SHILOH

The similarity of shfifonim in shape to stone anchors found in and around the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the consideration that they are found only in the immediate vicinity of the Sea of Galilee support the conclusion that shfifonim “represent” stone anchors but were not intended for use as anchors. [.Sfie Anchors.]

Several factors suggest that shfifonim may have had a cul-tic significance. The unworked bases of some suggest that they were meant to be placed in the ground. Stone anchors are commonly found in Syro-Canaanite and Cypriot Bronze Age temples. Additionally, the huge size and weight of these monolitlts preclude their use on the fishing boats that existed on the Sea of Galilee. In classical times, tlie largest boats on the lake were about y-g m long. [S’ee Galilee Boat.] It is unlikely tltat Early Bronze Age boats on tlte lake were larger. Only tlte smallest shfifonim could have conceivably been used on diose vessels.

No actual anchors with the large biconical hawser hole diagnostic of shfifonim have been found in the Sea of Galilee. Thus, the local prototype for tlte shfifonim is still missing. Stone anchors recovered from tlte lake are relatively small and have narrow hawser holes.

The roof and walls of a Middle Bronze Age I tomb at Kibbutz Degania A near Tel Betlt-Yerah are constructed from two shfifonim and four unpierced monoliths. A cultic basin was used for tlte tomb’s floor. All seven pieces may originally have belonged to a single cultic installation that was dismantled and reused as building material. The group may have originated at adjacent Tel Beth-Yerah, where two other shfifonim were found in sim.

Shfifonim were made and used no later that tlte Early Bronze Age II. To judge by the cavalier manner in which they were employed in the Middle Bronze Age I, they no longer had a cultic significance. A large shfifon, which served as a reliquary, was found beneath the offering table of the monastery/church on Mt. Bernice. This building was con-sU'ucted in the Byzandne period and continued in use into tlte Crusader period. Thus, both the earliest and tlte latest evidence for the cultic use of stone anchors/dummy anchors in the Levant is along the shores of tlte Sea of Galilee.

[Sec also Ships and Boats.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hirschfeld, Yizhar. “The Anchor Church at tlie Summit of Mr. Berenice, Tiberias.” Biblical Archaeologist 57.3 (1994): 122-133. Report on the Mount Bernice shfifon and the church in which it was discovered.

Kochavi, M. “A Built Shaft-Tomb of the Middle Bronze Age I at Degania A” (in Hebrew). Qadmoniot 6.2 (1973): 50-53. Report on the built tomb at Degania A.

Nun, Mendel. The Kinneret: Monograph of a Lake (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv, 1977. General description of shfifonim.

Wachsmann, Shelley. “Shfifons: Early Bronze Age Anchor-Shaped Cult Stones from the Sea of Galilee Region.” Thrada Pontica III: Troisieme symposium international edited by Alexandre Fol et al., pp.

395-403. Sofia, 1986. The most detailed study of shfifonim to date, but in need of updating.

Shelley Wachsmann

SHILOH (Ar., Khirbet Seilun), site of an Early Israelite religious center, situated 2.5 km (1.5 mi.) east of the Jeru-salem-Nablus road, at the nor±ern end of a fertile valley (map reference 1775 X 1626). The mound, about 7.5 acres in area, was naturally protected on the east and west but was vulnerable on the soutli and, to a certain extent, on the north. Rock-hewn cisterns were scattered over the mound, but the site’s permanent water source was 'Ain Seilun, a fairly large spring located about 900 m to the northeast. These three factors—a wide fertile valley to the south, a perennial water supply, and an easily defensible topographic position—no doubt influenced the choice of the site.

The key ancient sources for tlte location of Shiloh are Judges 21:19, the early church historian Eusebius’s Onomas-ticon, and the Madaba mosaic map. [5ee Madaba.] Shiloh’s location was still known in the fourteenth century CE, when the Jewish traveler Eshtori ha-Parchi found it in ruins. Its ancient name was preserved in the name of the small medieval village mentioned in Ottoman tax records from the beginning of the sixteentli century CE and in the name of the adjacent spring. The modern identification of Khirbet Seilun as ancient Shiloh was made without difficulty on linguistic grounds by the American philologist Edward Robinson during his trip to Palestine in 1838. [Yee the biography of Robinson.]

A. Schmidt undertook the first archaeological investigation of tlie site in 1922. This was followed from 1926 to 1932 by a Danish expedition led by H. Kjaer, with William Fox-well Albright serving as adviser, and a short season of excavation in 1963 by Svend Holm-Nielsen. [See the biography of Albright] Four seasons of excavations were conducted from 1981 to 1984 by the Land of Israel Studies of Bar-Ilan University under the direction of Israel Finkelstein, with Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman acting as assistant directors. Remains from every historical period from the Middle Bronze Age to the Byzantine era and beyond were uncovered. Excavation efforts were concentrated on the edges of the mound, particularly its northern sector, where there were fewer later remains, as it had not been damaged by erosion or later construction.

Pottery finds date the earliest settlement to MB II, when the site apparently was small and unwalled. By MB III, however, Shiloh had become a large, fortified center. The site, tlten a little more than 4 acres in area, was surrounded by a continuous periphery wall and an eartlien glacis. The waU, from 3 to 5.5 m thick and preserved up to 8 m, was built of large fieldstones tliat were used for secondary construction, in all periods. Rooms built against the wall’s inner face were found in one area. A solid, rectangular tower protruded 0.6