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BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST BIIBLICAL

ARCHAEOLO .orPublishedby

THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH Jerusalem and Bagdad Room 102, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Mass.

Vol. XXXI

May, 1968

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Contents

Ancient Palestinian Dwellings, by H. Keith Beebe .. .............................. . 38 The Excavation of Tell er-Ras on Mt. Gerizim, by Robert J. Bull .................... 58 Another Change of Address! ........ .............. 72 .................................................. ..

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

38 The Biblical

Archaeologist

(Vol. XXXI

is published quarterly (February, May, September, December)

by the AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch.Its purposeis to meet the need for a readable, as they relateto the discoveries non-technical, yet thoroughlyreliableaccountof archaeological Bible. of FloydV. Filsonin New Testament Editor: EdwardF. Campbell, Jr., with the assistance shouldbe sent to the editorat 800 WestBeldenAvenue,Chicamatters.Editorialcorrespondence 60614. go, Illinois, Editorial Board: W. F. Albright,JohnsHopkinsUniversity;G. ErnestWright,Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University; William G. Dever, Jerusalem. $3.00 per year, payable to the American Schools of Oriental Research, Subscriptions: 02138. Associate members of ASOR receive 126 Inman Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts the journal automatically. Ten or more subscriptions for group use, mailed and billed to the same address, $2.00 per year apiece. Subscriptions run for the calendar year. In England: twenty-four shillings (24s.) per year, payable to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Broad Street, Oxford. Back numbers: $1.00 per issue and $3.75 per volume, from the ASOR office. Please make remittance with order. The journal is indexed in Art index, Index to Religious Periodical Literature, and at the end of every fifth volume of the journal itself. Second-class postage PAID at Cambridge, Massachusetts and additional offices. Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1968. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY TRANSCRIPT PRINTING COMPANY N. H. PET-2RBOBOUGHI,

Ancient Palestinian Dwellings

H.KEITHBEEBE Occidental

College

In Deuteronomy 22:8, we find an ordinance requiring newly constructed homes to have a parapet on the roof to prevent people from falling off. We know about Moab's fat king who sat receiving foreign tribute and diplomatic calls "in his cool roof chamber" (Judg. 3:20). We imagine the anxiety of Sisera's mother as she looked from her latticed window (Judg. 5:28) and the terror in Jezebel's eyes as she heard Jehu order her thrown from the upper story window (II Kings 9:30-33). We visualize David on the roof of the king's house as he lusted after the bathing Bathsheba (II Sam. 11:2). Vexatious Ezekiel compared the false prophets of Israel to those who built a mudbrick wall and daubed it with whitewash only to have the first hailstorm wash it away to its stone foundations (Ezek. 13:10-16). Even with frequent allusions to roofs, doors, bedrooms, courtyards, walls, rafters,upper rooms, steps which measuredthe time of day (II Kings 21:11), and cellars where no one puts a lamp, we are unable without archaeological assistance to visualize a house of biblical times. Because of the paucity of description in the Bible and other archaic records and the inevitably incomplete character of archaeological remains, we usually visualize ancient Palestinian domestic units in light of modern Palestinian houses. This comparison must be used cautiously because Arab houses are structured with regard to specific social customs and economic conditions, different from those of ancient Palestine. The refined techniques of archaeology have been unable so far to give us, using Millar Burrows'words, "for each period of biblical history a com-

1968, 2)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

39

plete picture of the houses men lived in. A painter wishing to illustrate a biblical scene would be hard put to learn from reports of excavations how he should represent Jericho at the time of the conquest, or Jerusalemin Solomon's day.... For a complete picture we must still use our imagination."' Archaeologistshave supplied us with a clear impressionof city walls, palaces, tombs, and cult centers but we are left with unclear images of ancient Palestinian houses. Reports on houses given in standard books on Palestinian archaeology have been outdated in some aspects by recent excavations,2 but few studies of house plans have been published in popular form since Burrows treated the topic in 1941. -------?-?---?--

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Fig. 2. Reconstruction of a typical home of Old Testament times from E. W. Heaton, Everyday Life in Old Testament Times, Fig. 21, p. 65. There are rooms on three sides of a court.

This study describes some of the basic floor plans and structural details of Palestinian homes from the earliest archaeologicalevidence through the Israelite period. Rarely is sufficient material available to provide a full account of architecturaldetails, but with written records and archaeological findings a quite reliable picture of houses in the common life of ancient Palestine is now possible. Earliest

Houses

The earliest Palestinian houses were built about 9000 years ago. These houses, excavated at Beidha, near Petra, were simple structures usually of 1. What Mean These Stones? (1957), p. 136. 2. For example, Arad, Gebeon, Hazor, Tirzah, Jericho, Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, Tell Qasile, Shechem, Beidha.

40

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXXI

one room, with a single doorway, and probably without windows. Four different floor plans have been preserved from such early days: the multagonal circular, the true circular, the square, and the rectangular.3These houses were sturdily built. Foundations were of stone and superstructures of mudbrick. Cooking and grinding were carried on outside, and storage silos were in the open. Houses were grouped closely together and often had back or side walls in common. The roofs normally were wooden poles over which brush or woven reed mats were laid as a base for layers of clay mortar rolled to a smooth, impermeable surface. Many of these early houses had burials beneath their floors.A six-sided, one room house excavated in Level VI at Beidha has been dated about 6800 B.C.4 Circular houses about 6000 B.C. at Beidha resemble those at pre-Pottery Neolithic A Jericho. Floors of Jericho's round houses were sunk beneath the exterior level and steps made of timbers were often necessary, indicating that those houses were continuously occupied over a long period while the exteriorwas built up by debris. There are hints of other types of one room houses in Palestine. For example, excavations at Hadera, eight miles south of New Testament Caesarea, have unearthed some model clay houses used as ossuaries. Each was eighteen or twenty inches long and equally high. The door was at the end, and the roof was gabled. Some of the house-ossuarieshad long solid feet which raised them above ground level. Although no remains of reed houses have been discovered at Hadera, the shape of these clay models suggest a house made of reeds or branches set erect and then tied together at the top. The gabled roofs and stilts were necessary in a rainy climate which today averages thirty inches annually. Residents at Byblos built rectangularhouses with plaster floors. The superstructuresof these houses have totally disappeared, which indicates that they were of reeds or skins. At Jericho, about 5000 B.C., the houses were rectangular, too, but with more than one room. The corners of the rooms were rounded although the walls were straight. The rounded corners may be the remains of a long-standing tradition of building round houses which ancestors of Jericho's residents had at some previous location. Some of the doorways were buttressed by timber possibly as a means of reducing wear and tear from rubbing and bumping. Hard lime plaster covered the floors and extended up the walls. Small cells off the main room contained plastered vats for water storage and silos for grain. Each house may have had a courtyardin which cooking was handled. Thick layers of charcoal were uncovered in these areas.5 3. One house with four rooms around a small central court was found at Beidah. 4. D. Kirkbride, Revue Biblique, LXXII (1965), 250. 5. K. M. Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land (1960), pp. 48, 60.

