Biblical Archaeology Review

Shua Kisilevitz, “The Iron IIA Judahite Temple at Moẓa,” Tel Aviv 42 (2015), pp. 156–161; Shua Kisilevitz, “Terracotta Figurines from the Iron IIA Temple at Moẓa, Judah,” Les Carnets de l’ACoST 15 (2016). In light of the foregoing, Garfinkel’s declaration that the only source of information for the description of the figurines from Moẓa are photographs of the large horse figurine and the two anthropomorphic heads while the small horse figurine was not illustrated at all (Garfinkel 2018: 147–148), are baffling and misinforming.

For a discussion regarding horse figurines in the southern Levant throughout the Iron Age, see Im, Horses and Chariots, especially pp. 88–93. For horse-and-rider figurines, see Raz Kletter and Katri Saarelainen, “Horses and Riders and Riders and Horses,” in Rainer Albertz et al., eds., Family and Household Religion: Toward a Synthesis of Old Testament Studies, Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Cultural Studies (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014), pp.

Garfinkel, “Figurine Head,” pp. 143–163, figs. 9.6–9.8, and particularly 9.12; these drawings ignore the scale accompanying the illustrated anthropomorphic heads from Moẓa (Kisilevitz, 2015: figs. 5–7).

Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia (London and New York: Routledge, 2001); Stephanie L. Budin, Images of Woman and Child from the Bronze Age: Reconsidering Fertility, Maternity, and Gender in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011). Regarding the famous “Judean Pillar Figurines” of the late Iron Age, see Ian D. Wilson, “Judean Pillar Figurines and Ethnic Identity in the Shadow of Assyria,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36.3 (2012), pp.

Inter alia, harnessed horse and horse-and-rider figurines, along with cultic artifacts, were found from Cave 1 in Jerusalem; Thomas A. Holland, “A Study of Palestinian Iron Age Baked Clay Figurines, with Special Reference to Jerusalem: Cave 1,” Levant 9 (1977), pp. 121–155.

See Izak Cornelius, The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Baal. Late Bronze and Iron Age I Periods (c 1500–1000 BCE), Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 140 (Academic Press Fribourg; Güttingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 1994), pp. 209–211; Izak Cornelius, The Many Faces of the Goddess: The Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian Goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, and Asherah c. 1500–1000 BCE, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 204 (Academic Press Fribourg; Güttingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 2008), pp. 40–41, 73, 77–78, 89, plates 4.1–4.20.

Garfinkel published this claim earlier in his excavation report. See Yosef Garfinkel, “The Iron Age Clay Figurine Head,” in Yosef Garfinkel, S. Ganor, and M. G. Hasel, eds., Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 4, Excavation Report 2009–2013: Art, Cult and Epigraphy (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2018), pp. 143–163.

The study of Iron Age figurines in Judah has intensified in the last three decades because of the surge in figurines found in Judah and particularly the astounding amount (more than a thousand fragments) found during Shiloh’s City of David excavations. Horse figurines appear along with the Judean Pillar figurines, depicting females, and various animal figurines and models of beds. See, inter alia, Raz Kletter, “Pots and Polities: Material Remains of Late Iron Age Judah in Relation to Its Political Borders,” BASOR 314 (1999), pp. 19–54; Erin D.

P.R.S. Moorey, Idols of the People: Miniature Images of Clay in the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003); Timothy Insoll, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Regarding the Iron Age southern Levant, see, inter alia, J. Glen Taylor, Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel, Old Testament Studies 111 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p. 59; Garth H.

Kletter and Saarelainen, “Horses and Riders,” pp. 197–224.