The Practice of Canaanite Cult

This richly illustrated book explores Canaanite religion and ritual from an archaeological perspective. It sheds new light on the use of space within southern Levantine temples as well as the religious ideologies motivating the behavioral patterns identified in those cultic contexts. Religion and ritual are both universalistic and particularistic. The aim of this study is to arrive at a more holistic understanding of MB and LB religion in the southern Levant. To achieve this goal, this book is organized into three main parts: (1) where Canaanite cultic activities were conducted; (2) what activities and rituals were performed within Canaanite cultic spaces; and (3) why and how those activities were conducted in those spaces. The central thesis of this book is that Canaanite religion was remarkably responsive and adaptive and was reflective of the diversity of the various micro-regions in the southern Levant.

This study has arrived at five new observations regarding Canaanite cult as practiced in Canaanite temples. First, temple architecture and the activities conducted within temples were neither static temporally nor interregionally. Cultic spaces in the southern Levant were responses to different particular circumstances and situations. The settings, locations and the construction types of temples related to, affected, and were affected by the rituals and activities that were conducted in those spaces. A second insight in this study is that ritual in the southern Levant was highly responsive and adaptive. The diachronic changes noted throughout the MB and LB in temple architecture, temple locations, ritual activities as well as in iconography and material culture unquestionably reflect changing cultural, geopolitical and socioeconomic phenomena. A third insight is that in contrast to Mesopotamian, Hittite and Egyptian temples, temples in the southern Levant remarkably do not reflect the concept of the house of the god. Neither the layout of Canaanite temples nor the activities performed within the temples reflect the layouts or activities of southern Levantine domestic spaces. A fourth insight: Rather than perceiving Canaanite cultic spaces as the houses and residences of deities, it seems these spaces functioned as venues for hosting feasts and commensal meals based around sacrifice and other ritual activities. These were therefore spaces within which social cohesion and group unity were forged. Depending on who controlled the temples, these spaces could also function as tools for creating and maintaining social and ritual hierarchy and inequality. A fifth observation relates what Canaanites did to why. Social behaviors and organization were controlled and maintained through ritual, feasting, commensality, the competitive and public presentation of offerings, and through the use of iconography. However, these actions were also informed by Canaanite religious ideology. Temples in the southern Levant functioned as conduits for initiating contact with the divine. Rather than the divine presence of deities being contained within temples, there was an effort to entice the deities out of temples in order to transform the entire landscape into a religious and sacred landscape.

Preface

List of Abbreviations

Part I

Chapter 1: Introduction

     1.1 Introduction to the Research Topic: Religion in the Southern Levant

     1.2 The Need for a New Approach to Canaanite Religion

     1.3 Aims and Research Questions

     1.4 Methodology 

     1.5 The Novelty of this Study’s Approach 

     1.6 Organizational Scheme of this Study

Chapter 2: Overview of the Research: Working Definitions, Background, and Rationale

     2.1 Definitions: Defining the Terms of this Study – “Middle and Late Bronze Canaan” and Canaanite Religion”

     2.2 General Overview of the MB and LB Southern Levant 

     2.3 History of Research and Scholarship of Canaanite Religion

     2.4 Theory 

Part II

Chapter 3: Towards a New Direction in Analyzing Canaanite Cultic Architecture 

     3.1 What are Temples?

     3.2 The Present Study on Cultic Architecture

     3.3 Applying these Approaches Throughout Part II

Chapter 4: Architecture

     4.1 The Organization of this Analysis on Temple Architecture 

     4.2 The Intermediate Bronze Age 

     4.3 MB Open-Air Loci of Cultic Activity 

     4.4 Standardized Temple Architecture in MB Canaan: Migdal Temples 

     4.5 Rural Migdal Temples

     4.6 Discussion: Migdal Temples in the southern Levant and Beyond

     4.7 Other less well-defined Temples from the MB

     4.8 New Temples in the LB 

     4.9 Discussion: Making Sense of the Diversity in Canaanite Temple Architecture

Chapter 5: Temple Courtyards 

     5.1 Methodology 

     5.2 Temples with a Temenos

     5.4 Temple Courtyard as Spaces for Accessing the Divine 

Chapter 6: Synthesis and Conclusions 

     6.1 Southern Levantine Temples as Houses?

     6.2 Integrating Temple and Temple Courtyard 

Part III

Chapter 7: Identifying Activities in the Archaeological Record: Introduction and Methodology 