1968, 2)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

41

A community at Teleilat Ghassul, a bit north of the Dead Sea and three miles east of the Jordan River, was established about 4000 B.C. whose houses show no regularity of plan. There were rectangularand nearly square houses with no apparent system of streets. They appear to be huddled together as if protecting one another, and no wall surrounding the village has been found. The remains of Ghassul give a first impressionof simple, crude houses but the foundations were solidly built of stone, and the hand molded mudbricks were strong. Some wall plaster contained fragments of skilled artistic representations of a pheasant, of stylized humans, and an eightpointed star. Household chores were performed in the open, since paved threshing areas, storage pits, basalt querns, and both open fireplaces and ovens with sunken combustion chamberswere found outside the floor plans.6 No significant changes in home construction took place, apparently, between the Chalcolithic age and the Early Bronze age, beginning about 3000 B.C., and even the Early Bronze age in Palestine is not characterized by significant progressin domestic architecture. Early Bronze Age Houses

Early Bronze age Palestinians lived out-of-doorsin the same way as their predecessorshad, and the houses served primarily as a refuge during inclement weather. One room houses continued to be built, of course, but two room dwellings became more common. Most one room houses were roughly square or rectangular. At Tell el Far'ah (biblical Tirzah) a house measured sixteen feet on each side. The walls, two feet thick, were laid of closely fitted field stones topped by mudbricks. A stone bench fourteen inches high stood against the interior walls. Sherds indicate that this square house was occupied about 2600 B.C.7 Most square houses were small enough to be covered by beams without supporting pillars, although when stone slabs are found in the center of a floor it is likely that these were foundations for wooden posts which supported the roofs of larger houses. Tell Arad has furnished an example of a rectangularhouse. The door was in the center of one of the longer walls, and hinged on the left. Steps led down to the sunken floor, again a sign that occupation extended over a long period while debris collected on the exterior.8 Benches ranged around the walls, and a stone work table stood in the middle of the room. Pottery dates earliest occupation to about 2900 B.C.9 6. R. North, Ghassul 1960 Excavation Report (1960), pp. 18-30. 7. R. de Vaux, Revue Biblique, LXIV (1957), 557f. 8. Charnel houses found at Bab edh-Dhra' have dimensions similar and are characterized by steps leading down to the entrance. Such preted as constructed after debris had accumulated on the exterior. funerary buildings may have imitated dwellings, thus employing steps 9. Y. Aharoni and R. Amiran, Archaeology, XVII (1964), 46.

to the dwellings at steps should not be On the other hand, leading to a sunken

Arad interthese floor.

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THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXXI

Two room houses in this period were typically rectangular although irregularityof line was common.10The main room gave access to the smaller chamber which served to store water in plastered vats and food in silos. Lime plaster often covered the floor and was carried up the surface of the walls. Wooden posts in the center of the larger room supported the roof, although another technique eliminated the center posts and provided for a heavier roof. At Tirzah, for example, stone slabs were set upright against the inner walls so that the rafters rested directly on the uprights rather than on the mudbrick superstructure. It is possible that the construction of two room houses reflected the increase in population in the Early Bronze age. At Jericho, however, a wall standing to a height of more than fifteen feet indicates that an increased population was accommodatedby a vertical as well as a horizontal expansion. On the other hand, increased wealth and ease of obtaining building materials may account for the larger houses. The two room dwelling continued in use in Palestine, but it was incapable of much modification. However, extensive changes in house plans were made by builders in the Middle Bronze age. Middle Bronze Age Houses

Most cities of Palestine were de-populated or ceased to exist during the last two centuries of the third millennium. Jericho, Beth-shan, Ai, Tirzah, Beth-eglaim, and Megiddo provide archaeological evidence for this condition. Some archaeologistsbelieve that seminomadic people destroyed those walled cities, and then camped part of the year on the sites which they had destroyed." New types of pottery, new burial practices, and desolated city sites indicate the appearance of new people in Palestine. Later, cities rose again on the deserted locations. It is possible that a new house plan came into Palestine with the people who rebuilt the once barren city sites. This was the courtyardbased house. Valentin Muller argued that the courtyard house originated in the highlands above Mesopotamia, and that it was carried into the great valley civilizations. There it was developed and exported to Anatolia, Palestine, and Crete.'2 It is just as possible to conclude that the courtyard house was invented in response to the particular needs of the people who began to rebuild Palestine's cities. 10. Rectangular rooms with rounded corners dating from the same period were found at Sotira, Cyprus. See P. Didaios, Sotira (1961), pp. 148-168. 11. Petrie, in The Making of Egypt (1939), argued that Egypt's First Intermediate Period, ca. 2200-2000 B. C., was the result of a flood into Egypt of seminomadic Asiatics. In The Burden of Egypt (1951), J. Wilson writes: "The State collapsed from internal strains, the frontiers were left unattended, and a steady trickle of displaced Asiatics seeped into the Egyptian Delta" (p. 111). 12. Journal of The American Oriental Society, LX (1940), 151-180.

1968, 2)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

43

The simplestform of the courtyarddwellingwas a single roomon one side of a court.The courtyardwas most often east of the roomwhenevera house stoodalone,and ovenswere alwayslocatedin the court.This arrangement ensuredthat the prevailingwest winds blew the smokefrom the oven away from the house. Silos for storageof grain were usuallyfound in the house ratherthan in the court.About 1700 B.C., examplesof such courtyardhouseswere found at Tell Nagila, northwestof Beersheba.Three one room houses, ten by seven feet, were built on a courtyardsixteen by ten feet. A few homes divided the room with a partitionwall. Walls were of rubble stone and mudbrickcoveredwith a poor quality mud plaster,but they were not thick enough to carry a second floor. Houses were built closely togetherand shareda commonback wall with the entrancesto the court on roughlyparallelstreets.'3In such cases, the conveniencesof an eastsidecourt was sacrificedfor the economyof a party wall. Inside each housea stoneandclaybenchwasconstructedalongthe walls. I--,

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Fig. 3. House dating from about 1600 B.C. at Debir (Tell Beit Mirsim), whose quality of construction suggests that it was a patrician's house, a veritable "palace." From AASOR, XVII (1938), P1. 55.

At Tell Beit Mirsim (biblical Debir) around 1600 B.C. a veritable "palace"used the basic courtyardplan with roomson one side. There were six roomsin the house. The court was a graciousthirty-fiveby nineteen 13. R. Amiran and A. Eitan, Archaeology, XVIII (1965),

113-123.

44

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

(Vol. XXXI

feet, and the roofed living space, including ground and second floors, was about 1500 square feet. Professor Albright believes that two rooms on the ground floor were stables, two were storage areas, and the remaining two gave no clue to the function.'4 Albright excavated a more complex house at Debir, composed of a large, roofed hall with three small rooms on one side of the hall. He dated this house about 1800 B.C. Another house, dated a century later, had a large roofed hall with rooms on two adjacent sides of the hall. Houses with roofed hall and rooms on one or two sides were significantly more elaborate and sturdily constructed than contemporarycourtyard, single room houses at Tell Nagila. The large hall was rectangular, and three flat stones in the center of the room'slong axis served as foundations of wooden pillars. Rafters and roof of reeds covered with mud were clearly discernible in the debris.

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Fig. 4. Plan of two adjacent houses in stratum E of Tell Belt Mirsim (Debir), dating around 1700 B.C. The lower building has a large rectangular hall with three flat stones to support the roof. From AASOR, XVII (1938), P1. 50.

Access to the small rooms was from the large hall. The usual stone foundations with mud-brickwalls were thick enough to support a second story and, if there was a second story, it was reached by an exterior wooden staircase or ladder. The floor was a fine mixture of earth, ashes, and straw, and this high quality mixture plus its smooth surface precludes the use of the ground floor as stables. Some interesting structural features were preserved in the ruins of this house. The large flat stones that served as foundations of pillars had small 14. AASOR, XVIII (1938).

36f.

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

1968, 2)

45

stones wedged against them to hold them firmly in place. A stone work bench or table was situated in the large hall. However, artifacts recovered from the room adjacent to the rectangular hall were insufficient to expose the uses to which they were put.15

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Fig. 5. Plan of a Middle Bronze IIB house at Taanach, from about 1700 B.C. Note the strong construction. From E Sellin, Tell Taannek (1904), Plan III, p. 43.

A third type of house consisted of a courtyard with rooms on two adjacent sides of the court. This type of house was discovered at Debir built upon foundations of the house described above with roofed hall and rooms on two sides. The roofed hall had become the court, and a wall had been added to form a second room on the long axis of the court. It is probable that this house carried a second floor. A house of this type dated about 1700 B.C., more complexly organized than that at Debir, was found at Taanach. The walls of this house were uniformly over three feet thick with stones laid in excellent mortar, whose bulk and craftsmanship ensured a second and perhaps a third story. The courtyard contained a cistern, and an oven was found in a room on the east side of the house. The ground level probably served as storage rooms. Its floors, except for the open court, were neatly plastered, and sherds, found in the rooms were of fine qual15. Ibid., pp. 21f., 33k.

