PORTABLE SILO SHRINES OF THE GRAIN DEITY IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM BCE LEVANT.

Fenestrated domed vessels have been found in Bronze and Iron Age contexts at a number of sites in the central and eastern Mediterranean, western Asia, and Egypt. In the Levant, they have been interpreted as "snake houses" and house models, but more often as model sanctuaries or portable shrines. In this presentation, I reexamine their attributes and find-spot contexts and propose that they represent grain silos--modeled on the original Egyptian conception. Referencing mythological and ritual texts from ancient Western Asia and from Ugarit in particular, it is proposed that the model silos were an attribute of the grain god - Ba'al-Hadad or Dagan - and housed figurines of that deity. The model silos would have been considered instrumental in communicating with the deity to encourage agrarian fecundity. They might also have been a vehicle of communication with ancestors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]