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An archaeological dig near Goliath's biblical hometown has yielded evidence of Judean religious practices 3,000 years ago, pointing up fresh historical connections to the stories of King David and King Solomon.

"We have a city with a population relating to the Kingdom of Judah," Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told me today. "This is totally different from Philistine, Canaanite or the cult in the Kingdom of Israel."

The site, known today as Khirbet Qeiyafa, is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem, on top of a hill overlooking the Valley of Elah. For the past five years, Garfinkel and his colleagues have been excavating the ruins of a fortified city there, situated across from what was once the Philistine city of Gath. In the Bible, the giant Goliath came out from Gath to face the Israelites, and was smitten by a rock hurled from David's sling.

Garfinkel can't vouch for the story of Goliath, but he says the weapons, the cult items and even the animal bones found around Khirbet Qeiyafa support his view that the settlement was a key military outpost for the historical House of David, riven by conflict. "There was something here quite military and quite aggressive," he said. "It was not a peaceful village."

Based on radiocarbon dating of burned olive pits found at the site, archaeologists believe the ancient city lasted for only 40 years, from 1020 to 980 B.C., before it was destroyed. Some skeptics have suggested that Khirbet Qeiyafa was just another Canaanite settlement, and that David was at best a minor chieftain, or perhaps a folkloric figure like Robin Hood. But Garfinkel said the items found at the site strengthen the connection to King David and the religious practices specified in the Bible.

"Over the years, thousands of animal bones were found, including sheep, goats and cattle, but no pigs," he said in a news release from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Now we uncovered three cultic rooms, with various cultic paraphernalia, but not even one human or animal figurine was found. This suggest that the population on Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two biblical bans -- on pork and on graven images -- and thus practiced a different cult from that of the Canaanites or the Philistines."

Garfinkel told me that the absence of human imagery was peculiar to the Judeans. "In the northern Kingdom of Israel, you find human representations," he said.