religion 179
altar and a pedestal are visible. another altar stood before the temple.255
researchers have long since recognized the structural similarity of the
temple of Jerusalem to temple i of tell tayinat.256
excavations carried out in tell tayinat between 2007 and 2009
have unearthed a second temple. this temple ii (building xVi) lies
east of the hilani building (building i), and opens to the south. thus,
the temples are oriented toward each other by way of a common fore-
court. temple ii is somewhat smaller than temple i, with a width of 9 m
and a length of 21 m, but is also divided into vestibule, cella, and adyton.
the adyton contains a pedestal reached by four steps that fills almost the
entire room. the east side shows the remains of a mud brick altar. eleven
neo-assyrian clay tablets with scientific, lexical, and juridical texts were
found on the west side of the adyton. additionally, furnishing remains
were found in the cella and adyton.257
the two temples cannot be assigned to hadad or other deities due to
a lack of written material from that time. the inscription on the horse’s
blinder and head-piece makes the dedication of one of the temples to
hadad highly probable.258 Furthermore, one can refer to the late Bronze
age double temples in emar, dedicated to Baʿal and Ḫebat, and in alalaḫ,
dedicated to teššup and astarte, which tend to confirm a dedication of
the tell tayinat temples i and ii to hadad and astarte.259
several large buildings (buildings i–V) were exposed during excava-
tions on the southern part of the acropolis of hamath between 1931 and
- the following statements can be made in terms of the existence of
temples:
Building iii is identified as a temple based on the remains of an archive
containing tablet fragments of hymns, rituals, magical and medicinal
texts, omens, exorcistic rituals, and correspondence. this interpretation
is supported by the fact that the previous building contained a stele for
a deity, possibly the weather-god tarḫunt. Building iii was thus used at
least partly as a temple.260 one can assume that the goddess pahalatis was
worshipped here together with the weather-god. small finds include the
255 on this temple, cf. Busink 1970: 558–562; haines 1971: 53–55; Werner 1994: 114f;
harrison 2012: 6–10.
256 cf., for example, Busink 1970: 558–562.
257 on this temple, cf. harrison 2012: 10–18 and, on the texts, lauinger 2011.
258 see above, section 3.1.
259 see also harrison 2012: 18f.
260 For a different view, cf. Werner 1994: 141 and Matthiae 2008: 210f.