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46

(Vol. XXXI

ity. An interior staircase led to the second story. The ground floor alone measured about 2300 square feet.'" Square footage in homes in typical Southern California houses makes an interesting comparison. For example, lower income families usually have homes with about 1500 square feet. Middle income families usually have 2000 square feet which includes three bedrooms, two baths and a family room. Higher income families have from 2500-3000 square feet and pay $40,000 and up for their homes. Another type of house with courtyardand rooms on two sides was that with rooms on opposite sides of a court. Examples were found at Tell erRumeileh (biblical Beth-shemesh), and at Megiddo. The one at Beth-shemesh used the city wall as the south wall of the dwelling. Entrance to the house from the street was through a door into a room. Occupants had to cross the court to enter those rooms whose walls were part of the city's fortifications. Exterior walls of this house were over three feet thick, and interior walls measured a foot and a half. Mud coated the walls and a finish of lime plaster covered the mud. Floors laid on bedrock were a mixture of sturdy lime and soil. A room five by three feet in a cornernext to the city wall, without evidence of a doorway, may have been a vermin tight storage space with access by a trap door on the second floor.'7A more complex plan of this type of house was excavated at Megiddo. Three domestic units against the north city wall were in a good stage of preservation.Common walls perpendicular to the city wall separatedthe units. The door to each house was into a room bordering the street, so that the occupants passed through that room to gain the courtyard.Floors were paved with small stones and pebbles. There was no evidence of a second floor. Ovens were located in the courtyard,and one house had its own cistern."1The house at Beth-shemesh was shadowed by the southern city wall, and it was crudely built. These facts might indicate its occupancy by a poor family. On the other hand, the Megiddo houses had a southern exposure and they were strongly and finely built. The Megiddo families lived better than their fellow Canaanites to the south, but whether poor or well-off, construction of houses against a city wall saved on materials and energy. A fourth type of house in Middle Bronze age Palestine had rooms on three sides of a courtyard.These rooms were capable of great variations of size and function, and the adaptability of this type of house kept it in use throughout subsequent Palestinian cultures. An early example of a house with courtyardand rooms on three sides was found at Megiddo, about 1600 16. E. (Feb., 17. E. 18. G.

Sellin, 1964), Grant Loud,

Tell Taannek (1904), pp. 43-53. For dating, see P. W. Lapp, BASOR, No. 173 p. 6. and G. E. Wright, Ain Shems Excavations, V (Text) (1939), pp. 27-30. Megiddo II (1948), p. 13.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1968,2)

47

B.C. A house whose over-all dimensions were forty-two by thirty-nine feet had nine rooms of varying sizes about the court. Lime plaster covered the entire area of the court, which had a large oven in the center. An oven in an east room of the house provided protected cooking facilities during stormy weather. Each room had a door into the court.'19Five floor burials were excavated in this house, common enough in the Middle Bronze age, but reported to have been practiced during the Iron age in Israel only on two occasions. Samuel and Joab were buried in their own houses (II Sam. 25:1, I Kings 2:34).20 No archaeological evidence so far supports the biblical report of these house burials.

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Fig. 6. Ground-plans of three houses built against the north city wall of Megiddo, separated by common "party" walls. From G. Loud, Megiddo II, Fig. 23, p. 23.

Middle Bronze age Palestinian houses were considerably larger and more varied than were those of the Early Bronze age. Complex forms of the courtyard house made their appearances,and building materials and techniques kept pace with improved floor plans. Well-made and beautiful pottery household utensils also indicate artistic and economic advances that point to a rather prosperous culture.21 19. Ibid., Fig. 401. 20. The report in II Chron. 33:20 that Manasseh was buried in his house seems to be a corruption of II Kings 21:18 which reports that he was "buried in the garden of his house." 21. Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land, pp. 162-194.

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Late Bronze Age Houses

Evidence for the types of houses built in the period 1500-1200 B.C. is surprisinglysmall. This may be due to the catastrophewhich struck Megiddo, Debir, Beth-shemesh, Beth-shan, and other cities at the end of the period. Houses were either destroyed by fire or torn down so that little remained of their floor plans. As cities were constructed on the debris of these sites it is likely that the new residents robbed even foundation stones in order to build their new homes. However, Albright reported that a house of this period at Debir had walls still standing high enough to make it worthwhile to rebuild the house on the same basic plan, but the difference of construction was noticeable. The rebuilder, probably an Israelite, used larger and cruder stones but this in no way gave greater stability to the mudbrick walls laid on these foundations.22Cities in the hill country such as Shiloh, Bethel, and Gibeah, were built almost entirely of stone, and thus when successors on these Late Bronze age sites built their homes they too used the foundation stones of the previous dwellings. At Jericho, erosion seems to explain the absence of Late Bronze age evidence.23 The courtyardbased house with its various arrangementsof rooms continued as standard throughout the Late Bronze age. Although physical remains are not so plentiful as was the case with earlier houses, several sites show the floor plans of well-preserved dwellings. For example, a residence with a court and rooms adjacent on two sides at Beth-shemesh had overall measurements of forty-nine by thirty-nine feet. It had little elegance, however, since its three-feet thick walls were laid crudely. A stone staircase began just inside the doorway of the eighteen by twelve foot courtyard.The ground floor rooms were probably for storage and animals since none had a well-finished floor.24 At Megiddo, around 1400 B.C., a house consisting of a courtyardin the center of rooms on four sides was excavated. This house plan was restored by the excavation'sarchitect on lines that he believed were the original walls. The text of Megiddo II furnishes no comments to accompany the architect's drawing.25 This house plan was common in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley from early times. Wealthy homes had spacious quarters, and their courts were paved with baked clay bricks. Usually a single depth of rooms faced the court, and access to each room was by way of the courtyard.One ground floor room served as an entrance vestibule and another as a stairwell. A balcony usually overhung the courtyardby three feet or so, and connected 22. 23. 24. 25.

AASOR, XXI-XXII (1943), 21. Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land, pp. 230, 237. Grant and Wright, Ain Shems V, p. 37. Loud, Megiddo II, Fig. 246.

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1968, 2)

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second floor rooms.26This house plan was rare in Palestine, and when it is found, it is usually in a complex of structures interpreted as the residence of government officials and the very rich. A study of Iron age (1200-600 B.C.) Palestine provides many more examples of domestic architecturethan does the Late Bronze age. Israelite

Houses

Many sites in Palestine show that cultural excellence diminished after the Israelites arrived. Even though some Israelite householders built on the same plan as their Late Bronze predecessors,as ProfessorAlbright discovered at Debir, their skill was considerably less. Usually the Israelite owner used more energy with poorer results than the occupant before him. Silos and oil presses were reused by the new owners even when a totally different floor plan was devised.

21

U35a so '*r"++ I+*

Zgi;-

.i+ -

---S-

++

f+

.210+t15Av

,

•

!m ------'41"+"

Fig. 7. Plan of a house from about 900 B.C. at Hazor. Remains of pillars from an earlier period served as bases for columns to hold up a roof over half of the court, making a covered shed. From Y. Yadin, Hazor I, P1. CLXXIII.

Usually the poorest homes had a courtyard with a single room on one side, plentiful examples of which were found at Tell Qasile, within the city limits of modern Tel Aviv.27A rather crudely built house with foundations of large, uncut stones with chinks stuffed with small rocks was excavated 26. H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (1954), 27. B. Maisler (Mazar), BA, XIV (1951), 48.

pp. 55, 162.

50

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at Beth-shemesh. The courtyard measured thirty-four by twenty feet and each of the three rooms on one side was eleven by ten and one-half feet. Although the walls were crudely constructed, stone paving in the court and two rooms indicates that a certain care was taken for order and cleanliness. Owners of the Iron age house with courtyard and rooms on one side modified their dwellings slightly by adding a shed-like structure in one half of the courtyard.A house of this type at Hazor, around 900 B.C., was built on the walls of the preceding period. The occupants found stubs of walls and protruding stones from the previous occupation and used these "prefabricated" foundations. Pillars of the building of the earlier occupation served as roof supports for the half-covered court.28The roof of the shed probablyserved as a domesticwork area accessibleby a ladder. Houses with a courtyard and rooms on two adjoining sides were built in Iron age Palestine just as had been done in the Late Bronze and Middle Bronze ages. For example, a house whose owner used superior materials and exercised care in design and construction unusual for this period was found at Megiddo, and dated around 1050 B.C. The house had two units of rooms similar in design. Each unit had a long corridoror room with an entrance to the street at one end and the courtyardat the other. Each corridor opened to three rooms of various dimensions on one side. The courtyardwas on the northeast side of the building, and a winding stairway in the northeast corner led to a second story. Walls as much as six feet wide carried the weight of second and possibly third floors, although partition walls were only eighteen inches wide. The overall dimensions, 104 by 97 feet, indicate that it was a pretentious structure. Floors were paved with fine lime plaster. Pottery of excellent quality was found in all rooms except those areas cited as corridors. Storage space was beneath the staircase. Small rooms to the west of this fine building were poorly constructed, and furnished no comprehensible plan. Saddle querns, grinders, stone bowls, kitchen pottery, and ovens attest their domestic character.It is reasonableto guess that these were servants'quarters.The presence of this fine structure in addition to the style of the temple and the city gate in the same stratum suggests that Canaanites still occupied Megiddo even though a radical destruction had fallen on the city at the beginning of the Iron age (ca. 1175 B.C.). It is easy to imagine that a house of such excellence was the type in which king David lived, although none with these proportionshas been discoveredat Jerusalem. Recent excavations have uncovered the type of house most common in the time of the divided monarchy. It was the familiar courtyardwith rooms on three sides which was used uninterruptedly in Palestine from 1700 to 28. Y. Yadin, Hazor 1 (1955),

p. 14, House No. 48.

