gender and archaeology in israelite religion

© 2007 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Religion Compass 1/5 (2007): 512–528, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00038.x

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKRECOReligion Compass1749-8171© 2007 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd03810.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00038.xAugust 200700512???528???Original ArticlesSHORT TITLE RUNNING HEAD: Gender and Archaeology in Israelite Religion Beth Alpert Nakhai

Gender and Archaeology in Israelite ReligionBeth Alpert Nakhai*The Universitay of Arizona

AbstractThis article1 investigates the roles played by women within the religion of IronAge II Israel (1000–587 BCE). That little is presently known about this importanttopic can be attributed to the androcentric perspective of the Hebrew Bible andto gender bias within the modern academy. Recent scholarship has begun to turnthe tide, and this article shows the many ways in which women contributed to– and were an integral part of – the religion of ancient Israel.

It should not be news to anyone that over the last century and more,virtually every consideration of Israelite religion, whether textual orarchaeological, has focused upon men’s roles. Temple, priesthood, kings, pro-phets, offerings, purity, rituals, incantations, atonement, liturgy, Yahweh,and his ‘wife’ – all these topics have provided access to Israelite religion,and almost without exception that access has led to an analysis of the rolesplayed by men in Israelite worship. This is true whether the primaryresource under consideration is the Hebrew Bible or archaeological data.However, men were only half of the population of Iron Age Israel, andin the last few decades there has been a growing interest in women’sparticipation in religious rituals and in the ways in which they shapedIsraelite belief systems.

This article explores Israelite religion as practiced by women, meaningthat it focuses more on the cult of the village and the home than on thatof the temple. The focus is on village and home for two reasons. The firstis that these areas are the most transparent to archaeological investigation.Indeed, the Jerusalem temple was so thoroughly destroyed that there is nopossibility of investigating its physical remains; any exploration of templeworship depends upon reconstructions based on the Hebrew Bible. Thesecond reason is that for much of the time, men too and not only womenwere excluded from temple worship, and so an investigation of real-lifereligious practice must look to those places in which Israelites actuallyworshipped. As archaeology has documented in the course of the pastcentury, most Israelites – women and men alike – experienced religion atthe local rather than the national level. The overarching importancegranted to the Jerusalem temple results from a biblical ideology that

© 2007 The Author Religion Compass 1/5 (2007): 512–528, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00038.xJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Gender and Archaeology in Israelite Religion 513

developed late in Israelite history and cannot be understood to reflect thefull spectrum of religious practice in all of Iron Age II Israel and Judah.2

Why Is the Study of Women in Israelite Religion Such a New Topic?

Before turning to a discussion of women’s roles in Israelite religion, it isworth asking how, over the past century and more, scholars missed some-thing so extremely important as the religious lives of half the populationof ancient Israel. It is not, after all, like the feminist revolution has not yethappened. Elizabeth Cady Stanton published The Woman’s Bible at the endof the nineteenth century. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex appearedin English in 1953; Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published10 years later. Third-wave feminism has already come and gone. The firstarticle to systematically address gender and archaeology, Margaret Conkeyand Janet Spector’s Archaeology and the Study of Gender, was publishedmore than 20 years ago (1984). So why has so little effort been made todocument Israelite ritual and belief as experienced by women? Theanswers to this question have important implications, because whatbecomes clear is not that women did not matter in ancient religion,but rather that they have not mattered to most modern scholars.3

One way to answer the question is to look at those who have studiedIsraelite religion. Typically, they have been biblicists first of all, men whoowe their intellectual heritage to a long line of exclusively male scholarswho began to study sacred text in the Iron Age and who have done soever since. They have been archaeologists, often trained as ministers, whofocused their excavation work on bastions of male authority and elitegovernance such as palaces and temples.4 Just as men dominate leadershippositions in contemporary religion, so have they dominated the study ofancient Israelite religion, whether in seminaries, secular institutions ofhigher education, or in professional societies.5

