An ancient apiary!  All in all, a very interesting discovery.

> Cultic objects were also found in the apiary, including a four-horned altar adorned with figures of naked fertility goddesses, as well as an elaborately painted chalice. This could be evidence of deviant cultic practices by the ancient Israelites related to the production of honey and beeswax.

This statement is loaded with assumptions. You can hardly call terms
like "cultic" or "deviant" as value-neutral. And why is the production
of honey and beeswax associated with "deviant cultic practices"
anyway? To understand this at all, you have to go to the Bible:

Isaiah 65

2 I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, which
walk in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;

3 A people that provoke me to anger continually to my face; that
sacrifices in gardens, and burns incense upon altars of brick;

4 Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat
swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;

Commentary:

* It appears that our archaeologists may have stumbled upon a garden
where "Pagan Rituals" are being practiced, including a pig roast, the
drinking of honey home brew, and Goddess worship. It sounds like they
were having a better party.


> if the ancients wished to engage in ritual activity, there could hardly be a more appropriate setting than a garden, especially when the ritual celebrated the union of male and female deities.   Further, a garden was often understood as a deity's abode, so ritual activity located within a garden was done because "it is the place where one can experience the deity's numinous and beneficent power."  -- from "An Examination of Isaiah 66:17" by Kevin Malarkey

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