The Israelite Pillared House
In college, I had the opportunity to study abroad in the land of Israel. I was there a semester (approximately three months) and took a full load of classes. These classes included studying the history of the modern state of Israel, the land of Jordan, the land of Israel and the Bible and how they relate, Judaism, and archaeology. All of these courses where very interesting and enjoyable to study. Each class had a boatload of assignments. To my relief, I was only required to write one research paper and that was for my Archaeology class. It took me a while to figure out what archaeological topic I would write on, not because there were a multitude of topics from which to choose, but because of the limited resources in the school’s library. I finally chose to write on the common Israelite home in the Iron Age. I found it amazing how different the Israelite house was from America’s 21st century luxurious and complex homes. The Israelite house was simple, providing only the necessities of life.
If you know your Bible stories, you will remember that the Israelites at one time were foreign people living in the land of Egypt and were servants to the wicked and cruel Pharaoh. God delivered them from the Egyptians and led them to the "Promised Land," which was known then as Canaan and today as Israel. During this time, they were nomadic, picking up their homes, which were tents, and traveling on to their destination. Once inside the land of Canaan, they began to settle down in permanent dwellings.
The Israelite house was a simple but functional dwelling, built for survival. It was constructed of stones, usually rough in shape and varying in size. Scorpions and snakes often found their way through the cracks into the cool house. The floor was packed or mixed with lime to create a hard surface. It usually was a three- to four-room house arranged with two- to three-oblong rooms parallel to each other, and one broad-room running perpendicular to the other three.
The three parallel rooms were separated by pillars, which supported the roof. Stones approximately three feet in height were partially sunk into the ground to form bases for wooden pillars. Between these pillars, the inhabitants usually built low walls of stone sectioning off the two side rooms from the rest of the house. Animals were kept in these rooms or stalls. Their body heat helped keep the house warm and their dung was used as fuel for the cooking fire. Within the animal pen were cobblestone floors to provide footing for the animals and to keep the ground from getting soggy from animal urine.
The center oblong room was usually a courtyard either open above to the outside or enclosed with a roof. The women used this room for daily chores. They cooked and wove as well as stored their grain here. It was considered the family room and kitchen of its day.
The rear perpendicular room was used as a place to eat and/or sleep. Many times it was part of a casemate wall. (A casemate wall is two walls built around a city with a large space in-between them.) In many settlements, the homes were built next to each other, like apartments, forming of a circle to protect the community from invasion. The rear rooms made up the city wall. When the settlement was attacked, each family was responsible to defend their section of the casemate wall. Sometimes the community would fill up each rear room with debris or rocks to strengthen the wall against battering rams. This method of defense was fairly successful.
The roof of the house was used as a sleeping veranda in the hot summer months. It was flat and made of clay pressed into the wooden rafters. To prevent anyone from falling off, a fence was constructed and placed around the perimeter. Either stone or wooden stairs led to the roof and, many times, just a wooden ladder.
Depending on the city, the inhabitants would design their own house layout based on their needs or the city would design the city layout and each home would be constructed according to the city plans. But one thing was for sure, most of the houses were plain and unattractive.
These houses were unlike what we are blessed with today. We are accustomed to electric heat, insulation, carpet, rooms built for entertainment and relaxation, and the list goes on. So, next time you are complaining about "discomfort," remember that you don’t have to fill up your back, spare room with rocks to help defend yourself from invading armies!
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Albright, W.F. (1942). The Architecture of Ancient Israel. Jerusalem: Ahva Press.
Barkay, Gabriel. (1992). "The Iron Age II-III." The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, ed. Amnon Ben-Tor. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Barton, George A. (1944). Archaeology And The Bible. 7th edition. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School.
Blaiklock, E.M., and R.K. Harrison. (1983). "House; Furniture." The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. R.K. Harrison. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
Callaway, Joseph A. (1983). "A Visit with Ahilud." Biblical Archaeology Review. 9/5: 43-53.
Kempinski, Aharon, and Ronny Reich. (1992). The Architecture of Ancient Israel. Jerusalem: Ahva Press.
Kenyon, Kathleen M. (1979). Archaeology of the Holy Land. New York: Nelson Publishers.
Mazar, Amihai. (1992). Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. New York: Doubleday.
Mazar Amihai. (1992). "The Iron Age I." The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, ed. Amnon Ben-Tor. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Stager, Lawrence E. (1989). "The Song of Deborah; Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not." Biblical Archaeology Review. 15/1: 51-64.
Fred J. Becker, Architect's E-mail
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