Another way to answer the question is to look at the academy, themale-dominated institution that enables and supports professional scholar-ship. Despite advances achieved thanks to US Equal Opportunity lawspassed beginning in 19636 and to the feminist revolution of the 1960s and1970s, study after study documents the extent to which women holddisproportionately fewer tenure lines and tenured positions than do theirmale colleagues. Women earn less money than men in their same position,even within the same institution (Trower & Bleak 2004). Books andarticles by women are published less and cited less than are those by men.7

Women win fewer major grants and awards. The workload for women isgreater than that for men. Women undertake more service responsibilitiesthan do their male colleagues, despite limited professional rewards. Inaddition, women disproportionately bear the weight of domestic respon-sibilities and of childrearing. Home life for working women has beendescribed as a ‘second shift’ (Hochschild 1989). All this is relevant because

514 Beth Alpert Nakhai


it is women who are most often engaged in gender issues, whether toadvocate for gender equity in the workplace and at home and/or toreconstruct the lives of women in antiquity. With some exceptions, menare neither at the forefront of the struggle for gender equality nor activein feminist scholarship.8 At the same time, not all women are interestedin the study of women, nor should they be expected to be.

Why is it that so few scholars of the ancient Near East devote them-selves to reconstructing the lives of women in antiquity?9 When those inpositions of authority within the academy are disinterested in genderstudies, and when junior scholars, those most likely to be trained ingender studies, struggle daily for job security and financial parity, it ishardly surprising that few are willing to pursue an academic agendathat places them outside normative disciplinary parameters. Given theconstraints of the current job market, archaeologists of ancient Israel positionthemselves to teach traditional courses – religion through sacred text,history and so forth – while hoping to supplement these courses withsome archaeology. When a woman is hired, she may be asked to teacha ‘Women in . . .’ course, but her ability to teach this course will not havebeen the reason she was hired. It is unlikely that any man is faced withthe same request.10

What Does Scholarship on Women in Israelite Religion Look Like?

The importance of these points is underscored by a brief examination ofresearch on Israelite religion, focusing on that which integrates archaeo-logical evidence. The classic studies of Israelite religion by R. de Vaux(Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 1961) and W. F. Albright (Archaeologyand the Religion of Israel, 1969) contain no information about women’sreligious practices or beliefs. Of the 33 essays in Ancient Israelite Religion:Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, only one ventured into genderedterrain (Bird 1987). Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel failedto look at women’s roles in religion (Nakhai 2001).11 No article in thecollection of papers culled from American School of Oriental Research’smultiyear program unit entitled ‘Archaeology and the Religion of Israel’discussed the role of women in Israelite religion (Gittlen 2002).12 Nopaper in The Future of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Methodologies andAssumptions examined gendered archaeology (Hoffmeier & Millard 2004).Fortunately, there are some recent exceptions to this trend.13

Almost 20 years ago, C. Meyers revolutionized the study of women’sroles in Israelite society with Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women inContext, a book that integrated archaeological, anthropological, andbiblical studies (1988). Much of her work since then has focused on thedomestic realm, which she argues is where much of women’s religiousculture was expressed (2002a, 2005). W. G. Dever looked at evidence forwomen’s religious practice in Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk



Religion in Ancient Israel (2005). Z. Zevit examined women’s cultic practicesin The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches,and integrated archaeological data into his work (2001). K. van derToorn uses more textual than archaeological data as he studies women(1994) and family religion (1996) in Israel and neighboring lands. So doJ. Berlinerblau (1996) and S. Ackerman (1998, 2003, 2006).

And of course, the many books and articles on Judaean pillar-basefigurines seem somehow related to the question of women and religion,but their authors are more often concerned with the artifact’s ancestryand identity than with its gendered dimensions.14

What Does Gendered Archaeology Contribute to the Reconstruction of Israelite Religion?

