An intriguing feature of Tel Miqne-Ekron is the fifteen (thirteen of them four-horned) altars found there (as of the 1990 season). Before the Ekron finds, the entire Near East had yielded only twenty-five of these incense altars. Five of those had been uncovered in Judah, nineteen in Israel, and one in Nineveh. All of the twenty-five, as well as the fifteen from Ekron, are from the tenth through the seventh centuries B.C. Fourteen of the Ekron altars are from the seventh century, the period during which Assyria dominated Ekron but which also witnessed Ekron's greatest growth; the fifteenth one came from an eleventh/tenth-century fill. During the last quarter of the eighth century B.C., Israel was conquered by Assyria and led away into captivity. The deportation of Israel's ten tribes may account for the one incense altar found at Nineveh; Israelite captives may have made it, trying to worship as they had in Israel. It could also have been imported to Nineveh from Israel for the same purpose.

The fact that nineteen of these altars were found in Israel brings to mind another question concerning the Ekron altars. Is it possible that Israelites from the ten tribes were connected with these altars at the Philistine city of Ekron? The Bible records that some refugees from Israel traveled south to Judah (2 Chron. 30:11, 18, 21, 25). Is it possible that some Israelites also fled to Philistia or were placed there by the Assyrians as part of the labor pool for the olive oil industry? How are the Ekron incense altars, quite often found in the industrial buildings, tied in to the olive oil industry? Are they related to the religious cult?

Typology, that is, classifying artifacts by type, is an important tool for archaeologists. When these incense altars began to be excavated at Ekron, they were studied in context with all of the other incense altars mentioned above. Other than one incense altar found at Lachish in Judah, the oldest altars came from Israelite shrines (temples or high places) at Megiddo and Dan. Dan was one of the two locations for the golden calves set up by Jeroboam in the tenth century B.C. (1 Kings 12:27-29). At Megiddo, a royal Israelite city, the earliest altars are from the tenth century, and at Dan the earliest ones are from the ninth century.

Down to the south in Judah, the incense altars were found in four locations. At Lachish, a Judean city during the reigns of the kings following Solomon, one altar in a cult room was found and dated to the tenth century B.C. Its closest parallel is thought to be the altars excavated at Megiddo. The large altar found at Beer-sheba was recovered in pieces, for the stones of the altar had been used for other functions, but it is believed to be from the ninth/eighth century B.C. Two incense altars without horns have been found at Arad. These were found in situ, where they had been used in what is believed to have been a Judean temple dedicated to Yahweh. They were positioned at the entrance of the Holy of Holies of the temple. Then, just outside the Arad temple, in the courtyard, a square sacrificial altar that corresponds in size and type of stones used to the divine requirement in Exodus 20:21-25 and 27:1-2a was also uncovered. It appears that that altar was no longer used during the days of Hezekiah, the reformer king (2 Chron. 31:1). The two incense altars at the entrance to the temple, however, remained in use through the seventh century, possibly until the days of Josiah (640-609 B.C.), another reformer king. Josiah's reforms, mentioned in 2 Kings 23, probably included the demolition of the temple at Arad, but the incense altars had first been placed reverently on their sides and then been covered with dirt. The other altar of the five found in Judah comes from Tell en-Nasbeh, some six miles north of Jerusalem. It was recovered in the 1930s, but the find was not published until 1947, and not much is said of it. The site may be the Mizpah of 1 Samuel 7:5-16, 2 Kings 25:23-26, and Jeremiah 40-41.

The incense altars found at Ekron are different from the ones mentioned above in several ways. First of all, they are the latest altars found thus far. Fourteen of them originated at the time of the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar's military campaign at the end of the seventh century, a time from which no horned altars have been found in Judea. Secondly, these altars came from a Philistine site, though the ethnic composition of seventh-century Ekron is not yet completely understood. In addition, the other altars described above were found in shrines, temples, or high places, but at Ekron they were found in a completely different context and quite often in industrial buildings.

Due to the large number of incense altars found, as well as the contexts in which they were found, it is believed that the altars wee somehow used in the operation of the industry at Ekron by the priestly class, who held royal authority. Inscriptions were found on large storage jars near some of these altars. The storage jars were of the type used to hold and ship olive oil. The inscriptions at Ekron include "sanctified to Asherat," "for the shrine," and "oil." Asherat, or Asherah, is the same Canaanite goddess that is named in many places in the Bible, including 2 Kings 21:7: "The carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, `In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. . . .'" This passage refers to Judah's King Manasseh, who ruled about the time of these altars and inscriptions at Ekron. Because both chalices and altars were found in the room with the storage jars, it is thought that perhaps this room did have some cultic significance. Too much oil, however, was produced at Ekron for all of it to have been used solely for cultic or religious purposes.

Ekron's altars have also been compared with the others from Israel and Judah in terms of size and construction technique, and whether they were freestanding, finished, or unfinished. According to that study (Gitin 1989a, 61f.), the earliest altars, such as those from Megiddo in the north, were built to the specifications and instructions found in Exodus 27:1-2a; 30:1-2; and 37:25, except that these altars were made of stone. Most of Ekron's incense altars, however, reflect "the earlier tradition of horned altars at Megiddo in the tenth century . . ." (Gitin 1989a, 62). When all characteristics of the altars are compared and contrasted, the conclusion is that Ekron's incense altars "were derived from the northern tradition" (Gitin 1989a, 63).

What does all this mean for our study of the Philistines? The incense altars from Ekron are related typologically to the altars from the northern territory that once was Israel. It has even been conjectured that former Israelites might have made Ekron's incense altars (Gitin 1990, 40). In addition, the inscriptions on the storage jars found near some of them are in a Semitic script that can be read by those who know Hebrew characters. These inscriptions could be Hebrew, Phoenician, or Philistine. Not enough inscriptions have been found at Philistine sites to determine definitively what the Philistine language was. Sufficient artifacts without inscriptions have been recovered to enable us to say that the people living at Ekron were living in the same Philistine coastal traditions as their forebears of the twelfth century B.C. Both biblical and extrabiblical texts consider this area still to have been occupied by the Philistines during the late seventh century B.C., and not by some other people.

However, because of the incense altars and the Semitic inscriptions (especially the reference to the Canaanite goddess Asherah in a Semitic script) found at Ekron, another biblical passage comes to mind.

Perhaps Israelite laborers were helping to maintain the olive industry at this Philistine site of Ekron and were also able to worship, at least in part, as they had in the north.