Shiloh

Excavations at Khirbet Seilun revealed a substantial Iron Age I settlement with large storage buildings, unusual quantities of animal bones from ritually acceptable species, and a destruction by fire in the mid-eleventh century. The biblical account places the Tabernacle there before the monarchy, and Jeremiah invokes Shiloh's fate as a warning to those who trusted in the Temple. No sanctuary structure has been definitively identified, and the location of the cultic center within the site remains argued. It is the best material candidate for a central Israelite shrine in the pre-monarchic period.