The first and most important point is that there is absolutely no way totalk about the past without including women.15 The fact that Iron AgeIsrael’s primary text, the Hebrew Bible, is overwhelmingly androcentric(see, inter alia, Trible 1984; Meyers 1988; Bird 1997) should not inhibitthe quest for a full reconstruction of Israelite religion. Instead, it shouldencourage the utilization of archaeology, a resource free of innate genderbias, as a primary tool for any balanced reconstruction of ancient life.What becomes clear is that in religion, women and men did not have thesame roles but together they assumed responsibility for the maintenanceof religious ritual and belief, requisite to ensuring the well-being of theirfamilies, kin groups, and nation.16

Second, biblical attestations to the contrary notwithstanding we learnthat Israelite religion was not devoted exclusively to Israel’s male deity,Yahweh. The goddess Asherah had her origins within the pantheon ofthirteenth century Ugarit on the Syrian coast. In Iron II Israel, she wasworshiped alongside Yahweh; the worship of both deities was essential toIsraelite religion.17 Evidence supporting this contention derives from thesites of Kuntillet ’Ajrûd (Meshel 1978; Dever 1984) and Khirbet el-Qôm(Dever 1969–1970), where inscriptions link Yahweh (or Yahweh ofSamaria) to Asherah (or, to ‘his’ ’asherah). In addition, it derives fromforty or so references to ’asherah (also, ’asherim and ’asherot) in the HebrewBible. As a cult object, an ’asherah seems to have taken the form of a treeor wooden pole, a representation of the tree of life whose power rever-berated throughout western Asia and Egypt (Hestrin 1991). The goddesswas manifest, as well, in the paired massebot and altars found in the Aradsanctuary (Aharoni 1968).

The biblical evidence, particularly as elaborated in 1–2 Kings (see 1Kings 15:13; 2 Kings 18:4; 23:6–7), places the worship of Asherahwithin the Jerusalem temple. A statue of the goddess stood there, atleast intermittently, from the time of Solomon into the reign of Josiah.The gevirah or queen mother was her earthly representative while cultic



functionaries, for the most part women, attended to her worship(Ackerman 1993, 1998, pp. 128–80; 2003, pp. 458–61; 2006, pp. 190–2).18

Textual evidence also locates Asherah worship at the northern cult centersof Samaria,19 Bethel,20 and, perhaps, Dan.21 It additionally places Asherahworship in settings outside the major royal sanctuaries of Israel andJudah.22 The intermittent worship of other goddesses is also attested.For example, Astarte is mentioned in biblical passages (Judges 2:13;1 Samuel 7:4; 1 Kings 11:5; 2 Kings 23:23; Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17–25)and represented on seals. Anat appears as a component of namesfound in the Bible and carved into Iron I arrowheads.23 That the LateBronze II Winchester plaque identifies these two goddesses with Asherahas Qudshu, the Holy One (Edwards 1955), suggests that the modernconcern for distinguishing among them may have not been shared by thepeoples of the Late Bronze and Iron Age.

Taken as a whole, this body of evidence indicates that Asherah worshipwas not marginal, nor was it the exclusive province of women. Rather, itwas an essential component of the Israelite cult as practiced by both menand women within the temple and throughout the land.24 The linkbetween male and female deity is irrefutable, as is participation in theircults by the bulk of the population, even (perhaps idiosyncratically) intothe exilic period ( Jeremiah 44:15–9).

Third, Israelite religious practice was not exclusively temple centered.While archaeology is mute when it comes to temple worship, both textsand archaeology attest to religious observance beyond the temple precinct.Religion was practiced not only in state-sponsored sanctuaries, but alsoin domestic settings, at burial sites and elsewhere. A number of factorssuggest that worship at these sites was not an exclusively male prerogativebut rather women and men alike were committed to ensuring thewell-being of their community through diverse ritual and symbolic acts.

The first of these factors relates to the accessibility of places of worship.In both Israel and Judah, there were multiple locations in which peoplecould worship. Archaeology supports the biblical narrative on this pointand shows us even more. Formal sanctuaries with altars and standingstones, as well as less formal or conventional shrines, were located intowns and villages throughout the land (including Arad, Dan, Lachish,Megiddo, Ta’anach, Rehov, Lachish, Tell el-Hammah, Tel ’Amal, Jeru-salem Cave 1, Samaria Locus E207, tumuli outside Jerusalem, and thecaravanserai at Kuntillet ’Ajrud), as well as household shrines or multi-purpose spaces within houses25 and more (for these sites, see Nakhai2001, pp. 161–200 and references therein).

