The Lishkah and Its Artifacts
Sidebar to: BAR Interview: Avraham Biran—Twenty Years of Digging at Tel Dan
Sixty feet long, this rectangular structure is apparently an eighth-century B.C. addition to the religious sanctuary at Tel Dan.
Jeroboam, king of the northern kingdom of Israel (924–903 B.C.), built a sanctuary at Dan to compete with the Temple in Jerusalem. As the Bible records, Jeroboam said, “‘Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David; if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah … ’ So the king [Jeroboam of Israel] … made two calves of gold … And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan” (1 Kings 12:26–29).
Avraham Biran identifies the bamah, or “high place,” as the focal area of Jeroboam’s sanctuary. His recent excavation of the lishkah, however, revealed that the Tel Dan sanctuary is larger than he first supposed.
Students in the foreground of the photo at top clear the northern end of this lishkah, or chamber, where the priests may have officiated.
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