1968, 2)

THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST

51

i1.4

'"tr~

WA

.:X.:

r*: i :::CON: . ......

.......

Fig. 8. Ground-plan of a fine house at Megiddo around 1050 B.C. Note the duplex arrangement, with entrances from the street into corridors, each giving access to a group of rooms. From G. Loud, Megiddo II, Fig. 83, p. 37.

587 B.C. At Tell Qasile, Megiddo, and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh (biblical Zarethan?) this plan was adopted by many householders, and most of the houses were fundamentally identical. However, at Tell es-Sa'idiyeh individual differences were expessed through decoration. Pritchard reports: "The owners of one house had faced the mudbrick wall along the street with pebbles to protect its vulnerable surface from the hazards of city traffic. His neighbor had obviously not bothered to take similar precautions."29 Tell en-Nasbeh (biblical Mizpah) had only a few houses of this type, and these stood as distinctly superior to the majority of houses with a courtyard and single room. Several archaeologists have called this type the "four room house."30 It was a dwelling with a room across the short axis of the courtyardwhich 29. J. B. Pritchard, Expedition, VI (1964), 6. 30. Albright, AASOR, XXI-XXII (1943), 55; R. de Vaux, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, LXXXVIII (1956), 133; Pritchard, BA, XXVIII (1965), 10-17; Lamon and Shipton, Megiddo I, pp. 63f.; McCown, Tell en-Nasbeh, pp. 206-209; Wright, Shechem, pp. 159-162; Maisler (Mazar), BA, XIV (1951), 47f.

52

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was itself roughly split into thirds by two rows of pillars down the long axis of the court. These pillars held up the roof and provided anchorage for half or full walls. The house was basically one story with entrance from street into courtyard,and with ovens and silos in the courtyard.However, at Debir ovens were found in a square in the street, and at Tell es-Sa'idiyehnone of the houses had ovens, but a cooking area with five ovens was located nearby. Miss Kenyon has reservationsin describing this type as a "four room house." "It is usually taken that the division formed a four-roomedhouse, but in none of the examples so far published does there seem to be clear evidence that the longitudinal walls were carried up above ground level; they may therefore be sleeper walls supporting a row of pillars, and the main block may have been an aisled hall," she wrote.31Whatever the architecturaldesign, it was a plan used at widely divergent sites in Israel. Often the houses were constructed "back to back" separated by a party wall and facing on straight streets. The wide use of this plan in quite uniform design predominated from the 10th to the 8th centuries B.C. The four room house was capable of varied expansion and elaboration. A householder built his home on a simple scale, and as he became wealthier and his family grew he expanded his house by adding rooms outside those on the long axis of the court. If this was impossible,by constructing stronger carrying walls he could add a second story. Carrying walls often partitioned the ground floor rooms into smaller units. The ground floor, which in the first phase had been living quarters,usually became storage rooms and work areas. Ovens and silos still remained in the courtyard even though more roofed space was available. Stairswere added outside the house. A four room house with unique features was found at 8th century Tirzah. The house was elaborate,but it was not a rebuild of an earlier house, nor was the structure ever completed. De Vaux describes a building of dressed stones whose foundations were laid in the debris of an earlier city which had been "brutallydestroyed."Dressed stones lay about on the leveled area, but they were never placed on their foundation, and the floors which would have covered the older walls, still protruding from the surface, were never laid. There was no layer of occupation debris. Archaeological evidence points to work that was interrupted, probably when Omri moved Israel's capital from Tirzah to Samaria.32Had this building been finished it would have provided about 325 square feet of living space on the ground floor and a similar area on the second floor. A four room house almost identical in size and arrangementwith those 31. Archaeology in the Holy Land, p. 253. 32. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, LXXXVIII (1956),

133.

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1968, 2)

53

at Mizpah and Tirzah was found at Shechem. It is worth special attention because it supplies interesting detail on construction and function of rooms in two phases. i--i---i-i: ~ii-i?iii-i:-iiii-i-

: i ' . . . .:i---.:---ii

:

i~~ ,

.

:f

: .

p='. . . ..

i : . . :::::;i ! :!.•i:!i!::::•: : . : :i :!•ii.•i::::::::• . . i: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :..:::ii:;

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i:.j •:

:ii-ii

, •? ?V:'• : ::

: ::: ==== == ======== ii:.ii................................ . -.::::-:::,======== ======== ======

-i~iiiii~ii~ii':!Xiiiii~ ~ii':iiii'iiii!iiti !i iiiii i~ ii:::iiiii ~iiiii'i-iii i!iii::i ::-::iiiii ::iii iiiii i i i i--::: i i ::::;:iii ~

ii_: • i •i :ii :iii:!!iii.!i!!iiiiiii :ii :i :ii•i i:i:i: ii~~i~iii :::•:•::•:i•::i•: .. .i ::i:::i:.!!.i~i~ ,::::-:-:::_ :.i•:•i

iiiiiii!:i.

Fig. 9. Plan of the "four room" house from Shechem shown in reconstruction in Figure 1. The original house did not include rooms 9 and 10 at the bottom, and courtyard 12 at the top probably belongs to another house complex.

Rooms numbered 1-7 were the original house. Those numbered 8-11 were added in the second phase of construction. Stone construction to about three feet above the floor level was topped with mudbrick. The court contained a storage bin, a large open hearth, a saddle quern, bottoms of clay jars set in pedestals of stone, and stone grinders. Cobblestone covered the floors of rooms 3 and 5. An underground water system connected catch basins in rooms9 and 10. Querns and a small silo in room 8 indicate a kitchen. A large silo in room 7 was easily accessible from the kitchen. The ceiling was made of beams of half logs laid in pairs with the rounded surface up. A mixture of clay and straw mortar about two inches thick covered the

54

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beams. Several layers of this "roofingpaper"had been rolled on during the life of the house. The open hearth in the court, the underground water system connecting rooms 9 and 10, and lime deposits on stones lining the hearth suggest that an industry of baking lime or firing pottery was carried on in this home.33 An earlier phase of occupation of this house revealed beneath the site of the open hearth a complex stone arrangement for wine pressing or perhaps dyeing. A large stone vat about twenty inches deep lay next to a flat stone nearly three feet in diameter whose grooves channeled whatever liquid was prepared on it into a jar set in the ground. One can only speculate whether this house changed ownership between phase one and phase two or whether the family continued to own the house but succeeding generations changed their craft.34 Large houses of the four room type were found at Hazor from about 750 B.C. In this plan the room across the short axis of the court contained the entrance to the house. Rooms on both sides of the long axis of the court were accessible only from the courtyard.Pillars in a row, offset about three feet from the center of the courtyard,were connected by a low stone wall. These pillars supported a roof over the narrower portion of the courtyard and divided the court in two parts. The roofed section was paved with stones, and an opening at the north end of the low stone wall gave access to both sides. This division of the court suggests something of a duplex arrangement, perhaps an equitable distribution of the dwelling space between the householder's two wives. The entrance and storage rooms bordered an alley which led to the main street. Stairs built against the wall of Hazor's citadel served as access to the second story. The courtyardhad oven and storage jars, but objects recoveredfrom other rooms do not clearly reveal their functions. The overall dimensions of forty-four by forty-two feet were spectacular as compared with the humble one and two room dwellings in the same stratum. Excellent materials and workmanship also contrasted with the poorer structures. For example, exterior and interior walls were all a little over three feet wide. Corners were laid with squared stones and the remainder of the walls were built with stones tooled to a clean facing. Foundation walls rose to about two feet above the floors, and sturdy mudbrick topped the stones. Doorjambswere constructed of matched masonry, and doorways were situated in each case at the end of a wall so that only one doorjambwas required. The prepossessing qualities of this house marked it as the residence of a government official or a wealthy family. A study of Palestinian houses clarifies the uses, other than as dwellings, 33. Wright, Shechem, pp. 158-162. 34. E. F. Campbell in BASOR, No. 180 (Dec., 1965), p. 19.