Proper burial practices and the maintenance of the cult of the deadwere additional important components of Israelite religion. Due to thenature of Israelite interments, with bones placed in communal repositories,it is not possible to discern practices specific to the burial of women(Bloch-Smith 1992). Once dead, Israel’s luminaries, whether male (e.g.,



Samuel in 1 Samuel 28:7–14) or female (perhaps Rachel in Genesis48:7),26 were understood to have powers beyond those they exercisedwhile alive. Women, or at least certain women, might enquire of them(1 Samuel 28:7–14). The granting of fertility was one realm in whichthe dead seem to have exercised authority (so Hannah, in 1 Samuel1:11; and see Bloch-Smith 1992, p. 122). This might explain the pillar-based figurines (discussed below) found in burial chambers, along withceramic vessels once used for food, drink, and light. Contemporaryanthropological studies show that even today, some Jewish women turnto righteous ancestors for the blessing of progeny (Sered 1992).Women also had a role as professional mourners; their presence requiredin funerary settings (2 Samuel 1:24; Psalms 78:63; Jeremiah 9:17–21;see Meyers 1999, pp. 167–8; Ackerman 2006, pp. 192–5).

All in all, one need not have cleared one’s calendar to make a pilgrimageto Jerusalem. Worship was possible locally (whether at home or in town)at nearby pilgrimage sanctuaries27 and even while traveling. This means,of course, that worship was accessible to anyone.

The second factor relates to the simplicity of cultic materials. Here, amethodological aside is in order. How can archaeologists determine thegender of a person using any individual artifact? Substantiating texts orevidence from burials would be most helpful. Unfortunately, as notedabove, the Bible says little about women’s ritual acts. One exceptionis Genesis 31:25–36, where Rachel steals her father’s teraphim. Thissuggests that women used teraphim but, unfortunately, the archaeologicalcorrelate of this Hebrew word is uncertain. Mortuary evidence from IronAge Israel is similarly unhelpful, given the typical deposits of disarticulatedskeletons. Fortunately, several types of evidence are useful. One is com-parative data from contemporary or nearly contemporary Near Easterncultures. Here, the work of van der Toorn (1994, 1996), Willett (1999),and others is helpful. Another is ethnographic comparanda, whicharchaeologists such as Meyers (1989, 2002a,b,c, 2005) utilize. And finally,there is the matter of access. To what extent were sacred objectsavailable to women? Were they found in those places frequented bywomen? Were they made of materials that rendered them affordable towomen? Were they objects that women would typically be expected touse?

In Israelite worship, the primary ritual was the offering of sacrifices.These offerings, most often the products of agrarian life (grains, livestock,and the like), were considered efficacious insofar as they were the productof the labor of the person making the offering (Nakhai 2001, p. 30).Archaeologically and anthropologically based studies of Israelite womendemonstrate that women held major roles not only in the preparation offood and drink (Meyers 2002b,c, 2007; Ebeling 2002, 2003; Ebeling andHoman 2005, forthcoming) but also in at least some aspects of agriculturaland pastoral work (Meyers 1988, pp. 47–71; 2002c). In addition, they bore



the primary responsibility for the preparation of fabrics and the productionof clothing (Meyers 2003; Cassuto forthcoming). Access to the fruits oftheir own labors would not have been a problem.

Sacrifices were offered in ceramic vessels such as bowls and juglets.Whether taken from the household pantry or manufactured specially forworship, they were inexpensive and available to all. Indeed, women mayhave been involved in pottery manufacture (London 1987, 2000; Esse1992), and this means that even the vessels themselves could have beenthe product of their labor. In addition, women’s roles in the domesticeconomy (Meyers 1988, pp. 47–71; 1989; Hendon 2006 and referencestherein) guaranteed that they could procure vessels and/or the products tobe sacrificed in them, even at a time when most goods fulfilled householdneeds.

Stone altars, used in formal sanctuaries, were emblematic of status butnot required for worship. Offerings could be placed on offering benchesor in alcoves or niches carved into walls. They could be set atop ceramicstands, either simple or elaborate. Model shrines made of clay wereoccasionally used (Daviau 2001; Nakhai 2001). Access to appropriatevenues for offering would not have created a barrier for women’s worship.

