ABSTRACT
Gilat has been identified as one of the three earliest, permanent public ritual centers identified in the southern Levant (Alon and Levy 1989; Levy 1998), and the only one so far identified in the Northern Negev during the Chalcolithic period. It is one of a select group of sanctuaries that include Ein Gedi in the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea (Ussishkin 1980) and Teleilat Ghassul located near the northeast coast of the Dead Sea (Bourke et al. 2001, Hennessy 1982, Seaton 2000). Occupation of the site both predated and postdated the period in which the sanctuary was built and functioned, and human skeletal remains have been recovered from burials dug into each of the three Chalcolithic strata identified. Altogether they number some 91 individuals, of whom half this number originated from the two strata associated with the sanctuary (Strata IIA and IIB).
