Bar-Ilan archaeologist links a 750-kg standing stone to King Hezekiah's reforms

A study by Prof. Avraham Faust of Bar-Ilan University, published in the 2026 issue of the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology and reported on June 16, 2026, suggests that a large standing stone excavated at Tel Eton in the Judean lowlands may offer rare archaeological evidence of the religious reforms the Bible attributes to King Hezekiah of Judah in the late eighth century BCE.

The limestone stone, known in Hebrew as a massebah, is about 1.4 meters tall and weighs roughly 750 kilograms. It was found in the largest room of a large four-room house, sometimes described as a governor's residence, which radiocarbon dating places as early as the late 11th or early 10th century BCE. The house and town were destroyed by the Assyrian army toward the end of the eighth century BCE. Standing stones of this kind are found across the ancient Near East and, although their exact meaning is debated, scholars agree they had religious significance. This one stood opposite the entrance, where anyone stepping inside or standing in the courtyard would have seen it.

At some point before the Assyrian destruction, however, the stone was taken down. Rather than being smashed, it was carefully laid on its side and built into a specially constructed platform, on which a cooking pot was later found. Faust argues that this careful decommissioning fits the biblical account in the Second Book of Kings, which describes Hezekiah abolishing local shrines and breaking sacred pillars while centralizing worship in Jerusalem. He suggests that the respectful treatment of the stone may show that the household still valued it even as its ritual role ended.

Whether Hezekiah's reform happened as the Bible describes has long been debated, partly because the few public cult sites known from Judah, such as Arad and Beersheba, are open to competing interpretations. Faust's study turns instead to evidence from a home. The stone was fully uncovered during the final seasons of the Tel Eton Archaeological Expedition in 2014 and 2015, and Faust acknowledged that the team did not immediately understand what it had found.