The area of the high place seems to have been approximately 150 feet from north to south and 120 feet from east to west. Some few walls were found of the same date as the high place, but it was impossible to tell their purpose. There seem to have been no buildings that could be regarded as a part of the sanctuary. It seems to have been entirely open to the air. Two circular structures, one at the north and the other to the south of the sacred stones, were found. The one at the south was badly ruined; that to the north was in a good state of preservation. This structure had a pavement of stones on a level with the bottom of the sacred pillars. It was entirely surrounded by a wall 2 feet thick at the bottom and 1 foot 6 inches thick at the top and 6 feet high. There was no doorway. The wall leaned outward. The diameter of the structure was 13 feet 8 inches at the bottom and 16 feet 6 inches at the top; (see Fig. 207). On the pavement in this enclosure were the fragments of many clay bowls, of a type found in Cyprus, but common at Gezer from 1400-800 B. C., and among these fragments a brazen serpent, evidently the model of a cobra. This discovery suggests the possibility that the structure may have been a pen in which sacred serpents were kept. The practice of venerating serpents as sacred is found in many parts of the world.[202] This brazen serpent reminds one of Nehushtan, the brazen serpent worshiped by the Judæans until it was destroyed by King Hezekiah. (See 2 Kings 18:4, and Fig. 219_a_.) (2) _Child-sacrifice._--The whole area of the high place was found to be a cemetery of new-born infants. These were in all probability first-born children who had been sacrificed to the deity of the high place. Two of them displayed marks of fire, but most of them had been simply enclosed in large jars. The body was usually put in head first. Two or three smaller vessels were put in with them. These generally included a bowl and a jug. They were usually inside the jar between the body and the jar’s mouth; sometimes they were outside near the mouth of the jar. That these were sacrifices is shown by the fact that they were children. It was not, therefore, a general place of burial. Indeed, had these children not been sacrificial, they could not have been buried in the sanctuary, as dead bodies were unclean.