Metalworking in Cultic Spaces: The Emergence of New Offering Practices in the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between metalworking and cultic space in the Bronze Age Southern Levant, tracing the earliest evidence of metallurgical activities within Southern Levantine temples to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. This coincides with the appearance of a series of new cultic traditions in the region, including the large-scale dedication of votive offerings in temple settings. It is demonstrated that the local production within cultic venues was not intended primarily for the production of objects to be circulated outside the temple but mainly for the manufacture of goods to be used and offered during ritual activities conducted in the cultic spaces themselves.

Keywords:

• Temples
• Metalworking
• Bronze Age
• Southern Levant
• Temple economy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, as well as the Editorial Board of Tel Aviv, for the constructive feedback and critical comments on earlier versions of the manuscript, unquestionably improving the arguments, clarity and overall quality of the study in its final form. The research was supported by the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Biblical Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 On the development of new religious architectural traditions, see Mazar 1992 and, more recently, Kamlah 2012.

2 On the basis of the proximity of the Naḥal Mishmar hoard to the En-Gedi shrine, it was suggested that the hoard was produced within the temple precinct (Ussishkin 2014). However, no production remains were found at the temple and petrographic analysis of the cores indicates that the casting was carried out elsewhere (for a range of opinions on this, see Goren 2008 and references therein).

3 Raised podiums, while possibly serving as platforms for statues (none of which have been found), may also suggest that offerings of some sort were presented within these structures.

4 Although questionable, it has been suggested that the rare examples of precious Egyptian artefacts—such as, for example, the ones found at Tel Megiddo, Tel Arad, ꜤAi and Tel Yarmouth— may represent votive offerings (Sala 2007: 69).

5 Post-depositional processes may have contributed to the limited scope of Early Bronze Age temple finds, including the absence of perishable goods.

6 The zoomorphic figurine found out of context (in ‘Phase 0’) was attributed by the excavators to the Middle Bronze Age temple sequence (Falconer and Fall 2006: 43, 93).

7 A mould for casting a weapon was found near the Southern Temple, apparently from Stratum XVII (Yadin et al. 1961: Pl. CLVI:30).

8 Artzy (1999: 27) also suggests a relationship between cult practices and the recycling of metals at LB Tel ꜤAkko.

9 For a discussion of the concept of elites in the Southern Levant, see Susnow 2022b.

10 Beginning in the Late Cypriot IIIA stratum (Floor IIIA, 12th century BCE), remains of metalworking were found in a workshop located within the sacred precinct with direct access to Temple 1 at Kition. This workshop, which consisted of multiple rooms with furnaces, benches, pits, crucible fragments, slag, pieces of bronze scrap, a fragmentary shovel, droplets of blister copper and—a little later—a bellows (Karageorghis and Demas 1985; Karageorghis and Kassianidou 1999: 174–178), was involved in copper refining, bronze casting, and the recycling of bronze. Another workshop—related to textiles—was established nearby.

11 At Late Bronze Age Athienou, cultic activities were conducted alongside metalworking (Dothan and Ben-Tor 1983). Cult is evident in Strata III and II (16th–13th centuries BCE), where thousands of miniature vessels were retrieved from deposits mainly in open-air spaces. Nearby, smelting was conducted in a central courtyard of a building of unclear nature, where a large amount of copper nodules, large chunks, slag and scrap metal were found, as well as pits, ash, bone and other objects that may have been connected to metallurgical work. No crucibles or tuyères were recovered (ibid.: 132–140).

12 Like at Athienou, the cult site at Kalopsidha-Koufos, which was disassociated from other structures and is contemporary with Athienou Stratum III, demonstrates an association between miniature vessels and metalworking (Åström 1966: 39, 48–115; Webb 2012). Metalworking objects include small bronzes, lumps of ore and slag, unfinished metal fragments, a stone mould and crucibles (Åström 1966: 113–115).

13 See also the Stratum V cult room at Iron I Tel Dan that was established within a quarter of the site that was used by bronzesmiths for metalworking and other crafts (Ben-Dov 2018). There was a long tradition of metalworking from the LB I–Iron I sequence in Areas AB and B1 at Tel Dan. Metallurgical remains include crucibles, tuyères, pot bellows, slag, charcoal, ash pits, metal scraps and remnants of crumbled moulds (ibid.: 456–468).

