form of a bull) and the archaeological remains of further temples have been found at Dan on Israel's northern border, at Arad in the Negev and Beersheba, both in the territory of Judah. Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah and Dan were also major sites for festivals, sacrifices, the making of vows, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes. Portrayal Yahweh-worship was famously aniconic, meaning that the god was not depicted by a statue or other image. This is not to say that he was not represented in some symbolic form, and early Israelite worship probably focused on standing stones, but according to the Biblical texts the temple in Jerusalem featured Yahweh's throne in the form of two cherubim, their inner wings forming the seat and a box (the Ark of the Covenant) as a footstool, while the throne itself was empty. There is no universally accepted explanation for such aniconism, and a number of recent scholars have argued that Yahweh was in fact represented prior to the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah late in the monarchic period: to quote one study, "[a]n early aniconism, de facto or otherwise, is purely a projection of the post-exilic imagination". Other scholars argue that there is no certain evidence of any anthropomorphic representation of Yahweh during the pre-exilic period. Yahweh and the rise of monotheism It is unclear when the worship of Yahweh alone began. The earliest portrayals of Yahweh as the principal deity to whom "one owed the powers of blessing the land" appear in the teachings of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, and was likely well established by the time of the prophet Hosea in the 8th century BCE, in reference to disputes between Yahweh and Baal. The early supporters of this faction are widely regarded as being monolatrists rather than true monotheists; they did not believe Yahweh was the only god in existence, but instead believed he was the only god the people of Israel should worship. Finally, in the national crisis of the exile, the followers of Yahweh went a step further and outright denied that the other deities aside from Yahweh even existed, thus marking the transition from monolatrism to true monotheism. The notion that Yahweh is "to be venerated as the creator-god of all the earth" is first elaborated by the Second Isaiah, a 6th-century exilic work, though the case for the theological doctrine