Horvat Teman, Yahweh and his Asherah inscriptions
See it on the map and timeline- Date
- c. 800 BC (the buildings and their inscriptions)
- Found
- Kuntillet Ajrud, north-east Sinai, Egypt, 1975. Excavated in 1975–1976 by Ze’ev Meshel of Tel Aviv University; the final report appeared in 2012. The finds were returned to Egypt under the 1979 peace treaty.
- Now
- At the site, North Sinai, Egypt
- Passages
- Deuteronomy 16:21, 1 Kings 16:33, 1 Kings 18:19, 2 Kings 13:6, Habakkuk 3:3
What it is
A small, isolated way station by a water source on a desert route in north-east Sinai, with buildings dated by radiocarbon to around 800 BC. Its plastered walls and two large storage jars bore Hebrew inscriptions and painted drawings. Blessings on the jars invoke “YHWH of Samaria and his asherah” and “YHWH of Teman and his asherah”.
How it connects to the Bible
The blessings link Israel’s God with Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom, and with Teman in the south, the region from which “God came” in Habakkuk 3:3. In the Bible the same word, asherah, names a goddess (1 Kings 18:19) and also the wooden cult objects the biblical writers condemn; the KJV renders both as grove, and one such object stood in Samaria itself (2 Kings 13:6). The texts show that some Israelites linked an asherah with the worship of YHWH, a practice that Deuteronomy 16:21 forbids.
What scholars debate
Scholars debate whether asherah here means the goddess Asherah or a wooden cult object, whether the site was a shrine or a way station, and whom the painted figures show; many now see two of them as Bes figures rather than YHWH and a consort.