14 Regarding the concept of sacred economy, we follow Renfrew (2001: 22), who defines sacred economy as ‘the production, consumption and exchange of goods within a religious context’. Sacred economy relates to both the temple’s resident population (ritual personnel) as well as to temple visitors (worshippers, ritual participants). While exchange or transaction within a religious context has a material aspect, what ritual participants might gain in return is not necessarily material per se, but could be experiential or spiritual.

15 Production activities such as metalworking, even when conducted outside temple contexts, may have contained religious aspects (see Levy et al. 2008: 96–106; Gosselain 2011: 246–251; Insoll 2011: 431–432; Gošic and Gilead 2015: 170–171). Similarly, production within temples could have been profit-oriented, with a focus on external circulation, not solely for serving the immediate religious needs of the temple. For metalworking, cult and economy in general, see Knapp (1986) and Kassianidou (2005).

16 Oppenheim suggested that the surplus of consumable (and non-consumable) goods in Mesopotamian temples could be stored for future use or traded and exchanged for raw materials needed by the temple (Oppenheim 1977: 187). In New Kingdom Egypt, portions of temple offerings were stored and then redistributed, thus profiting the temple economy (Kemp, Samuel and Luuf 1994: 136, 142–145).

17 Levantine textual sources shed little light on smiths at temples. At Ugarit, metalworkers (nskm) are mentioned, though in association with service to the palace and kingdom at large, but not cult (Heltzer 1999: 427).

18 In Mesopotamia, temples also served as social and economic institutions (Robertson 1995), regularly engaging in a wide range of activities and housing numerous workshops for the manufacture of various products (Postgate 1992: 114, 115, 127). Metalsmiths are often listed as members of temple staff, even receiving prebends, as early as the third millennium BCE (ibid.; Potts 1997: 237; cf. Sigrist 1984: 160) and continuing into the first millennium BCE (Zawadzki 1991; Bongenaar 1997: 362; Zawadzki and Jursa 2001; cf. Lambert 1957: 3, 10–11; 1991: 184).

19 At EB IV Ebla (ca. 2400 BCE), the king provided metals (silver, bronze) to smiths of the temple of Hadda at Ḫalab (in one case, to replace an adze; see Archi 2015: 582). In fact, smiths sometimes received metal objects from temple administrators in order to repair them or fashion them into new objects for which there was demand—in other words, they were commissioned for specific projects (Zettler 1990; and see Naʾaman 1981). In Mesopotamia, scrap metal (Akkadian: ḫušû) was valued for its potential to produce goods (CAD H 262). On the recycling of temple metals in the Mycenaean world, see Chadwick 1976: 141–142; Muhly 1992: 18; Smith 1992–1993; Karageorghis and Kassianidou 1999: 184.

20 In Late Bronze Age Anatolia, metalworking was associated with Hittite temples, as suggested for Temple 1 (the Great Temple) in the lower city at Hattuša (Gordin 2010) and recently confirmed at Ortaköy-Šapinuwa (Süel 2017; 2020; cf. Siegelová and Tsumoto 2011: 286).

21 There is an overlap between certain object types (especially jewellery and weapons) that are found in temples and other contexts. Temple inventories and rituals texts from Hatti and Mesopotamia offer detailed insight into how these objects functioned within the temple cult, although further exploration of this point is beyond the scope of this study.

22 It is possible that some of the metalworking remains from within Building 7050 belong to the very last phase of the LB Tel Hazor, immediately prior to the building’s destruction—when it has been argued that activities were no longer monitored by elites (Zuckerman 2007; Yahalom- Mack et al. 2014).

23 Among the divergent cultic trends in Building 7050, the presence of a high percentage of cultic vessels found within the building’s interior is unique. In the Southern Levant, miniature vessels generally appear in open-air and non-monumental cultic spaces, or in exterior spaces associated with monumental temples, but not within monumental architecture itself (contra Building 7050). Further, the presence of large numbers of cooking and storage vessels diverges from other monumental temples, a trend much more common in smaller rural or extramural cultic sites (Susnow, Bechar and Yasur-Landau 2020; Susnow 2021: 166–167; 2022a: 406).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Susnow

Matthew Susnow: The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Naama Yahalom-Mack

Naama Yahalom-Mack: The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; email: [email protected]