The third factor relates to people in positions of religious leadership.Priestly families controlled worship in the temple in Jerusalem, andinscriptions on ostraca (which read ‘holy’, ‘holy to the priests’, and‘house/temple of Yahweh’, and which mention priestly families knownto have served in the Jerusalem temple) suggest that they did so in at leastArad and Beersheba, as well (Aharoni 1968). One has to wonder aboutthe roles played by women in priestly families, but on this topic, botharchaeology and the Bible are mute.

Women were prophets, as well. Best known are Miriam (Exodus15:20–1) and Deborah ( Judges 4:4). Huldah was the prophet to whomKing Josiah’s officials turned when God’s insight into the newly discoveredscroll of teaching was required (2 Kings 22:11–20), while Noadiah servedin the post-exilic period (Ned 6:14). A prophet was the mother of at leastone of Isaiah’s children (Isaiah 8:3–4). Whether women were amongthe 400 prophets of Asherah (or the 450 prophets of Baal) is unknown (1Kings 18:19), but given the likelihood of their inclusion in the bandof prophets mentioned in 1 Samuel 10:5 (Burgh 2006, pp. 96–8), it doesnot seem impossible.

What other kinds of leadership can be sought? Meyers has convincinglyargued that Israelite society is best described as heterarchical rather thanpatriarchal or hierarchical (2006).28 What this means is that ‘. . . certainsystems associated with women, each with its own set of rankings,privileges, and statuses, would hold authoritative roles vis-à-vis othersystems’ (p. 251). Women could ally formally, in guilds and professionalnetworks centered around musical traditions, prophetic roles, funeraryservices, psychological care, counseling and conflict resolution, and



midwifery and other forms of health care (Meyers 1999, 2006, p. 248). Inaddition, they could contribute in less formal ways, which nonetheless hadvalue for and were valued by their communities. As a whole, women’s contribu-tions stood alongside, and not below, those of their male counterparts.

The fourth factor relates to even more personal, intangible expressionsof religious sentiment. These expressions were in part reflected throughcolor, a deeply symbolic medium, displayed on walls, clothing, andjewelry. Women chose simple items such as beads and shells for theiramuletic and apotropaic qualities (Willett 1999). Their careful selection ofamulets representing gods, goddesses, and symbolic elements from amongEgypt’s protective realm (Limmer 2007) shows that they could reachbeyond the borders of Israel, and of Israel’s deities, to care for theirfamilies and for themselves. Incantations and spells were often used incombination with amulets and apotropaia to obtain healing and protection(Willett 1999, forthcoming).

Personal expressions of religious belief were also reflected in decisionsabout worship and the divine. When Judaean women needed to help savetheir people from impending Babylonian conquest, they turned toforeign deities. Their worship of the queen of heaven ( Jeremiah 7:17–8;44:15–9, 25) and their mourning for the god Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14)are condemned in the Bible (Ackerman 1989, 1992, pp. 5–35, 79–93;2003, pp. 461–2). However, the fact that some Judaean women tookit upon themselves to employ religious tactics that would ensure thewell-being of themselves, their families, and their communities; the factthat their husbands participated alongside them in worship; and the factthat they had access to the temple complex, all suggest the extent towhich women’s roles in religion were accepted rather than denied. Thattheir actions invoked prophetic censure further suggests their merit, andthe risk that they posed to more mainstream Judaean religion.29

These expressions of religious sentiment and personal piety werereflected as well in instrument and voice, music, and prayer. Evidencederived from ceramic figurines and biblical passages indicates that womenserved as singers and musicians in formal and informal religious contextsalike (Meyers 1991, 2001; Ackerman 1998, pp. 253–87; 2006, pp.192–5; Burgh 2006, pp. 44–105).30

Purity was a matter for the priesthood, but it must have been adomestic matter too, if the prescriptive and proscriptive laws of Leviticus(12:2–8; 15:18–33; 18:19; 20:18) had meaning in the world of theIron II. Bodily emissions, normal products of biological existence orevidence for illness, would have been monitored at the domestic level.The physical seclusion of women during menstruation or subsequentto childbirth is suggested in the texts, but archaeological evidence forthis is elusive.31 Community shrines may have played a role too,allowing women to undergo rituals of purification at the local level(Meyers 2005, p. 17).



