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Six of the eleven altars that were found during the excavation of Tel Miqne (biblical Ekron) stand in front of the excavation's directors, Trude Dothan and Sy Gitin. They concluded that Ekron had a primarily Philistine population in the 7th century BCE, with some admixture of Israelites. Each altar except the round one at the very bottom of the photo has corner horns, and all but that one were found in an industrial building (the one without horns was found in the city's domestic quarter). Many scholars have suggested that this round, unhorned 'altar' from the domestic quarter might instead have been used for non-religious functions, such as mixing cosmetics or burning incense in homes simply to add a pleasant scent. Such discussions raise important questions about how we identify objects from archaeological excavations, especially religious ones.