Archaeologists in an Uproar Over David and Goliath Era Finds at the Contested Edge of Jerusalem.

The clay shrine. Note the details around the door. Each column stands on a lion’s head. The rows of wooden beams are visible. Above them is what appears to be a folded textile. The heads of the birds on the roof are broken, though feet are visible. Garfinkel suggests the columns and the textile evoke similarities with the temple that would be later be built in Jerusalem. Certain architectural styles/motifs were already in place in Judah/Israel. It must be noted that other ancient shrines show columns flanking a door. Still, some of these details appear to be unique. This is certainly different than religious objects discovered in Philistine territory, just a few miles away. (Source Hebrew University).


Archaeologists in an Uproar Over David and Goliath Era Finds at the Contested Edge of Jerusalem.(AD).Scholars hope that recent discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an archeological site southwest of Jerusalem, will shed new light on the ancient history of present day Israel, and even corroborate the story of David and Goliath recounted in the Bible. Though leaving ample room for debate, Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has told MSNBC that several objects found by his team strongly suggest the heretofore disputed presence of Israelites from the southern kingdom of Judea.
Students of ancient archeology generally place Khirbet Qeiyafa near Gath, a Philistine city that thrived modestly in the early first millenium BCE. An area of contention between Philistines and the neighboring Judeans, Gath is described in the Bible as the hometown of a giant soldier named Goliath. 
Goliath's battle with the young sling-shot-toting David, the future king of Israel, is the Bible's best-known underdog story, related in countless works of art and music over the centuries, and famously captured by actor Gregory Peck in the 1951 film "David and Bathsheba."
Though uninterested in verifying parables from the Bible, Garfinkel contends that his finds confirm that Khirbet Qeiyafa was an embattled outpost occupied by Israelites during the time of David. By his estimation, the columns, façades, and recessed doorways on the model shrines found at the site correspond strikingly to Solomon's temple. "For the first time in history," reads a statement from the Hebrew University, "we have actual objects from the time of David which can be related to monuments described in the Bible." Garfinkel furthermore points out that although archaeologists at the site have found thousands of bones of sheep, goats, and cattle, they have found no bones from pigs, which may suggest a dietary prohibition on swine like that observed by Hebrews. While the news has made headlines across Israel, Garfinkel has failed to convince many Biblical scholars who know Khirbet Qeiyafa well. Prof. Nadav Na'aman, a historian and archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, was unmoved by the lack of pig bones at the site. "The Canaanites also did not eat pork," he told Ha'aretz. "Only the Philistines ate a great deal of pork at this time." Responding to Garfinkel's description of the artifacts as "totally different from Philistine, Canaanite or the cult in the Kingdom of Israel," Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University told the Times of Israel that that Biblical distinctions between Israelites and Philistines are "fuzzier than the way they are often described."
The findings at Khirbet Qeiyafa also indicate that an elaborate architectural style had developed as early as the time of King David. Such construction is typical of royal activities, thus indicating that state formation, the establishment of an elite, social level and urbanism in the region existed in the days of the early kings of Israel. These finds strengthen the historicity of the biblical tradition and its architectural description of the Palace and Temple of Solomon. According to Prof. Garfinkel, “This is the first time that archaeologists uncovered a fortified city in Judah from the time of King David. Even in Jerusalem we do not have a clear fortified city from his period. Thus, various suggestions that completely deny the biblical tradition regarding King David and argue that he was a mythological figure, or just a leader of a small tribe, are now shown to be wrong.” Garfinkel continued, “Over the years, thousands of animal bones were found, including sheep, goats and cattle, but no pigs. Now we uncovered three cultic rooms, with various cultic paraphernalia, but not even one human or animal figurine was found. This suggests that the population of Khirbet Qeiyafa observed two biblical bans—on pork and on graven images—and thus practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines.”
[It's a bit strange that Kh. Qeiyafa, a town of no more than a few hundred inhabitants, would have yielded three "cultic rooms" in one small portion of the city.
Garfinkel suggests this reflects decentralized worship. "The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the LORD."(1 Kings 3:2 ESV)
The Ark of the Covenant sat in people's homes from the time of Samuel until David brought it to Jerusalem. (The house of Abinadab in Kiriath-jearim in 1 Samuel 7:1-2; The house of Obed-edom in 2 Samuel 6:10-11)
While the Ark sat in private homes, the tabernacle and main altar were elsewhere. (Nob in 1 Samuel 21; Gibeon in 1 Kings 3:4)]
The three shrines are part of larger building complexes. In this respect they are different from Canaanite or Philistine cults, which were practiced in temples—separate buildings dedicated only to rituals. The biblical tradition described this phenomenon in the time of King David: “He brought the ark of God from a private house in Kyriat Yearim and put it in Jerusalem in a private house” (2 Samuel 6). [It looks like Qeiyafa fits the biblical description of people worshiping God at local shrines/high places.] The cult objects include five standing stones (Massebot), two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels and two portable shrines. No human or animal figurines were found, suggesting the people of Khirbet Qeiyafa observed the biblical ban on graven images.Read more about this find here and here.