The preparation of meals, a task that was primarily the responsibility ofwomen, would have had a religious component, if households adhered tothe dietary laws prescribed in Leviticus 11. Also, women would haveprepared the meals consumed at sacral feasts and at religious festivals.Ritualized feasting fulfilled religious commandments; it also establishedsocial rank or marked unions between extended families or kin groups(Hendon 2006, p. 186).

The fifth and final factor relates to ceramic figurines, and particularlyto the dea nutrix or pillar-base figurines so popular in Iron II Israel andespecially in Judah. Scholars have yet to agree about their identificationbut most see them as integral to the worship of the goddess Asherah(Pritchard 1943; Patai 1967; Hestrin 1991; Kletter 1996; van der Toorn1998; Moorey 2003; Dever 2005).32 While faces vary, the body is uniform.The emphasis on large breasts suggests that nourishment was the primaryquality invoked by the figurines. While men and women alike wereresponsible for feeding their families, the method of feeding indicatedby the figurines is uniquely female (Nakhai forthcoming b). Ceramicfigurines could easily have been produced by women – and just as easilyused by them. Whether men used them too is a question that has yet tobe answered.

What Did Israelites Want out of Religion and How does that Relate to Women?

The bottom line answer, then as now, is reproductive success – that is,fertile lands, fertile crops, and fertile people – along with good healthand well-being. The Bible indicates that other issues, such as forgivenessand atonement, also mattered, although they are placed within thejurisdiction of priests within the temple precinct. Inasmuch as membersof this priesthood were resident at official sanctuaries outside of Jerusalem,these issues may have also been considered at Arad, Beersheba, andelsewhere.

To the extent that women had a place in the world of formal religion,they would have had a role in articulating these esoteric concepts but asthese concepts have no specific archaeological correlates, it is difficult toassess their importance to the community at large. What does seem clearis that the first concerns, the ‘fertility’ ones, were what predominated, andrightly so given the fact that it is upon reproductive success that allsocieties are fully dependent.

In What Ways Were Fertility Concerns Expressed and to What Extent Did Women Share in Their Expression?

As noted above, women were involved in virtually every kind of productionessential to the maintenance of the household, including agricultural,pastoral, ceramic, and textile work, along with domestic tasks. Furthermore,



women were, obviously, the ones who bore, nursed, and raised children.They were the ones who undertook the risks of childbirth-relatedmorbidity and mortality, and they were the ones who most intimatelyconfronted the dangers of infant and child illness and death (Meyers 2005;Nakhai forthcoming a,b; Willett forthcoming). In addition, they playedan active role in the burial process and in the maintenance of gravesites.So how, one must wonder, could they not have been inextricably involvedin religious practice in their home and community settings? As a whole,these many factors demonstrate that worship in Iron II Israel was notlimited to a male elite. Rather, religion was as much about women as itwas about men, and it was as accessible to women as it was to men. Thefact that this has rarely been acknowledged must be attributed to genderbias within the Bible – and within the modern academy – rather than toany ancient reality.

Short Biography

Beth Alpert Nakhai co-directed the Tell el-Wawiyat Excavation, anarchaeological project that investigates a Bronze and Early Iron Age hamletin Israel’s Lower Galilee. The project is now in its publication phase. Sheis the author of Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel (2001)and the editor of Near East in the Southwest: Essays in Honor of William G.Dever (2003). Nakhai is interested in reconstructing the lives of women inancient Israel. Toward this goal, she introduced a program unit entitled‘The World of Women: Gender and Archaeology’ to the annual meetingsof the American Schools of Oriental Research. A collection of essaysdrawn from it, entitled ‘The World of Women in the Ancient andClassical Near East’, will be published in 2008. Her most recent projectrelating to gender studies is a series of articles about ceramic figurines,motherhood, and religion in Late Bronze Age Canaan and Iron AgeIsrael. Nakhai received her BA from Connecticut College, her Master intheological studies from Harvard Divinity School, and her MA and PhDfrom The University of Arizona. She is an Associate Professor in theArizona Center for Judaic Studies at The University of Arizona, whereshe teaches courses in archaeology, Hebrew Bible, biblical Hebrew, NearEastern history, and women in the ancient Israel.