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1968,2)

55

:._:-:::.._i .:i~'..... .ir ... ?''Tr U4V:

~g

~ ~W

~jj~~i~A7 pit

pC_:s :x::::-"t~b

4k

~

~ :_ :r d:"

~

~

Q

i j

Ki!

~14

Fig. 10. Excellent "four room" style house from Hazor, from about 750 B.C. The column bases

in the central court are off-center; presumbablya roof covered the narrowerportion of the court. From Yadin, Hazor II, Pi. CCIV.

to which the structureswere put. In manycases homesservedas industrial and commercialshops as well as householdquarters.Dye vats and loom weights at Iron age Debir attest dyeing and weaving industriesin those homes. Albrighthas speculatedthat the stone pillars in the Israelitefour roomhouse were not only for the purposeof supportingthe roof and walls but may also have had sufficientstrengthto carrythe weight of vertical looms.3"The open hearth and undergroundwater systemin House 1727 at Shechemmay have been equipmentfor bakinglime or firingpotteryand its predecessorin phase one a dye vat or a wine press.Jerichohouseswith moresaddlequernsthan a normalfamilywould use indicatea corn grinding business,and narrowbooths attachedto exteriorhousewallswith rows of clay jars full of carbonizedgrain lining the walls indicateshops for the sale of grain. Potterybowls in small roomsfacing a street at 8th century Hazor may indicatethat food was sold from them. Some Palestinianhouseshad roomsdevotedprimarilyto religioususes. At Megiddo, for example,many dwellingshad cult objectsin profusion, 35. AASOR, XXI-XXII (1943),

50-53.

56

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such as horned altars, incense stands, braziers,figurines, and chalices, strewn about the floors.A house excavated at Deir 'Alla (biblical Succoth?) showed evidence of a shrine. The straight mudbrick walls were checked with niches which may have held figurines.36When the official cult of Yahweh suppressed the public practice of local religion, it is possible that families continued their traditions in the privacy of their homes. Baal and Ashtoreth could be worshipped without official interference in the safety of house chapels. House plans may provide limited information on sociological conditions in ancient Palestine. For example, in the Middle Bronze and Iron ages large houses at Debir, Megiddo, and Hazor stood side by side with small, poorly constructed dwellings. Houses excavated at 8th century Tirzah, Mizpah, and Shechem show that a clear distinction between rich and poor had grown up. A wall separating well-built houses from poorly built houses at Tirzah may indicate a deliberate effort to accentuate economic distinctions. Campbell speculated that the owner of House 1727 at Shechem "lived well; his house represents the better class of living. . ... In Shechem's slums . .. architecture was less impressive and the evidence as a whole suggests relative poverty."37 Distinctions between rich and poor may be illustrated further by studying plans of sites where archaeologistshave unearthed a large area. Usually large, sturdily-builthouses crowded the western edge of the mound. The strong western breezes cooled the houses in hot weather, and blew dust and odors over the poorer sections of the city. This is often the case in biblical lands today. Tell en-Nasbeh was an exception. There the largest houses were located on the eastern edge of the mound. The terrain at Tell en-Nasbeh causes strong winds to blow through the depression on the east side of the tell where the road from Jerusalem to Ramallah is located today. But, the main gate was on the east side, and may also account for the unusual location of the better homes. The uniformity of house plans and methods of construction at 10th and 9th centuries B.C. Tirzah, Megiddo, Tell Qasile, and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh resulted may bring different interpretations. Such uniformity might have the other On in Israel. hand, a from strong, centralized, political authority to householders enabled conditions economic that favorable mean it might a it indicates that believes De Vaux homes. their build have a contractor certain social equality.38 of Usually the ancient Palestinian built his own house, and limitations mudbrick, and of stones as timbers, such materials roofing quality building 36. H. Franken, Vetus Testamentum, XI (1961), 364, 367. 37. Campbell and J. F. Ross, BA, XXVI (1963), 18f. 38. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, LXXXVIII (1956), 133.

1968, 2)

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57

as well as his physical strength, curtailed the size and complexity of the house he could erect. Vaulting, long known and used in Mesopotamia and Egypt, by which a great gap could be covered by using small, manageable units dependent upon resistance to compression, was not used in Palestine before the Persian period.39 House plans usually accentuated the courtyard. For example, in most cases courtyards were east of the rooms so that the prevailing west winds blew smoke odors away from the house. Only in rare instances, however, were houses large enough to be the center of social life. Social life was experienced at the spring, the city gate, the market, and in the fields. Dwellings met only the basic needs of rich and poor for shelter and family life. It is, therefore, not surprising that public buildings received fine materials and workmanship able to survive the erosion of time while domestic buildings, except in rare cases, deteriorated badly. An architect drawing a plan of ancient Palestinian houses still has insufficient information on elevations and structural details to give a perfectly clear picture of dwellings despite recent archaeological achievements. For example, no archaeological material supports the biblical passage that windows were placed low enough so that our lovely "rose of Sharon" expected her lover to stand "gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice" (Song of Sol. 2:9). There has been no significant information about the "inner chamber" of the house in which Jehu was anointed by the prophet at Ramoth-Gilead (II Kings 9:1-3), unless such a room was the private chapel of a large home. We still have no clear understanding of "winter and summer houses" mentioned in Amos 3:15 and Jeremiah 36:22. We are, however, able to appreciate a bit more Ezekiel's image of false prophets being like a mudbrick wall crumbled to its foundations in a hailstorm. We also know more about the materials for roofs, the size of rooms and doors leading into them, the location and dimensions of courtyards, and the occupations conducted in houses than before recent archaeology had done its work. We have observed a gradual growth in the complexity of Palestinian houses from prehistorictimes through the period of the divided monarchy. Archaeological evidence shows that houses were occupied over long periods of time and underwent extensive repairs,additions, and internal adjustments as economic conditions and ownerships changed. It almost seems 39. See O. Tufnell, Lachish III, Plate 120. Also R. W. Hamilton, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, I, 120. It may be necessary to modify this position as more material from excavations at Deir 'Alla becomes available. Franken reports his discovery in a Late Bronze age level of "some wedge shaped blocks of clay, roughly plastered and generally with a groove across the tapering top. They are much the same shape as a keystone of an arch, and it is just possible that some rooms were domed and vaulted." Vetus Testamentum, XI (1951), 367.

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(Vol. XXXI

as if houses were destroyed only by war and earthquakes rather than by deliberate efforts to improve a home by tearing it down and beginning it anew. We may also affirm that recent excavations have corrected former interpretationsand furnished more accurate information which will henceforth discipline our use of written records and our own imaginations.

