BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Megastructure Uncovered at Tel Shimron

Aerial view of the partially excavated monument at the top of Tel Shimron. The favissa is in the lower right of the complex. Courtesy Tel Shimron Excavations, Andrew Wright.

Archaeologists at Tel Shimron in Israel’s Jezreel Valley have uncovered a remarkable megastructure, so far unique within the southern Levant. Rising nearly 20 feet above the ancient mound, the cone-shaped structure is thought to have been some sort of Bronze Age monument. But what kind of monument was it and what function did it serve?

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Forging a Bronze Age Wonder

Dating to around 1800 BCE and still only partly excavated, the megastructure takes up a large section of Shimron’s already imposing tell, and therein may lie part of its purpose. While the glacis surrounding most of the site is covered with black basalt, the megastructure is covered by white chalk, which has the effect of making the already imposing feature stand out in the landscape, even from a great distance.

“We are dealing with something that’s very much an intentional, monumental thing that was designed to be seen from very far away,” Daniel Master, co-director of the Tel Shimron Excavation, told Haaretz. “We are still trying to figure out the political implications and why it was originally built.”

In addition to the monument’s potential political or symbolic significance, it also appears to have been a site of significant cultic activity. While excavating the structure, archaeologists stumbled across a large room that served as a favissa, a storage space for cultic and votive objects that had gone out of use. The over 700-square-foot favissa was originally unroofed, with thick mudbrick walls and two staircases, one leading into the room and another leading into the megastructure. Not long after it was built, the doors and staircases were blocked, making the favissa an open-air pit. Around that time, the pit became a dumping ground for religious ceremonies.

Excavating the favissa, the team at Tel Shimron discovered 40,000 animal bones, primarily from cattle, sheep, and goat. The bones showed signs of having been burned at extremely high temperatures, suggesting that they had been used for sacrificial rituals rather than meals. The team also found around 57,000 pottery fragments, including rare miniature jugs and bowls. Many of the fragments came from vessels that were typically used in temples instead of domestic contexts. Two bronze bull figurines—possibly representing the chief Canaanite deity El or the storm god Baal—were also discovered.

Ceramics and a bronze bull (or calf) found in the favissa of Tel Shimron. Courtesy Tel Shimron Excavations, Sasha Flit.

The favissa’s lack of stratification shows that it was not used for an extended period and that nearly all of the finds resulted from several events that took place quite close together, or even as part of a single ceremony. “In terms of religion, we don’t have anything like this; there are elements we find elsewhere but this is on a scale that we don’t have anywhere else in this region,” Master said.

The favissa was uncovered only a short distance from another remarkable find, the earliest example of a corbelled vault ever discovered in the Levant. The corbelled vault had been discovered in an earlier excavation season before the team realized that the entire complex was part of a single megastructure.

Read more in Bible History Daily:

Canaan’s Earliest City Gate

Digging In: Tel Shimron

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Launching Excavations at Tel Shimron

Eternal Architecture

Jezreel—Where Jezebel Was Thrown to the Dogs