Iron Age Two
Iron Age bench tombs carved into natural rock were discovered at el-Qom; both were investigated by
William Dever in 1967 following their discovery by tomb robbers. Both tombs contain inscriptions, dating from the second half of the 8th century BCE, slightly after the
Asheratic
Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions. The inscription from Tomb 2 is associated with a "
magic hand" symbol, and reads: ::"Uriyahu the honourable has written this ::Blessed is/be Uriyahu by Yahweh ::And [because?] from his oppressors by his asherah he has saved him ::[written] by Oniyahu" ::"...by his Asherah ::...and his Asherah" Unlike the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, this inscription do not include a place name with the name of
Yahweh (the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions talk of "Yahweh of Samaria" and "Yahweh of Teman"); this seems to indicate that they were written after the fall of
Samaria, which left Yahweh as the god of one state only. There is some scholarly debate about the translation, particularly for line three. A jug inscribed "to/for Yahmol" and a bowl inscribed "El" were also found.
Persian and Hellenistic periods One thousand seven hundred
ostraca in
Aramaic may have been found on the site and the vicinity, dating from the
Persian and Hellenistic periods, during which the area was classified as the Persian province of
Idumea, with a mixed population of Edomites,
Jews and
Arabs. The site is called Maqqedah in the Idumean ostraca. Based on this, some scholars identify Khirbet el-Qom with biblical Makkedah (). Khirbet el-Qom may have housed a
Yahwistic shrine in the 4th century BCE, likely serving the small Judean population of northern Idumea, making it one of three known Yahwistic shrines in ancient Israel during this period, alongside the
Second Temple in
Jerusalem and the
Samaritan Temple on
Mount Gerizim. ==Identification==