Ancient stone at Tel Eton may provide new proof of King Hezekiah’s religious reform, study suggests
The stone, known also as a massebah, was discovered during excavations of the First Temple era site, inside a large residence named by archaeologists as "Building 101," or the Governor's Residency.
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Ancient stone at Tel Eton may provide new proof of King Hezekiah’s religious reform, study suggests
The stone, known also as a massebah, was discovered during excavations of the First Temple era site, inside a large residence named by archaeologists as "Building 101," or the Governor's Residency.
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Treatment of a 2,700-year-old standing stone at Tel Eton, located east of Hebron, may provide evidence for the biblical King Hezekiah’s debated religious reforms, according to a new study.
Hezekiah is described as having implemented sweeping religious reforms across his kingdom, including eliminating local places of worship and centralizing religious activity in Jerusalem.
Despite the biblical accounts, scholars have long since debated if the reforms’ descriptions are accurate or if they reflected a later ideological shift in perspective.
While most discussions of Hezekiah’s reform have focused on the remains of temples and public spaces of worship, Professor Avraham Faust of Bar-Ilan University's General History Department focuses the discussion to how religious change affected the everyday, personal life.
The stone, known also as a massebah, was discovered during excavations of the ancient Judean settlement, inside a large residence named by archaeologists as "Building 101," or the Governor's Residency.
No obvious practical purpose
Standing at approximately 1.4 meters high and weighing 750 kilograms, the stone was set in the building’s largest room, directly opposite the entrance to remain visible to any passerby.
However, as the stone served no obvious practical purpose, and since standing stones in the ancient near East have often been found in relation to ritualistic activities, archaeologists assumed it to be religious in nature.
"The location of the stone suggests that it played an important role in the lives of the building's occupants," explained Faust.
Later though, before the destruction of Tel Eton by the Assyrian Empire in the late eighth century BCE, the stone was moved. Rather than displaying it in a place of prominence, residents of the ancient settlement laid it on its side and incorporated it into a stone platform.
Notably, researchers did not identify evidence that the stone had been damaged during the shift in position or otherwise - a distinction that is highly significant, Faust argues.
"Those responsible for changing religious practices may have wished to eliminate the stone's ritual function, and perhaps wanted the old ritual objects desecrated, but the people who carried out the change seem to have treated it with respect," he said. "They removed it from use without destroying it, effectively neutralizing its cultic significance while preserving the object itself."
Discussion of ancient Judean religion must move to the personal sphere
It is important to note that while Faust does not claim evidence that the stone was decommissioned under Hezekiah’s reforms, he does argue that the find “aligns well with other archaeological evidence from the same period” and strengthens the possibility of active religious reform.
Further, he emphasizes that in order to understand ancient Judean religious development, historians and archaeologists must look past the official public cultic spaces and into more personal, non-ritual spaces for evidence that may have been previously overlooked.
“Finally, I would like to reiterate that the above discussion calls for the shift of scholarly focus from the study of cultic buildings to the investigation of domestic contexts,” Fuast wrote in the study. “Given the paucity of Iron Age Israelite temples, such a move appears essential.”
“Hopefully, more attention will be given to the architectural history of structures and, subsequently, more evidence will be brought to light also about changes to cultic practices in domestic contexts, even when cultic objects have been removed due to the reform.”
The study, titled “Hezekiah’s Reform? A View from Tel ‘Eton on the Religious Development in Judah”, was published in June 2026 in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.
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bible |
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