First Glance

Q: What has four horns, stands about 18 inches tall and has been spotted at nine sites in Israel?

A: An incense altar!

At least that’s what most scholars would tell you, basing their response on the similarities between the small horned stands discovered on archaeological digs and the biblical description of the incense altar that stood before the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 30:1–6). But the excavated altars show almost no signs of incense-burning, and some were discovered outdoors, where people would have been unlikely to waste precious incense, argues Menahem Haran. In “Altar-ed States: Incense Theory Goes Up in Smoke,” Haran proposes that the altars were used for a more mundane type of offering. Based on the biblical text, Haran concludes that incense in ancient Israelite religious usage was largely confined to the Jerusalem Temple. (Seymour Gitin, co-director of excavations at Tel Miqne [biblical Ekron], where almost half of the small horned altars from Israel have been discovered, vehemently disagrees with Haran’s conclusions, as he told us when he released a picture of Ekron altars. We have invited him to respond in a future issue of BR and promised Haran a reply in the same issue.)