The Excavation of Tell er-Ras on Mt. Gerizim ROBERT

J. BULL

Drew University

In the first half of the 4th century A.D. the Bordeaux Pilgrim, while traveling to Jerusalem, passed by Mt. Gerizim (Agazaren) and Shechem (Sechim).1 He observed that on Mt. Gerizim there were 300 steps which led up to the summit of the mountain, but he made no mention of any building located there. In the second half of the same century, Epiphanius (A.D. 315-403) noted a stairway on the side of Mt. Gerizim but reported that it contained more than 1500 steps; this figure is confirmed, if somewhat ambiguously, by Procopius of Gaza who wrote 150 years later.2 Like the Bordeaux Pilgrim, neither of the later observersmade mention of any building on top of the mountain. On the other hand, Marinus of Neapolis (who was alive in ca. A.D. 440), a Neoplatonic teacher-writerand Samaritan, while mentioning no steps or stairway, does inform us that there was a temple to Zeus Hypsistos on Mt. Gerizim above Neapolis, a temple built by the Emperor Hadrian.3 Other than some uncertain Samaritan records, there is little additional literary evidence about either the Zeus temple or the stairway. Fortunately, however, there is numismatic evidence which augments our knowledge of both. Certain Neapolis mint coins struck between A.D. 138 and A.D. 253 depict on their reverse a stairway leading to a temple on top of Mt. Gerizim.4 The pictured coin, from the numismatic collection in the Museum of the Flagellation in Jerusalem, portrays the various structures. There can be little doubt that the stairway depicted on this and similar coins was the one observed a century later by the Bordeaux Pilgrim and reported by Epiphanius, or that the temple represented on them is the Zeus temple referred to by iMarinus.In spite of this, little had been done prior to 1964 to collect archaeological evidence of the temple or the stairway. Now, due to some fortunate discov1. Itinerariumn Burdigalemse, 587.3 (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XXXVIII, 20). Shechem, which the Bordeaux Pilgrim notes was at the foot of Agazaren, seems to have been known to him only as a location, not as a city, since for four hundred years it had lain in ruins following its destruction in 107 B. C. by John Hyrcanus. 2. Epiphanius, Libri de XII Gemmis, 258 (Migne, Patrologiae Graecae, XLIII, 364); Procopius, Commentarii in Deuteronomium, 440 (Migne, PG, LXXXVII, 908). 3. Photius, Bibliotheca, CCXLII, 348B, 18f. (Migne, PG, CIII, 1283). 4. G. F. Hill, A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum: Palestine (1914), pp. xxv-xxxiv,

and

Plates

V-VII

and

especially

XXXIX.

1968, 2)

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59

.. Fig. 11. Coin minted at Neapolis (Nablus) under Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161) showing the temple and stairway, the colonnaded street, and structures on the mountain flanks. Photo used by permission of Father Spijkerman, OFM, curator of the Museum of the Flagellation in Jerusalem.

eries in the recent past and the excavation of Tell er-Ras on the northern peak on Mt. Gerizim during the summers of 1964 and 1966, the remains of both the Zeus temple and the stairway have been uncovered. Mt. Gerizim is a limestone massif made up of three major peaks which rise roughly east, southeast and south of the center of the modern city of Nablus. The northwest slope of these peaks is shaped in such a way as to form a rough natural amphitheater which opens in the general direction of the city. A roadway, now disused, runs up the center of this amphitheater-like valley to the southeast and highest peak on which is to be found the tomb of Sheikh Ghanim (originally a sixteenth century watch tower), the Samaritan sacred place, the remains of the Theotokos Church, its fortifications and other ruins. Two ridges run out from the central peak of Gerizim, one to the west and the other to the north. The northern ridge terminates in a peak on top of which is Tell er-Ras. Tell er-Ras is a small conical mound covering an area which is not more than 400 feet long and 265 feet wide. The southern limit of the mound is marked by a wide east-west fosse or trench which was dug in such a manner as to isolate the mound from the rest of the ridge. Whether or not this is to be identified with the "upper fosse" on Mt. Gerizim mentioned in the Copper Scroll from Qumran Cave III will require further examination. The peak on which Tell er-Ras is located rises abruptly 1000 feet above the floor of the narrow pass between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. While the northern face of Mt. Gerizim is covered 5. M. Baillet, J. T. Milik and R. de Vaux, Les petite grottes de Qumran: Textes (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, III), p. 214: "(61) Au mont Garizim, sous les marches de la fosse ." See also pp. 274 and 298. superieure ...

60

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXI

... ... .. XIN.::,,:: ...........:::::::

..............

Fig. 12. Above is an engraving of a coin from T. L. Donaldson, Architectura Numismatica, XXXIII. Below is a view of Mt. Gerizim from the center of Nablus. Tell er-Ras is on the wooded peak in the center. The line of stairs runs down the wooded slope in just to the left of the three buildings seen grouped together below the trees the the center of the picture. The high peak of Gerizim is to the right, topped by shrine of Sheikh Ghanim.

by a forty year old stand of pine the tell itself is almostdevoid of trees. A former Director of the Departmentof Antiquitiesunder the British Mandatehad had the young trees,which had been plantedon the mountain as part of a reforestration project,removedfrom the tell properbecause he recognizedit as a potentialarchaeologicalsite.

1968, 2)

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Even prior to the 1964 probe on Tell er-Ras, the author, while excavating with the Drew-McCormick Expedition at Tell Balatah, had occasion to observe and measure a variety of columns in the village of Balatah and in the fields adjacent to that village near the eastern end of the pass between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. The most striking of the column remains, fashioned from red, black and white grained Aswan granite, were .83 m. (nearly 33 inches) in diameter and up to eight feet or more in length. All of the column fragments were unfluted and all gave evidence of having been highly polished. The number, magnitude, texture and degree of technical sophistication of these and other remains indicated that there had once existed somewhere in the vicinity a well-built structure of monumental proportions. But where had it been and what purpose had it served? The column diameters exceeded those of any of the column bases found in known structures associated with Tell Balatah, or those of the Church of Theotokos built ca. A.D. 484 by the Emperor Zeno on the highest peak of Mt. Gerizim, or of the fortifications of that church built by the Emperor Justinian after A.D. 532, or of the church remains associated with Jacob's Well at the foot of the mountain. The general area was then explored for other possibilities. None was found except Tell er-Ras which was strewn with large pieces of worked limestone and a variety of polished marble and granite fragments, suggesting that it had once been the location of a large building. The only recorded excavation at Tell er-Ras was undertaken by Captain C. W. Wilson in 1866 on behalf of the Survey of Western Palestine. In his report after describing the structures on the high peak of Mt. Gerizim, Captain Wilson wrote: At the extremity of the arm mentioned above as running northwards from the castle is a mound, partly artificial, and isolated from the ridge by a deep ditch. There are traces of steps on four sides leading to the summit of the mound, which was occupied by a building fifty-three feet square, having walls of great thickness. Some excavations were made. But with the exception of a few Roman coins nothing of interest was found.6 Thereafter, the tell does not attract much archaeological notice. In 1930 a German expedition under Professor A. M. Schneider of G6ttingen excavated the Theotokos Church and its fortifications along with other structures on the higher central peak of Mt. Gerizim, but apparently he 6. C. W. Wilson,

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, VIII (1873),

69.

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did not examine Tell er-Ras. He did, however, spot some evidence for stairs near the valley floor below.7 Surface examination of the tell in 1962 failed to locate clear evidence of Wilson's square building. However, the abundance of stone chips and limestone off cuttings, many showing worked surfaces, suggested that the site had in the past been repeatedly mined for building materials.

~iiK

'Mai~L

QU?iIi~~:lsiiii~ Of?~

Fig. 13. Remains of the Hadrian temple seen from the north.

In 1964, an exploratory east-west trench laid across the flat top of the mound revealed almost at once a building of major size. Further probing disclosed a three-step foundation about forty-three inches high from which all the dressed facing stones, except one, had been robbed. That one, a block over three feet by about two and one-half feet by sixteen inches in size, had a light marginal draft on the outer face. The three-stepped foundation rested on a stone platform nearly five feet high built of three courses of carefully hewn and fitted limestone blocks. A few of these stones had wide marginal drafting, suggesting that they were reused blocks from some earlier building. More probing yielded a rectilinear shaped platform; oriented north-south, it was about seventy-four feet long and almost forty-five feet wide. If one stands at the south end of the building and looks along its center line northward, the highest 7. A. M. Schneider, Zeitschrift des Deutschen

Paliastina-Vereins, LXVIII (1951),

209-234.

