Sanctuaries, Temples and Cult Places in Early Bronze I Southern Levant

Abstract

Recent investigations, publications of past excavations, and current researches have
progressively shed light on Early Bronze I period (3400-3000 BC) in Southern Levant: on
its chronology, settlement pattern, socio-economic developments, and trade relationships.
Among the prominent features of this period is the appearance and progressive enucleation
within the settlements, or in the countryside, of cult places, shrines and sacred precincts,
from the earliest open sanctuaries and shrines inside the EB IA (3400-3200 BC) rural
villages, towards the erection of the first temple compounds during the EB IB (3200-3000
BC). It, thus, appears noticeable the connection between the outlining of the earliest public
cult places and the progressive codification of a local monumental sacred architecture in
the Southern Levantine centres, from the one hand, and, from the other hand, the sociopolitical and economic developments which took place in the late 4th millennium BC and
which eventually led to the emergence of the earliest urban societies at the beginning of the
3rd millennium BC