The northern of the two mountains at Shechem, higher than its partner across the valley, and the one the CURSE is set on at Deuteronomy 11:29. ⚠ Which mountain gets which is not explained here and is not obvious: Ebal is the barer and steeper of the two, which has invited the guess that the geography suggested the assignment, but the text says nothing of the kind and the guess is left as a guess. ★ The Masoretic Text of Deuteronomy 27:4 puts the altar of unhewn stones on Ebal; the Samaritan Pentateuch puts it on Gerizim — see that entry. A rectangular stone structure excavated on Ebal's northeastern slope in the 1980s has been argued to be that altar and argued just as firmly to be an ordinary watchtower or farmstead; the identification is contested and this entry does not adopt it.