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point of Mt. Ebal can be seen directly across the pass. This building we called Building A. What was the date and purpose of this building? Probe trenches were dug to the bottom of the stone platform of Building A to try to find out. A layer of cement about thirty inches thick was encountered, and when it was penetrated, much to our surprise, the remains of a large building appeared below, built of semi-hewn stones. Whereas the fitted blocks of Building A were laid in with mortar, the stones of the lower structure, Building B, were laid in with mud and small leveling stones. Lack of time prevented the 1964 operation from determining the size of Building B, although we did find that it extended five feet wider on the east than Building A above it. Almost no pottery was found in the soil layers up against Building B, while the limited pottery evidence in the layers relating to Building A could only be classified broadly as Late RomanByzantine. Down the north slope of the mound about eighty feet from the front of Building A, the contour of the mound and the presence of several large worked stones in an east-west line suggested a buried wall. Soon the top of a wall 1.80 m. (almost six feet) wide was uncovered, and probes along its line showed it was 44.0 m. or about 148 feet long, although it was hard to determine the ends since deterioration had taken place there. This wall proved to be the north wall of a rectangular configuration surrounding Buildings A and B at about the mid-elevation of the mound. The east and west walls, oriented almost due north-south, were each about 64.0 m. (about 213 feet) in length, and the south wall was of the same length as the north one. All were of well-hewn stone blocks set in mortar. Here, too, some stones bore heavy marginal drafting and some had a pronounced boss, suggesting again that the wall was made of reused materials. Lack of time in the two-week 1964 probes prevented efforts to relate Building A and/or Building B to the enclosure walls, and a multitude of questions remained open at the end of the campaign. Based on the evidence accumulated in the survey of the area around Balatah and on the northern slopes of Mt. Gerizim during the summer of 1962 and in the 1964 probe, a six-week excavation of Tell er-Ras was undertaken by the Joint Expedition (succeeding the Drew-McCormick Expedition) in the summer of 1966. Professor G. Ernest Wright, Project Director of the Shechem Expedition not only encouraged the author to undertake the excavation but devoted much time and effort to raise the necessary funds for the endeavor. Since some additional work was also being undertaken at Shechem itself and an archaeological survey of the

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Nablus area initiated, the base camp for all three projects was set up beside the Balatah school house, which the Expedition has used since 1956.8 Tell er-Ras was designated Field XII of the overall project, and a staff of eleven under the author's direction went to work on May 31, 1966. Professor Edward P. Blair of Garrett Theological Seminary assisted in the field supervision. Professor D. Larrimore Holland (McCormick Seminary), Professor Albert C. Sundberg (Garrett), Professor William H. Brownlee (Claremont Graduate Center), ProfessorHoward C. Kee (Drew), Professor Holt H. Graham (Virginia Theological Seminary), and Mr. Jack Bennett (Drew graduate student) were area supervisors. Professor Charles Kraft (Garrett) was registrar. Oliver Unwin served as architect. Lee C. Ellenberger, the Expedition's excellent photographer, assisted by Walter Vesper, a student at Drew Theological School, supplied the photographic needs. Mr. Nicola Antar represented the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. Aziz Jadallah of Balatah served ably as foreman. A work camp was established among the pines near the base of the mound, and seventy (later ninety) workmen were hired and supplied daily transportationup the mountain from Balatah by bus. Rectangular excavation plots were laid out along the north-south and east-west axes of Building A, extending out across the lines of the enclosure walls. As a result, two main balks were established which crossed one another in the center of Building A and linked all the known architectural features to one another. Under the loose earth and stone fragments which characterize the of present surface of the mound, there was encountered on all four sides the podium of Building A a wide and deep deposit of layered stone and cement. Starting a few feet from the podium and extending outward toward the enclosure walls, this deposit consisted of two walls of cemented stone, the one nearer Building A being soft enough to break through with a pick although with some difficulty, and the one farther out being so hard that it bent the pick points on impact. This deposit, really a sort of buttress as we shall see later, was at least thirteen feet wide on the west and as much as twenty-eight feet wide on the east. This proved a formidable obstacle to rapid excavation. Between it and the podium of Building A, however, it was possible to get down to Building B on both east and west in the areas where Professor Brownlee and Professor Holland were directing the work. On the west, it was found that a revetment had been built against the face of Building B, but nothing like that obscured the 8. At Tell Balatah, Professor Toombs of Drew University directed further work in the East Gate of Shechem, while Professor Prescott Williams of Austin Presbyterian Seminary opened a new field, Field XIII, which yielded Iron I and Late Bronze age material. Professor Campbell of McCormick led an examination of over forty sites of ancient occupation within six miles of Shechem.

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face of Building B on the east. At all points, the thick layer of cement first noticed as separatingBuildingA from BuildingB in 1964 put in its appearance.

13

qtli

7 Ao

.:;:e?Vl -q-x VMS 340

let:toQ OWN

WU I. .

myI .17

Fig. 14. The sculpted head of a Zeus-like figure, found among the debris beside the platform

of the Hadrian temple.

South of the building, ProfessorSundbergencounteredsimilarconditions at first.The foundationand platformof BuildingA were covered with off cuttings, broken architecturalfragments,rubble and earth; out of this rubble there came a well-preserved,larger-than-life-size Zeus-like head, sculpturedin limestone.When the trench here got below the podium, there was exposed an irregularcement ledge, which we naturally assumedwould be the cement layer separatingBuildingA from Building B. It provedinstead to be a mass of cement continuingdown for more than ten feet, and as we tracedit down we wonderedwhat had happened to the south wall of Building B. Finally, we cut horizontallyinto the cement about thirty inches and there were the familiarsemi-hewnstones laid in with mud mortarwhich were the sure mark of Building B. At this point, the reasonfor the cement ledge becameapparent.The builders of BuildingA utilized the remainsof Building B as part of the foundation for their new structure.To help supportthe tremendousweight of BuildingA, they coveredthe top of the BuildingB with a layerof cement.

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But since the southern end of Building A was to extend more than a foot beyond its foundation on the south, a great mass of cement was added against the southern face of Building B to provide support under the small part of the upper building which overlapped. Here at the south, a determined effort to reach the bottom of Building B was rewarded by the simultaneous discovery of bedrock and the base of Building B. Building B as preserved rises above eighteen courses of stone to a height of about twenty-five and one-half feet. Again here on the south a rather elaborate system of revetting and of cement and stone layering buttressed the structure. Under this, and running up to Building B for a depth of eleven feet up from bedrock, there were layers of red soil and chalk which gave us all the clear evidence we could get of pottery which associates with Building B. We will return to that below. While all of this work was going forward, trenches were dug across the north and central parts of Building A in efforts to determine the stratigraphy against what was judged to be the badly robbed front of Building A, something of the internal structures of Building A, and the northern limit of Building B. This difficult job was undertaken by Professor Blair with the result that a 4th century A.D. reuse of the foundation of Building A was established, the outline of the naos and pronaos of Building A was more exactly defined and the northwest corner of Building B uncovered. This last discovery enabled us to determine the lateral dimensions of Building B. It was also demonstrated that an extension of Building A was added on the north probably in the 4th or 6th century A.D. A trench dug twenty feet down into rubble between Building A and the north enclosure wall indicated the great quantity of fill which had been used to level up the area in front of Building A. On all four sides of the main building, our trenches reached out to the enclosure walls. Curiously enough, the walls were of differing thickness on each side, more than ten feet on the west, only half that on the east, and about seven feet on the south. On the west, the wall was in badly tumbled condition, but at one point on the top of the preserved portion there is what appears to be a door jamb. No further evidence of an entrance through the enclosure wall has so far appeared on the east, west, or south. But in the 1964 probe we found what appeared to be a gap in the north wall just at its midpoint; it was twenty-five feet wide and gave every indication of being the main gate. One of our trenches was laid out across the north enclosure wall at just this point to test this assumption. The supposed gate was found to be blocked, however, by a wall five feet wide which was identical with the enclosure

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........... •..:,:•

: jiiiiiii':!:!

