Photo: Courtesy of Claude Doumet-Serhal

SIDON’S TEMPLE. Used by the Phoenicians, Sidon’s 12th–11th-century B.C.E. temple currently measures 38 by 39 feet, but excavations are ongoing, and more of this structure will be uncovered in the near future. One of the rooms in this temple had a round base that likely supported a wooden pillar. In the adjacent room was a single unit composed of a bench, where offerings would have been placed, and an altar made of piled and unhewn stones. The altar recalls the command in Exodus 20:25 to build altars of uncut stones.