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The Iron IIB Gate Shrine at Lachish: An Alternative Interpretation

The remains of a shrine located in the Iron IIB six-chamber gate at Lachish were recently published by Ganor and Kreimerman (2019). The excavators proposed that the chamber had a hierarchical layout comparable to that of the Arad sanctuary, and that the shrine and its cult furnishings had been desecrated in the course of Hezekiah’s cult reform. However, a critical re-evaluation of the published data indicates that (1) the inner plan of the chamber did not possess a hierarchical, three-part division with a ‘holy of holies’; and (2) the chamber was destroyed during the Assyrian campaign in 701 BCE without any indication of cultic reform. Bearing in mind the data from Ussishkin’s excavations, it is further suggested that two shrines were actually located in the gate—one on each side of the gateway—and that they were probably utilized in purification rituals by people entering the city. The two shrines at Lachish can be compared to the evidence from contemporaneous Kuntillet >Ajrud, which shows parallels in terms of architectural layout and cult paraphernalia.