Ain Dara Tell

View towards the 90 ft. [27 m.] high tell of Ain Dara.

Ain Dara is a large (60! acre [24 ha.]) tell located in northwestern Syria—40 mi. [65 km.] northwest of Aleppo.  It was occupied from the Chalcolithic (fourth millennium B.C.) to the Ottoman period (A.D. 1517–1917).

One of the most interesting group of finds are a series of temples that existed from roughly 1300 to 740 B.C.  John Monson (see below) has argued that this temple exhibits striking parallels to Solomon's Temple as described in the biblical text (1 Kings 6; 2 Chronicles 3).

Ali Abu Assaf excavated the temple in the 1980's.

Image courtesy of Mark Connally.

---

Monson, John J. “The New 'Ain Dara Temple: Closest Solomonic Parallel.”Biblical Archaeology Review vol. 26, no. 3 (May/June, 2000): 20–35, 67.