Tel Arad

The structures on the acropolis on the Tel Arad date from the post-Canaanite period. They were built over a period of more than a thousand years, extending from early Israelite to Roman times. The massive walls of the citadel have been rebuilt, using original material. The complex is entered through the east gate, which is flanked by massive towers. Within the walls can be seen remains of various store-rooms and a Hellenistic tower.

The most important building, however, is the Jewish temple in the northwest of the citadel. A number of small rooms surround the courtyard, in which, to the right, is the altar for burnt offerings, built up of undressed stone and mud brick. In the direction of the holy of holies were discovered the bases for two cult pillars (cf. the pillars known as Jachin and Boaz in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem: 1 Kings 7,21). Two low horned altars flank the entrance to the small rectangular holy of holies (hekal), in which two aniconic cult stones are still in situ. Within the temple precinct channels and basins have been hewn from the rock for the purpose of water supply and storage, including a channel the height of a man which cuts through the town walls to the left of the holy of holies.

The temple is the only Jewish sacred building of its kind so far brought to light by excavation. Since excavation is not permitted on the Temple platform in Jerusalem information about the Temple can be obtained only from the written sources. The Arad temple, several times destroyed but each time rebuilt, is therefore of great importance to archeology and the history of religion. It contributes to the evidence for the decentralization of worship in the first century after the Israelite occupation of Canaan, since it is now known that there were temples not only in Shiloh, Bethel and Dan but also in Arad. This came to an end when King Josiah of Judah, in his wide-ranging reform of religious life, concentrated worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Canaanite town which has been excavated on the Tel Arad dates back to the second millennium B.C. In the northwest of the site are palace and temple precincts, to the south-west residential quarters. The line of the walls, which were reinforced by round towers and extended up to the citadel on the acropolis, can still be traced for considerable stretches.