Notes* Correspondence address: Beth Alpert Nakhai, The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies,The University of Arizona, 845 N. Park Ave., Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. Email:[email protected] Early versions of this article were presented in the Archaeology of Religion and the Sacredsession at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and at the2007 conference entitled ‘The Archaeology of Worship in Biblical Israel’ held at BaltimoreHebrew University.



2 The term Israelite is used to indicate ‘the biblical people’ of the Iron Age II (1000–587 bce).More specifically, it indicates the people of Israel, the northern nation (ca. 921–721 bce), andof Judah, the southern nation (ca. 1000–587 bce). The topic of Israelite origins and ethnicityis one that generates an extraordinary amount of interest. While most scholars agree that theIsraelite core developed in the central highlands of the Iron Age I (1200–1000 bce), the extentto which Iron II Israel included peoples of various ethnic origins is debated. So, too, is theextent to which Iron II Israel owed its cultural heritage to the Canaanites of the Late BronzeAge, who inhabited the land before them. For further reading, see, inter alia, Finkelstein (1988);Sparks (1998); Dever (2003); Nakhai (2003); Killebrew (2005).3 According to Conkey, ‘. . . to inquire into women in prehistory or to consider the status ofwomen in the profession is not justified merely on the grounds of the past (and present)exclusion of women, and that we are somehow coming up with new “facts”. . . . [The future]rests on new relationships with the past and on reconceptualisations of our practice and theproduction and uses of knowledge’ (1993, p. 12). Conkey & Gero argue that ‘. . . an archae-ology that takes feminist theory seriously is self-transformational and communal’ (1997, p. 430).4 As C. Meyers notes, ‘Clearly the traditional research goals of Syro-Palestinian archaeology havenot been congenial to the recovery of data that can contribute to the identification of genderedforms of behavior and thus of the social dynamics of the human beings inhabiting the ancientsites’ (2003, p. 197).5 Several examples document these points. Since its incorporation in 1921, all presidents of theAmerican Schools of Oriental Research have been men. The Society of Biblical Literature wasfounded in 1880 but did not have a female president until 1987.6 Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws prohibiting job discrimination include:(i) Equal Pay Act of 1963 protects men and women who perform substantially equal work inthe same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination; (ii) Title VI of the Civil RightsAct of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or nationalorigin; (iii) Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects individuals who are 40years of age or older; and (iv) Civil Rights Act of 1991 provides monetary damages in case ofintentional employment discrimination.7 Between 1967 and 1991, only 11% of the articles in American Antiquity were by women.Unless substantial changes are made, not until 2051 will female authors be cited in numbersequal to male authors (Victor & Beaudry 1992).8 See Conkey & Gero (1997) for an overview of scholarship on gendered archaeology.9 For the marginalization of gender studies by archaeologists, see Reyman (1992); Wylie (1993),(1998); Gilchrist (1998).10 The American Anthropological Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Archae-ology addresses issues of gender discrimination, as does the Society of Biblical Literature’sCommittee for the Status of Women in the Profession. No similar committee has beenestablished for the American Schools of Oriental Research.11 To remediate this, in 1999, the author introduced a program unit into the annual meetingsof the American Schools of Oriental Research, entitled ‘The World of Women: Gender andArchaeology’. In addition, the roles of women in ancient society have provided the focus formany recent presentations and publications (Nakhai 1999, forthcoming a, forthcoming b;Nakhai, ed., forthcoming).12 In contrast, in Gittlen’s 2007 conference entitled ‘The Archaeology of Worship in BiblicalIsrael’ held at Baltimore Hebrew University, one session out of three was dedicated to paperson women and Israelite religion.13 For an overview of research into gender and archaeology, see Conkey & Gero (1997), whichdiscusses an ‘explosion of literature on archaeological gender’ and addresses ‘the centrality offeminist thought’ to all aspects of archaeological method and theory (p. 413).14 See, for example, Pritchard (1943); Kletter (1996); Moorey (2003).15 For the difficulties encountered when applying feminist theory to archaeology and lookingat archaeology through the lens of gender studies, and for the advantages gained by doing so,see Conkey (1993).16 For the ties that work across households and can be investigated archaeologically, see Gero& Scattolin (2002). They note that: ‘On the one hand, household labor is segregated or divided



