Rooms: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ,15 and 17. The Middle Bronze Age Remains in Area 1. The Middle Bronze Age Monumental Building (original) (raw)
A Hellenistic Farmhouse at the Entrance to the Town of El'ad
Journal of Hellenistic Pottery & Material Culture (HJP) 4: 44-58, 2019
The northern rooms of a large structure located on a low hill rising to the height of one hundred meters above the sea level to the northeast of the entrance to the town of El'ad were seriously damaged during construction of the new patrol road around the northern residential quarter of the town in 2001 1. The structure (41 x 28 m) was surveyed and identified as a fortress during the survey project ›Map of Rosh ha-Ain‹ 2 (fig. 1). It seems that the researchers came to this conclusion after finding massive northwest and northeast corners of a structure built of large fieldstones (up to 1.4 m long), which survived to the height of more than one meter. A rectangular concrete maintenance box (9.0 x 11.0 m) erected in the southeast corner and dense thickets of cacti did not allow us to examine the southern part of the ancient structure and the excavations took place only in its northern part (figs. 2-3). The long outer wall 73, which bordered the structure from the north, and about ten rooms arranged in several rows along the north-south axis were partially or completely excavated. Outer and inner walls of the structure, approximately of the same width (0.85-0.90 m) were built of one row of large roughly hewn stones (1.0 x 0.80 x 0.60 m), which were arranged mainly across the walls. Rows of massive stones alternate with thin fills of small flat stones (fig. 4). Sections of walls W58 and W74 were found covered with thick layer of white plaster. Mostly, the structure walls were erected on bedrock that was leveled, covered with a thick layer of white or gray plaster and served as a floor in some rooms (Loci 36. 42) (fig. 5). In other rooms the floors were made of tightly packed earth (Loci 15, 34), just leveled bedrock (L35) or paved with stones (L53) (fig. 6).
2000
chambers and the entryway joined to form restorable vessels. The assemblage represents the last days of activity in the structure, during which time the gate was blocked and used for domestic purposes. THE POTTERY OF STRATA VIII-VIA (University of Chicago Expedition) It is essential to establish the date of the assemblage in relation to the University of Chicago Expedition stratigraphy, since the material originates from a structure which is part of the much larger Late Bronze palace complex. Two major difficulties hamper any attempt to evaluate the pottery published in Loud 1948. First, sherds and badly broken vessels, excluding exceptional items, were not recorded. Therefore, the quantitative aspect of the pottery cannot be properly analyzed; nor can one be confident about typology, especially the significance of the negative evidence, i.e., the absence of a given type from an assemblage. Second, due to the Oriental Institute excavators' methodology-especially the fact that work was conducted in large areas without the retention of baulks or the recording of sections-the stratigraphic accuracy of certain sectors is dubious. Further, published pottery originated from both tombs and building remains. In the case of the former, it is generally difficult, if at all possible, to establish a tomb's original association with architectural remains, i.e., with the mound's strata (contra Kenyon 1969; Gonen 1987). In the case of the latter, many of the loci are unreliable, since they are located between buildings or in remains of structures with no floors. The study of the gate assemblage and the isolation of pottery from safe loci of Strata VIII-VIlA were initiated by Orna Zimhoni. After her untimely death in December 1996, the study was completed and this paper written by Israel Finkelstein, with the assistance of Adi Kafri. 2 The 1992 excavation season at the Late Bronze gate was carried out before the formulation of the Megiddo Expedition registration system in 1994; hence the difference between the locus/bucket numbers here and in the other chapters of this volume. 223
Megiddo VI: The 2010-2014 Seasons, 2022
This report presents the stratigraphy, architecture, and assemblages of a masonry-constructed tomb, Tomb 100, which was excavated in Area K at Tel Megiddo. The tomb, which dates to the Middle Bronze III-Late Bronze I, contained multiple-successive inhumations of at least 23 individuals and an impressive assemblage of ceramic vessels, metal objects, scarabs, incised bone inlays, jewelry, stone vessels, and other small finds. The paper places the tomb within its intramural domestic context, analyzes its architecture, and discusses its complex mortuary practices in light of Bronze Age Levantine funerary traditions.