page_title: Ain Dara (archaeological site)
section_title: History of excavation
hierarchical_section_title: Ain Dara (archaeological site) / History of excavation
caption_attribution_description: English: Ancient statue of a lion — Ain Dara, Syria.
context_page_description: The Ain Dara temple, located near the village of Ain Dara, in Afrin, Syria is an Iron Age Syro-Hittite temple noted for its similarities to Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, as described in the Hebrew Bible. According to the excavator Ali Abu Assaf, it was in existence from 1300 BC until 740 BC and remained "basically the same" during the period of the Solomonic Temple's construction as it had been before, so that it predates the Solomon Temple. The temples of Emar, Mumbaqa, and Ebla are also comparable, as is the nearby 8th-century Tell Tayinat temple. The surviving sculptures depict lions and sphinxes.
  Massive footprints were carved into the floor; whether of giants, humans or animals is debatable. Also left to speculation is to whom the temple is dedicated. Ain Dara may have been devoted to Ishtar, goddess of fertility, or to the related female goddess Astarte. It also might have been dedicated to the deity Ba'al Hadad; or it might have been an oracle temple on a road known as "the international highway" between the Syrian Desert and Mediterranean Sea.
context_section_description: The discovery of the temple was the result of a fortuitous finding of a colossal basalt lion in 1955. Excavations in 1956, 1962, and 1964 were conducted by Maurice Dunand and Feisal Seirafi; beginning in 1976, Ali Abu Assaf continued the work.
caption: Colossal basalt lion found in 1955
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