Kuntillet Ajrud — An Iron Age Way-Side
Religious Center in Sinai
Ze'ev Meshel

Kuntillet Ajrud is a small, single-period Iron Age (Israelite) site from the early eight century BC, whose ancient identification is unknown. The site is located on the flat narrow summit of an isolated hill in northern Sinai (map reference 0940.9560), approximately 50 km south of Kadesh-Barnea and about 10 km west of Darb Ghazza, the road running from Kadesh-Barnea to Elath and southern Sinai. The Arabic name Kuntillet Ajrud means "Solitary Hill of Wells". Several shallow wells dug at the foot of the hill provided one of the only permanent water sources in this arid region.

The site contains two single-period buildings. The main building and the most important one, is a rectangular structure (15x25 m.) approached through an outer courtyard, an indirect gate-room and a narrow broad-room, all of them surrounded by stone benches and plastered with white, shiny lime plaster. The narrow broad-room, termed "the bench room", was the most important part of the building and contained most of the sits's unique finds: fragments of wall plaster bearing colored murals and Hebrew inscriptions written in black ink, two large pithoi decorated with inscriptions and drawings and several stone bowls bearing the names of their donors. The room's plan and content, in particular the inscriptions, attest to its function: to house vessels and objects offered at the site by donors asking for blessing.

The unique Hebrew inscriptions can be divided unto several types: inscriptions incised on pottery vessels before, or after, firing; inscriptions incised on the rims of stone bowls; ink inscriptions on wall plaster and, together with drawings, on large pottery vessels. All of these are unique in Iron Age Israel both in quantity and variety.

The following is an example of an inscription on a pottery vessel: "A[shy]o the K[ing?] said: tell x, y and z, may you be blessed by YHWH of Shomron (Samaria) and his ASHERAH"…

The contents of the inscriptions, the mention of various deities and the offerings dedicated to the site all attest to its uniqueness as a religious centre – a kind of a wayside shrine that, due to its location, was related to the royal journeys to Elath and Ezion-Geber, and perhaps also to pilgrimages to southern Sinai.