::::::: :: ,

? _-

IN:l

Ok,::::_--

Fig. 15. The temple platform Hadrian temple rides Lowest down in this lies on the earth just to was taken.

looking from east to west. The on a sturdy platform, which in view are the top three courses next to Building B, at the level

three-stepped foundation of the turn sits on a layer of cement. of Building B. The meter stick we had reached when this pho-

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wall except that the courses of stone, about twenty inches wide, which formed the outer (northern) face were missing from top to bottom of the wall. Whatever occasioned the removal of the facing stones, it is evident that there was no entranceway or gate here after all, but rather a kind of inset. South of the wall, inside the enclosure, a consistent fill of earth and small stones was found from the top of the wall down to bedrock, a depth of about seventeen feet. Mr. Bennett, who was in charge of this work, found the conditions on the north side of the enclosure wall considerably different. Here, probably in the 6th century A.D., a wide ramp made up of very large stones and architecturalpieces had been laid against the indented portion of the enclosure wall in order to carry a roadway over the top of the wall to the structures on top of the mound. Mr. Bennett and his crew were condemned, Sisyphus-like, to spend days rolling tons and tons of heavy stone up an inclined plane of railroad rails in order to reveal the outside face of the wall and its foundation. In the pine forest at the base of the tell and down the wooded northern slope of Mt. Gerizim, Professor Kee sank repeated probes searching for the stairway and the approaches to the building on the tell. His efforts were repeatedly hindered by an abundance of trees and tree roots in the way of every trench. Neither trees nor roots could be cut without special permission. In spite of this and the considerable damage done by erosion, he was able to find a series of terraces, one above the other and each connected by a series of five or more steps. On the terraceswere found the badly eroded foundations of structures, one with a well preserved mosaic floor probably dating from about the 6th century A.D. One of the most significant finds was the discovery of the remains of steps cut into the bed rock of the lower slopes of Mt. Gerizim in the direction of Nablus. Indeed, if a line is drawn from the center of the north end of Building A northwest to the small mosque called Rijll el-'Amild at the foot of Mt. Gerizim southeast of the center of Nablus, the six areas in which rock hewn steps have been found lie on that line. On the north side of the northern enclosure wall, in places where plaster had been found during the 1964 probe, three cisterns were discovered and the location of three others determined. The six cisterns had been built against the northern face of the enclosure wall, three to the left (Nos. I, II, and III) and three to the right (Nos. IV, V, and VI) of the stone ramp which ran up over the wall. Cisterns I, II, and VI were excavated and were found to be of similar plan and construction. All were 4.21 m. (13V2 feet) long and 3.61 m. (12 feet) deep. The

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widths varied: I was 3.86 m. wide, II was 3.88 m. wide and VI was 4.17 m. wide. Tunnels connected them, the tunnel between I and II being about a foot wide and two feet high. Barrel vaults built with a north-south axis had roofed the cisterns. Founded on bedrock, they used the northern enclosure wall as their south wall and a parallel stone wall about four feet thick as their north wall. Stone walls separated the cisterns from one another, the one between I and II being 1.33 m. or just over four feet thick. All surfaces were lined with a thick coat of hard plaster; on the bottoms, the plaster overlay a foot thick layer of mortar and small stones.

N: 7,::b

I: ~Bt~g~BIlk

Fig. 16. One of the Tell er-Ras cisterns. The photograph was taken by Lee C. Ellenberger from directly overhead with the aid of a new tripod rig built by E. H. Spuhler of the Aluminum Company of America and presented to Prof. Howard Jamieson of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary for use in archaeology in Palestine. This was the first time the device had been employed.

When Professor Graham began the excavation he found the cisterns filled with the collapsed vaulting and fragments of parapet which at one time rose above the vaulting. Among the architecturalfragments in Cistern II was found a fragment of a pedestal with the incomplete Greek inscription DII OLYM .. . (To Zeus Olympius). Under the heavy accumulation of fragments, there were three layers of earth, the bottom one of

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which was a silt deposit about seven inches thick. From the silt came some fifty datable coins, thirty dice, a second Greek inscription, and a moderate amount of pottery. The inscription, also from Cistern II, was on a small piece of copper. It begins with the same words, DII OLYMPIO (To Zeus Olympius). The coins all fall between A.D. 285 and 363, and are for the most part from the time of Constantine. These coins date the silt deposit to the first half of the 4th century and thus fix the date of the small but important corpus of pottery found in the silt.

ii!I?ii2 !: I

? ig~sa~ss~P

CslaP~~nst'~i~aaa"P?~ 4~1-' ::::::::::::i iii~iii

.• i

......

Fig. 17. Pedestal fragment with Greek dedicatory inscription to Zeus Olympius.

While much of the evidence amassed on Tell er-Ras has yet to be fully studied, some general conclusions can be drawn. Building B, which rests on bedrock, is a structure of eighteen or more courses rising over twenty-five feet. It is very nearly square, if the revetment on the west be included, being 20.93 m. (north-south) by 20.14 m. (east-west) or about sixty-eight by sixty-five feet. No foundation trench was discerned against ,the base of its southern wall, but a few baskets of pottery came from the chalk and earth layers there. The vast majority of the sherds were from the Hellenistic period, closely resembling the pottery of Strata II and III (2nd and 3rd centuries B.C.) from Shechem. The rest of the sherds were Iron age and Late Bronze age. No other related structures have been discovered yet, nor have we tried to penetrate the interior of the building. What is this building? Its size and construction, its location overlooking Shechem, and the fact that what pottery evidence there is points to the Hellenistic era

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A BUILDING BUILDING :-i ::: - .-.----------:: 11:--::::-:: iiiiiiiii'iiii'iiii : : _ -:

:.:.:.: :::: . . ................... ..... ::: ::;.:-:. Of.....

i'

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At'$

----------~

Fig. 18. Plan of the buildings on Tell er-Ras, with the Hadrian temple on the top of the Hellenistic building, the excavated fragments of the temenos wall, and the cisterns.

for its use, all raise the possibility that it is the remains of the Samaritan temple. This is certainly nothing more than a hypothesis so far. Concerning Building A, however, we are on firmer ground. If there was any doubt that it is to be identified with the Zeus temple mentioned by Marinus of Neapolis and depicted on coins of the Neapolis mint, the two inscriptions, the clear outline of the excavated cella, the associated monumental architectural fragments, and the other stratigraphic evidence found, have dispelled that doubt. Problems, of course, remain. For example, a majority of the Neapolis mint coins showing the temple depict it as having columns on all four sides (peripteral), with four columns across the front. But this is architecturally unusual. Unfortunately, the badly robbed out foundation on the north end of Building A has not yielded enough evidence at this stage of excavation to be of aid in making a judgment on the number of columns used in the front of the temple. Since, however, the temple was a peripteral one and was designed to be viewed from any and all directions, something of the problem which confronted the Roman engineers of the 2nd century can be imagined. Faced with the necessity of erecting a heavy temple with an elevated and unobstructed view, the builders set about constructing a high, stable platform. A high courtyard of retaining walls was built around the already existing

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structure found in the center of the tell, Building B, and the whole filled up to the level of the top of Building B with thousands of tons of fill. This made a huge platform 213 by 148 feet in size standing over twenty feet high. To prevent lateral thrust from the great weight of the Zeus temple wide layers of stone and cement were laid in, to a considerable depth, around Building B and the foundations of the temple. To afford a level surface on which to erect the temple and to secure the top of Building B, a thick layer of cement was put over the top of Building B. Finally, the stones of the podium of the Zeus temple were laid on top of this massive and stable foundation. In addition to the 2nd century construction of the temple, ceramic, coin and architectural evidence point to a 4th century use of the podium of the temple and probably, on more limited evidence, to a 6th century use. The line of steps up the side of Mt. Gerizim are certainly to be identified with those noted by the Bordeaux Pilgrim and Epiphanius and depicted on the Neapolis mint coins. The original number of steps, however, still remains in doubt. Also, whether or not the structures depicted on either side of the stairway, as shown on the coin in Figure I, are to be identified with the terraces uncovered, must await further investigation. The ceramic evidence from Tell er-Ras is ample and was carefully dug, but it suffers from the fact that the excavation and study of Late Roman and Byzantine pottery in Palestine is a neglected field. The stratified 2nd through 6th century pottery evidence with which Tell er-Ras pottery should be compared is almost nil. In spite of this, the author feels that the Late Roman and Byzantine pottery related to Building A, its foundations and the stairway will be a genuine contribution to Palestinian ceramic study. This will be especially true of the 4th century A.D. pottery found in the cisterns, which the author hopes to publish soon. Many questions still beg for answers. Further excavation scheduled to begin on June 3, 1968, may provide them, as we probe into the interior of Building B and study further the complex of buildings on Tell er-Ras. Another Change of Address The reorganization of ASOR offices continues! New and more spacious headquarters for the publications office have been opened at 126 Inman Street in Cambridge. A computerized system will make the handling of subscriptions much simpler and more accurate. New subscribers note the address.