Over time, these general rights of asylum were gradually curtailed, as some sanctuaries had become notorious hotbeds of crime; in Athens, for example, the regulations were changed so that slaves were only permitted to escape to the sanctuary of the temple of Theseus. This is considered by scholars to be the reason that, in Israelite culture, the rights were restricted to just six locations by the time the Priestly Code was compiled—the late 7th century according to textual scholars—and it is thus regarded by biblical scholars as being no coincidence that the three cities of refuge to the west of the Jordan were also important ancient religious sanctuaries; little is known about the cities of refuge to the east of the Jordan (as of 1901), but scholars consider it reasonable to assume that they were once also important sanctuaries.