by gender (i.e., a division of labor) to create separate, marked, and specialized workforces thatare interdependent for some vital needs. On the other hand, household labor is integrated bygender to bind personnel into a larger operating body vis-à-vis other similar coordinatedhousehold units. Both forms of productive organization, a ‘division of gendered labor’ and an‘integration of gendered labor,’ share a single primary social product at the household level: thecreation of mutual ties and obligations along crosscutting axes of social integration’ (p. 171).17 The literature on this topic is extensive. See, inter alia, Pritchard (1943); Patai (1967); Day(1986); Hestrin (1987, 1991); Olyan (1988); Ackerman (1993, 1998, 2003, 2006); Albertz(1994); Kletter (1996); Keel & Uehlinger (1998); Moorey (2003); Cornelius (2004); Dever(2005).18 Women wove cult garments for the statue of the goddess (2 Kings 23, p. 7). For women andweaving, see Meyers (2003); Cassuto (forthcoming).19 For ‘Yahweh of Samaria’, see the inscription from Kuntillet ’Ajrud (Meshel 1978); for Jehu’sreligious reforms in Samaria having included the destruction of an ’asherah (2 Kings 10:26)and for the role of Jezebel as queen mother (1 King 22:52), see Olyan (1988, pp. 6–7,32–5); Ackerman (1993; 2003, pp. 459–61).20 2 Kings 23:15; see also Ackerman (2003, pp. 455–9; 2006, pp. 189–90).21 Amos 8:13–4; with Dever (2005, p. 150).22 See, for example, 2 Kings 17:9–10. See also Ackerman (2003); Dever (2005). For archaeo-logical evidence for these sanctuaries, see Nakhai (1994, 2001, pp. 161–200).23 See, inter alia, Tigay (1987); Ackerman (1992, 2006); Cross (1993); Keel & Uehlinger (1998);van der Toorn et al. (1999); Zevit (2001, pp. 586–609); Smith (2002); Cornelius (2004).24 Ackerman (2003) reconstructs geographic boundaries for Asherah worship, suggesting that itwas primarily a southern ( Judaean) phenomenon.25 See Daviau (2001) for rooftop shrines. For their use by women, see p. 202. For the householdshrine at Tel Halif, see Hardin (2004, pp. 76–7). For additional household shrines, see Holladay(1987); Willett (1999); Zevit (2001). Meyers suggests that ritual activities may have beenenacted in multiple locations throughout the house; in the Israelite household, space used fordaily activities could be temporarily transformed into ‘sacred’ space for ritual acts (2005,pp. 24–5; see also Nakhai 2007).26 Sered (1992, p. 120 and footnote 28) discusses the practice of women visiting the traditionalsite of Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem. This may reflect an ancient custom. See also van der Toorn(1994, p. 140).27 Ilan (2007) suggests that Dan was organized as a pilgrimage site; see also Biran (1994, 1996).28 For discussions of heterarchy, see Crumley (1995); Ehrenreich et al. (1995); Gero & Scattolin(2002); Levy (2006 and references therein).29 See Ackerman (2006, p. 195) for the notion that Judaean women turned to foreign gods asa reaction to the loss of important roles in Judaean religion subsequent to the reforms of theJosianic era (late seventh century bce).30 See Exodus 15:20–1; Judges 5:1–30; 11:34, 37–40; 1 Samuel 10:5; 186–7; 1 Chronicles9:33– 4; 25:1, 5–8; 2 Chronicles 35:25; Psalms 68:24–5; 149:3; 150:3–5.31 See Bunimovitz & Faust (2003) for a discussion of the four-room house plan as a product ofthe Israelite concern for purity.32 For an alternate perspective, see Meyers (2005), which describes such figurines as votaries.She concludes that the figurines are ‘. . . vehicles of magical practice. Such figurines aretypically used in rituals intended to deal with specific family situations, such as increasingfertility or producing healthy children’ (p. 29).

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