Joshua's Altar on Mt. Ebal

Has Joshua’s Altar at Mount Ebal been discovered? Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal found an altar – but was it Joshua’s?

From Wikipedia:

The excavating archaeologist, Adam Zertal, believed that the site was the compound containing the biblical altar built by Joshua.^[4][10] According to the Book of Joshua chapter 8, the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua had built an altar on Mount Ebal, as had been instructed earlier by Moses.^[14][15] During the ceremony that followed, Joshua renewed the covenant between Yahweh and the Israelites enacted on Mount Sinai.^[1] According to Zertal, it is possible to identify the structure as an altar, because it closely matches the biblical and Mishnaic descriptions of altars.^[4]

The filled walled structure being the altar itself – the filling being a part of the altar rather than debris (and indicative of an Assyrian style altar,^[10] like that specified in the Book of Exodus as being hollow with boards^[16]) – and the wall between the two courtyards being a ramp (in accordance with the no steps instruction in Exodus^[17]), most other archaeologists believe it to be something else.^[10]

Fallow deer bones were also found at the site. These bones make up 28% of all finds and were discovered only in the filling of the altar itself. The fallow deer appears in the Bible in the list of kosher animals for food (Deuteronomy 14: 4–7), but not in the list of sacrificial animals. According to Benjamin Mazar, it is possible that the fallow deer was used as a sacrificial animal in the 12th century BCE, a period in which a transition from semi-nomadic to permanent agriculture took place.^[18] Another possibility is that these animals were used only for feeding the participants in the worship, and their bones were later brought as a sacrificial offering to fill the stone altar with the remains of sacred food.^[18] The site also contained remains of a hedgehog and a wild rabbit, but later investigation revealed these animals probably reached the site after it had been abandoned.^[19]

Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found?

ABR: The Curse Tablet from Mt. Ebal:

Image By Hoshvilim – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0