The Foreign Cults of Solomon in Archaeology: Chemosh, Molech, Ashtoreth, and the Mount of Corruption

The Topography of the "Mount of Corruption" (Har Ha-Mashchit)

To satisfy his foreign royal wives, Solomon constructed pagan sacrificial shrines overlooking Jerusalem:

"Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods." (1 Kings 11:7–8)

The hill "east of Jerusalem" is the southern ridge of the Mount of Olives, known in biblical Hebrew as Har Ha-Mashchit (הַר הַמַּשְׁחִית - "The Mount of Corruption" / "Mount of Offense", 2 Kings 23:13).

Positioned on the high crest of modern Silwan, these pagan incense fires blazed in full view of the holy Temple across the Kidron Valley, creating an unbearable theological contradiction at the very gates of God's sanctuary.

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The Cult of Chemosh: Moabite High Places

The Moabite national deity was Chemosh (Kamōš), confirmed by the Mesha Stele (c. 840 BC):

• The Mesha Stele records that King Mesha erected a bamah (high place) to Chemosh at Dibon after slaughtering 7,000 Israelites.
• Shrines excavated at Khirbat Ataruz in Jordan revealed cylindrical stone incense altars and carved offering stands dedicated to Chemosh, featuring sun disc and bull head motifs.

By establishing an official state sanctuary to Chemosh in Jerusalem, Solomon gave formal royal funding to the very deity in whose name Israelite settlers were massacred across the Jordan.

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Molech and the Fiery Tophet in the Valley of Hinnom

The most horrific pagan cult imported by Solomon was Molech (Milcom), the national god of Ammon:

• Associated with child sacrifice (passing children through the fire, Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 23:10).
• Shrines were concentrated in the Tophet in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom (Gehenna), where bronze drums were beaten to drown out the screams of sacrificed infants.

While Solomon may have initially erected shrines merely for his Ammonite queen Naamah (the mother of Rehoboam, 1 Kings 14:21), this royal sanction planted the poisonous seeds that later led King Ahaz and King Manasseh to burn their own sons as human offerings to Molech (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6).

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Ashtoreth and the Phoenician Alliance with Hiram of Tyre

Solomon’s economic prosperity depended upon his maritime alliance with King Hiram I of Tyre (1 Kings 5; 9:26–28):

• Tyrian naval engineers built Solomon’s Red Sea fleet at Ezion-Geber.
• Phoenician stone-masons carved the ashlar blocks of the Temple.

As a diplomatic seal of this maritime trade empire, Solomon married Sidonian princesses and established a high place to Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Phoenician goddess of fertility, sexuality, and war:

• Archaeologists excavating Phoenician colonies across the Mediterranean (Carthage, Cyprus, Motya) have uncovered thousands of votive limestone pillars and terra-cotta figurines depicting nude Astarte holding lotus blossoms.

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King Josiah’s Purge Three Centuries Later (2 Kings 23:13)

The shocking proof of how deeply entrenched Solomon’s pagan shrines became is that they survived undisturbed for over three hundred years:

Neither Asa, Jehoshaphat, nor Hezekiah succeeded in dismantling Solomon's personal royal high places. It was not until the sweeping monotheistic reformation of King Josiah around 622 BC that they were finally pulverized:

"Then the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images, and filled their places with the bones of men." (2 Kings 23:13–14)

Josiah filled the shrines with human bones, rendering them permanently ritually unclean. The tragic archaeological reality remains: the same monarch who built the Holy Temple also planted the seeds of idolatry that doomed Jerusalem to the flames of Babylon.