ABR Associate and Khirbet el-Maqatir dig staff member, Dr. Brian Peterson, recently had a detailed article published in the Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin (Vol. 61, 2016) about the ram's head figurine his team discovered. The full article, "The Kh. el-Maqatir Ram’s Head: Evidence of the Israelite Destruction of Ai?" (PDF) can be downloaded here:
The-Maqatir-Rams-Head-NEASB-1.pdf
Abstract
The discovery of decapitated stone figurines at Hazor under the directorships of both Yigael Yadin in the 1950s and 1960s and Amnon Ben-Tor starting in the 1990s has been used by both scholars to identify the Israelites as the nation most likely responsible for the destruction of the LB IIB (Stratum 1A) city of Hazor. Recently, a severed bronze ram’s head from a figurine of Egyptian influence was unearthed on the Benjamin Plateau at the site of Khirbet El-Maqatir (a proposed site of biblical Ai) in a LB IB context. The connections between the ram-headed figurine, the Eighteenth Dynasty (especially the reign of Amenhotep II), and the Egyptian gods Khnum and Amun, along with the LB IB archaeological context, may call into question the majority date of the Israelite conquest of Canaan.
