Archaeology Magazine - June 1965 - 33

Tell

continued
Nagila
blocks. The streets are about 1.50 m. wide, paved with
pebbles and potsherds laid in beaten whitish clay.
The houses are built close together, always having
common walls, either a back wall common to two
rows of dwellings, or a side wall or front wall connecting adjoining houses. In some cases a flight of a
few steps leads down from the street into the house.
Generally rectangular in shape, the houses seem to
be composed of one or two small rooms opening onto
a courtyard. The size of a room is generally 2 x 3 m.,
while a courtyard averages 3 x 5 m. One side of the
courtyard is sometimes roofed, as is indicated by
column bases found in a few courts. The columns
themselves must have been made of wood, which
has long since decayed. These roofed sheds are often
paved with flagstones, but generally the floors of the
rooms and the courtyards are of beaten earth. Both
stone and sun-dried bricks were used as building
material. Usually the lower parts of the walls are
built of rough field stones, while the upper structures are of brick. The foundations generally extend two or three courses below the floors. The thickness of the walls varies between 40 and 60 cms.
The walls are not always straight and are mostly of
poor workmanship, suggesting that there were no
second stories except perhaps for light sheds on the
roofs. The walls were plastered with mud. It may be
assumed that the plan of this area is representative of
the general town-plan, which seems to be oriented
to conform with the rectangular shape of the whole
settlement.
Built-in furniture includes clay ovens, with openings on the top and on the side (Figure 5), benches
of clay or stone, small rounded depressions in the
floors lined with pebbles to hold vessels, and rounded
silos either lined with stones and plastered or simply
mud-plastered. Of the movable furnishings, of course,
only those made of imperishable materials have been
preserved. Pottery is the commonest of these, along
with flint implements and grinding stones. Much
rarer are objects of luxury type such as faience and

alabaster bottles, ostrich eggshells used as vessels,
bone inlays from wooden toilet-boxes, in the shape of
stylized birds and human figures (Figure 6), scarabs
and a cylinder seal. Very few bronze implements were
found- which may be accidental. Figure 7 shows
part of a rich assemblage of typical vessels in situ
in the courtyard of one house, while Figure 8 shows
the whole group after they were mended. There were
jars and jugs for storing both liquids and dry foodstuffs, juglets used as dippers, cooking pots, dishes
and bowls, some red-slipped and burnished, as well
as a pair of grinding-stones. One vessel, a simple jar,
has a painted decoration on its shoulder consisting of
straight and wavy lines, red and bluish-black, on a
white background, a style typical of this period. Two
ovens were also found in this courtyard.
In the immediate vicinity of these houses there
came to light parts of two large buildings possibly
having some public function. We have not yet finished excavating them. These buildings are constructed on a larger scale and their walls are much
thicker (1.50 m.), which may indicate that there was
a second story.
A clay vessel in the shape of a bull (Figure 9),
comes from one of these public buildings. The body,
which is hollow and has an opening on top of the
back, is wheel-made, while the legs are solid, with
divided hooves. The dewlap is prominently shown.
The vessel is red-slipped and burnished; the eyes are
painted black. This zoomorphic vessel is reminiscent
of similar vessels which are common in the Hittite
Middle Bronze repertory.
Among the finds of special importance is a potsherd with a fragmentary inscription (Figure 10).
Incised deeply before firing, the signs are in two
horizontal lines, apparently to be read from right to
left. Of the first line only one fragmentary sign is
preserved. An important feature is the .dot .in the
second line separating two words, neither of which
is complete. Although the reading is uncertain, it is
clear that the inscription is in the alphabetic ProtoCanaanite script. The context in which this sherd was
found is not yet completely clear but, nevertheless, it

17. Bronzesword found in Tomb DT 2.
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Archaeology Magazine - June 1965

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - June 1965