Likewise, they state that Garfinkel’s closing argument, “denying the existence of horse and rider figurines after the 8th century BCE, is patently incorrect.” Garfinkel’s Khirbet Qeiyafa figurine precedes that date. Israel Antiquity Authority’s Shua Kisilevitz (courtesy)īut more strikingly, the god Yahweh, they said, simply did not appear in the region before the 9th century BCE. Much of Garfinkel’s theory is based on two male heads that were found in the same temple complex at Tel Motza. Of the archaeologists The Times of Israel approached, not one would accept the idea that these small male figurines represented the god Yahweh. “Like every discovery, some will accept and some will reject,” he said. Garfinkel is aware that many of his colleagues will dismiss it. “There’s nothing you can put in a museum, really.”Īs his theory is published in international media. “The Kingdom of Judah left a great intellectual contribution,” he said, and influenced morals until today, but left barely a mark in material culture. Aside from the Bible, which preserved regional history, very little remains from the monarchic periods in the Land of Israel. “We’re talking about peasant society,” he said, that was never a big political power in the Middle East. Therefore, the statues must have represented “the religion of the time” and its god, Yahweh.Īs for why the depiction of Yahweh would be so rudimentary, Garfinkel said that whereas Egypt and the Mesopotamia were rich kingdoms with court artists, the Kingdom of Judah was poor, small (between 5,000-20,000 people at its peak), and barely eked out an existence on the 30 kilometers or so of arable land it had between Beit Shemesh and Lachish. Saying that since these presumed horsemen god figures were found in the Motza temple complex - and not at a home - ruled out that they were simple household deities. It was bought in the Hebron Area and dated to the 10th-9th centuries BCE. Yahweh on a horse? A pottery vessel in the shape of a horseman, from the Moshe Dayan collection. Around the top of the head is a circle of holes,” which could have been used to hold a crown or other headdress. Because the ears are pierced, the figure may have worn earrings. They were first attached to the face as rounded blobs of clay and then punctured to create the iris. In the BAR article, Garfinkel writes: “With a flat top, the head has protruding eyes, ears, and a nose. What has led Garfinkel to believe that he holds a statue of Yahweh in his hands is a combination of an anthropomorphic biblical verse from the Book of Habakkuk, the fact that neighboring nations in the biblical era had national gods, and the relative scarceness of male figurines made of clay such as the one his team uncovered at his Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation, some 20 miles or 30 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem.Ībout a decade ago Garfinkel’s team discovered what he said was a rare male head at his Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation in a layer that he says is securely dated to the 10th century through over 30 radiocarbon dated organic samples. Drawings of the various heads that depict a large male head from the Kingdom of Judah, dated to the 10th-9th centuries BCE (drawing by Olga Dobovsky)
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