Researchers Find Structure Where Jerusalemites Reportedly Performed Rituals Before Hezekiah’s Religious Reform

Researchers believe an ancient multi-room structure uncovered near Jerusalem’s Old City was likely used for ritual and worship nearly 3,000 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Tuesday, January 14, marking the first such find of a religious site practically down the street from the biblical First Temple while it still stood.  

The 220-square-meter (2,370-square-foot) structure, dating from the 8th century BC, “features eight rock-hewn rooms containing an altar, a standing stone, an oil press, and a winepress,” the IAA said in a statement about the well-preserved site, which was seemingly boarded up during an ancient crackdown on worship outside the Temple Mount. Standing stones are upright stones placed in the ground associated with religious ceremonies. 

Researchers believe the site to be the only known ritual structure dating from the period of the First Temple in Jerusalem, and one of “very few found in the land of Israel,” according to the IAA.  

The findings from the structure were published this week in an article, “Evidence of Worship in the Rock-Cut Rooms on the Eastern Slope of the City of David, Jerusalem,” authored by Shukron, along with Liora Freud, Helena Roth, and Reli Avisar from Tel Aviv University and Efrat Bocher from the Ancient Jerusalem Research Center.  

In the paper, the authors suggest that the building was used by residents of Judah for cultic or religious practices but then was walled off and abandoned during a religious reform in the 8th century BCE.  “The structure ceased to function… possibly as part of King Hezekiah’s religious reform,” Shukron said. (TOI /VFI News) 

“Now when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah and broke the sacred pillars in pieces, cut down the wooden images, and threw down the high places and the altars—from all Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh—until they had utterly destroyed them all.” – 2 Chronicles 31:1

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