The Religious Complexes of Megiddo and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon and the Early Bronze Age Interregional Connectivity

Abstract

The southern Levantine tradition of cult buildings from Early Bronze I to Early Bronze III is represented mainly by simple broad-room temples with a central row of pillar bases, a layout derived directly from the local Chalcolithic traditions. However, at Tell el-Mutesellim/Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, and Khirbet ez-Zeraqon in the northern Transjordanian plateau, two different types of temples were discovered, which are often conflated in the category of broad-room temples in antis. In contrast, we argue that they belong to two distinct types of Early Bronze Age temples, whose ancestry can be traced in different areas and periods during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. We re-analyse differences and similarities of the religious complexes at the two sites in terms of intra- and inter-regional connections, re-discuss the duration of their use during the Early Bronze Age, and propose an explanation for the blending of local and non-local features in the two sacred areas framed within inter-regional connectivity already during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC.