plinth of a royal statue dated to around 700 BCE. Ammonite seals depicting the crescent moon are known from the seventh century BCE, but they might be related to the worship of Sin of Harran, who was known in many areas to the west and south of his cult center in the Neo-Assyrian period. The evidence from the Moabite kingdom, which developed in parallel with the Ammon in the early first millennium BCE, is limited to artistic depictions of the lunar crescent. It has been argued that they might indicate the national god of the Moabites, Chemosh, at some point developed lunar characteristics. Known textual sources from Moab mention neither Yarikh nor Sin. Israelite and Judahite sources The worship of the moon was most likely practiced in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah both before the Babylonian captivity and afterwards. Evidence includes toponyms and, according to Gabriele Theuer, theophoric names invoking Yarikh, though according to Brian B. Schmidt certain examples of the latter are presently lacking. Best known presumed examples of the former include Jericho and Beth Yerach. It is also probable that the moon god of Harran, Sin, was also worshiped by the Israelites. It has been suggested that the numerous references to the moon being a celestial body subordinate to Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible might reflect a religious polemic against the worship of lunar deities, though researchers note that caution is required in using this information to reconstruct the culture of the kingdoms prior to the period of Babylonian captivity. Direct prohibitions or condemnation of the worship of the moon are mentioned in a number of passages too, for example in Book of Job 31:26-68. Second Book of Kings 23:5 states that king Josiah of Judah banished priests making offerings to the moon alongside those devoted to other astral bodies and Baal. It is difficult how many of these references can be considered sources of information about Yarikh, as it possible that they do not necessarily reflect a struggle against the preexisting cult of a local lunar deity, but rather the Mesopotamian traditions centered in Harran, which in the period of captivity and later might have been perceived as a competing creed. Placing the polemics in the distant past might therefore have been only a rhetorical device. Palmyrene sources In sources from Palmyra, whose pantheon known from between the late first millennium BCE and early first millennium