=5. High Place of Gezer.=--The foundations of this high place were in the second stratum below that which contained Israelitish pottery. It was one of the high places of the Canaanites, therefore, or of one of the tribes that were in Palestine before the coming of Israel. This is the most interesting of the high places which have been discovered in Palestine.[200] It contained ten monoliths or upright “pillars,” the tallest of which was 10 feet 9 inches in height, and the shortest 5 feet 5 inches. These pillars ran in a curved line the general direction of which was from north to south. This was in striking contrast to the high place of Tell es-Safi, where the line of pillars ran from east to west. The center of the curved line of the pillars of Gezer was toward the east. All of these pillars except one were of the kind of stone abundant about Gezer. They had been found near by. None of them bore the mark of a tool. They had not been shaped by working. One of them (the one that was _the_ sacred stone, as the smooth spots on it showed) was a different kind of stone--the kind found at Jerusalem and elsewhere, but not near Gezer. There were on it traces of an indentation, as though a rope for dragging it might have been fitted around it; (Fig. 206). As Mesha, King of Moab, tells us twice in his inscription that he dragged altar-hearths of other deities away from their original locations into the presence of his god Chemosh,[201] it seems likely that this stone was dragged to Gezer from some other sanctuary--possibly from Jerusalem. Perhaps it was its capture that first suggested to the inhabitants of Gezer the establishment of this high place. The other stones of the series were erected to keep this one company and to do it honor. These were probably not all set up at once. They were added from time to time by different rulers of Gezer, and we have no means of knowing when the latest of the pillars was erected; (see Fig. 204).