     7.1 The Need for a Methodology in Determining Activity Types in Temples

     7.2 Methodology in Household Archaeology

     7.3 Methodology For Cult: A Rubric for Identifying Activity Types in Cultic Contexts

     7.4 Types of Contexts Considered in this Study

Chapter 8: Hazor Area H, The Orthostat Temple 

     8.1 Contextual Analysis 

     8.2 Analysis of Behavioral Patterns

     8.3 The Use of Space in the Orthostat Temple: General Trends and Diachronic Changes in how Cult was Practiced in Area H at Hazor

Chapter 9: Hazor Area C, The Stelae Temple

     9.1 Contextual Analysis 

     9.2 Analysis of Behavioral Patterns

     9.3 Vernacular Cult at Hazor: Interpretation of the Stelae Temple

Chapter 10: Lachish Fosse Temple

     10.1 Contextual Analysis 

     10.2 Analysis of Behavioral Patterns

     10.3 The Idiosyncratic Practice of Cult at the Fosse Temple 

Chapter 11: Tel Mevorakh 

     11.1 Contextual Analysis

     11.2 Analysis of Behavioral Patterns

     11.3 The Role and Function of the Roadside Shrine at Tel Mevorakh 

Chapter 12: Nahariya 

     12.1 Contextual Analysis 

     12.2 Analysis of Behavioral Patterns

     12.3 The Nahariya Cult: A Unique MB Extramural Space within the Canaanite Religious Landscape

Chapter 13: Other Cultic Sites in the MB and LB Southern Levant

     13.1 General Trends

     13.2 MB Cultic Sites

     13.3 LB Cultic Sites 

     13.4 Discussion and Conclusions: Trends in Canaanite Cultic Sites

Chapter 14: Household Activity Types

     14.1 Hazor, Area C (MB III) Household Activities 

     14.2 LB and Iron Age Southern Levantine Household Activities

     14.3 Trends in Activity Types Outside of the Southern Levant 

Chapter 15: Canaanite Activities in Cultic Spaces 

     15.1 Understanding the Activities Conducted within Canaanite Temples

     15.2 The Contrast between Activities in Cultic Spaces Versus Domestic Spaces 

     15.3 The Use of Space in Other Ancient Near Eastern Temples

     15.4 Ritual, Ritualization, and Activities in Canaanite Cultic Spaces

     15.5 Conclusions: The Utility of the Methodology 

Part IV

Chapter 16: Religious Praxis

     16.1 Introduction 

     16.2 Diachronic Change 

     16.3 Practices According to Ritual Texts

     16.4 Canaanite Ritual Praxis

     16.5 Insights into Ritual Praxis in Canaan

Chapter 17: Canaanite Religious Structure and Ideology

     17.1 Introduction 

     17.2 Methodological Approach to the Use of Text and Analogy in this Study 

     17.3 Canaanite Religious Ideologies

     17.4 The Structure of Cult and Ritual 

     17.5 Iconography 

     17.6 Discussion: Insights into Religious Ideology through Analogy

     17.7 Conclusions: The Particulars of Canaanite Religious Ideology

Part V

Chapter 18: Conclusions

     18.1 Conclusions Arrived at in this Study: Parts II–IV

     18.2 New Insights into Canaanite Religion 

     18.3 Concluding Remarks: Why all of this Matters 

     14 Content

Bibliography

Tables

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