Title
Description
This artist's rendition of a cult structure at Horvat Qitmit in the eastern Negev Desert has been identified as being Edomite, and as dating to the 7th-6th centuries BCE, on the basis of its pottery. In addition to the pottery, many fragments of clay figures and life-sized statues were also found. The building to the upper right has three rectangular rooms that open to the south. The floors were found to be under a foot of ashes. In front of the building were two major open-air installations: a 3-foot by 4-foot platform standing within a walled court (upper left) and a circular stone enclosure within which was found a stone altar, a 3-foot-wide plaster-lined basin and a 3-foot-deep stone-lined pit. Nothing is known of how these features were used, but the presence of figures and figurines, as well as the ashes in the rectangular rooms, have led scholars to suggest that these structures served religious purposes. Note the open-air characteristics of this structure, which may point to the nomadic nature of its builders/users.