During the 1980s, archaeologist Adam Zertal excavated a prominent stone structure on Mount Ebal in the central hill country of Samaria. The complex contains multiple phases, including an earlier, smaller installation beneath the larger structure. The principal phase is generally placed in the Late Bronze/Iron Age I transition or early Iron Age I, although the chronology remains debated. The surrounding fill yielded significant quantities of ash and faunal remains—predominantly young male sheep, goats, and cattle—as well as Egyptian scarabs and local pottery, situating it precisely during the critical period of early Israelite emergence in the highlands.

Was It an Altar?

Zertal interpreted the main edifice as an early Israelite altar, pointing to the unhewn stones, the ramp, and the surrounding ledges. This comparison entered the broader discussion when a team member noticed architectural similarities between the excavated structure and reconstructions of the Second Temple altar based on the Mishnah’s description in tractate Middot. This comparison is legitimate as an architectural observation, but it cannot by itself establish the identity or date of the Mount Ebal structure. A much later description of the Second Temple and its altar does not demonstrate historical continuity or independently identify an Iron Age structure.

While some early critics proposed domestic or defensive explanations, such as a watchtower or farmstead, a number of archaeologists have regarded the site as having a cultic or ritual function, even while rejecting its identification with Joshua’s altar. A cultic function, however, is much easier to defend archaeologically than an identification with a specific biblical figure.

Was It Joshua’s Altar?

The specific identification of the site with the altar of Joshua 8 has not achieved scholarly consensus. Making the jump from “Iron Age ritual site” to “Joshua’s altar” requires anchoring the archaeological remains to a literal reading of the biblical conquest narrative. The identification therefore involves several separate assumptions: that the structure was an Israelite altar, that it corresponds to the kind of altar described in Deuteronomy 27, that the biblical account preserves a historical memory of the site’s construction, and that Joshua himself was responsible for it. Archaeology does not independently establish any of those links.

Archaeology has not produced evidence for a mass migration of the enormous population implied by a straightforward reading of the Exodus account. Furthermore, the conventional conquest chronology does not fit comfortably with regional evidence. At Jericho, there is no clear destruction layer corresponding to the required date, and the traditional identification of Ai with et-Tell creates a major chronological problem, as et-Tell was not a fortified settlement during the period in which the conquest is conventionally placed.

Rather than revealing a single invading population replacing the Canaanites, the archaeological record points to a complex process in which new highland communities emerged through a combination of local populations, pastoral groups, and people responding to the political and economic disruption of the Late Bronze Age. Consequently, there is no independent archaeological evidence establishing Joshua as the military commander described in the book of Joshua. Many historical-critical scholars therefore treat the Joshua narratives primarily as literary traditions shaped and transmitted over time, with major stages of composition and redaction commonly placed in the monarchic and exilic/post-exilic periods.

The site has also generated newer controversy. In 2023, researchers published what they interpreted as a Late Bronze Age proto-alphabetic inscription on a folded lead object recovered from material associated with the excavation. They interpreted the text as a curse invoking YHW, but both the reading and its dating have been challenged, so it cannot currently be treated as independent confirmation of Joshua’s altar.

Ironically, rejecting the identification with Joshua does not make the Mount Ebal site archaeologically unimportant. The site provides vital evidence for ritual activity in the central highlands during the emergence of early Israel. The archaeological evidence can reasonably be interpreted as indicating an ancient ritual installation on Mount Ebal. It cannot establish that Joshua built it.