Ancient Canaanite Temple With Statues of Baal Found in Southern Israel

[FfFfFfFF 58,118]

An ancient 3,200-year-old Canaanite temple has been discovered in Israel which was part of a biblical city destroyed by Joshua.   Inside, archaeologists found various statues of different gods, including two bronze figurines said to be 'smiting'. 

 The temple, from about the 12th century BC, was once part of the powerful Canaanite city of Lachish. This city was mentioned in the book of Joshua, with Lachish supposedly delivered by God into the hands of Israel, where '[they] put it and all the people in it to the sword'.

The layout was common in the earlier Bronze Age and similar to bible descriptions of the First Temple in Jerusalem said to have been built by King Solomon. It was a rare discovery for the researchers - who say a find along these lines and of this scale only happens every few decades. 

Garfinkel's team started excavating the site nearly seven years ago in 2013 - then spent longer examining the findings.

'We uncovered the temple and we dedicated three or four years to it, because it is very rare to find Canaanite sites in Israel,' Garfinkel told the Jerusalem Post. 

'What we found sheds new light on ancient life in the region. It would be hard to overstate the importance of these findings.'

The temple had small rooms along the sides that would have been used for storage, in fact they found boxes with wheat inside them.

As they moved further into the remains they found an 'inner sanctum' with columns and nearly 10ft high standing stones in a circle of smaller stones.
In the temple the team found an amulet inspired by the Egyptian goddess Hathor who was worshipped by miners and said to welcome the dead to the afterlife.

It wasn't just Egyptian gods represented in the temple, they also found statuettes of Baal - a god not worshipped in the country and of purely Canaanite origin. 

   

 

They also found bronze cauldrons, daggers and axe heads  adorned with imagery common to Egypt including bird images, scarabs and a bottle inscribed with the name Ramses II - a powerful Egyptian pharaoh.

During the period the template originated the people of Lachish controlled large parts of the Jusean lowlands and the city was one of the most important in the area. 

Canaanites and ancient Egyptians had a mutual influence on one another, according to Garfinkel, at one point up to about 1549 BC the Canaanites actually ruled Egypt - but that changed with the rise of King Tutankhamun and Nefertiti.

 

 

Site sources and video: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8016539/Ancient-3-200-year-old-Canaanite-temple-unearthed-Israel.html 

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-ancient-canaanite-temple-with-statues-of-baal-and-standing-stones-found-at-lachish-1.8551716

[Daylight Jokers 14,958]

This is amazing! They did an amazing job finding all those artifacts and putting them all back together...especially the vases. Now I'm curious if they also discovered remains of Canaanites in the temple.

[Economy 52,844]

Woa that's large artifacts

[Lady Adga 8,664]

Those high heels  An ancient Gaga

[Woolfsmck 2,763]

3 hours ago, LGs LM said:

This is amazing! They did an amazing job finding all those artifacts and putting them all back together...especially the vases. Now I'm curious if they also discovered remains of Canaanites in the temple.

It takes quite a while for them to safely excavate that type of site...

Every inch and layer has to very carefully be cleaned away bit ...

Rare finds are priceless historical artifacts the help historians piece together undocumented cultures and people's...

It's really amazing how they do this stuff....😎

[NewUsername 11,753]

10 hours ago, VenusHooker said:

Those high heels  An ancient Gaga

was gonna say the same thing!

[Guest Adarsh]

One day lg6 will be discovered by people living in the year 3100. 

[Lumiere 5,825]

If they dig deeper they might fight LG6 lying somewhere there

[boneknuckleskin 776]

I read the New Testament and now I’m reading the old I and just got to this part. I’m in Deuteronomy where Moses gives his last sermon before they go into the Promised Land after defeating the Canaanites so to see this here on GagaDaily is really neat.