Bricks, Sweat and Tears: The Human Investment in Constructing a "Four-Room" House Author(s): Douglas R. Clark Source: Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 66, No. 1/2, House and Home in the Southern Levant (Mar. - Jun., 2003), pp. 34-43 Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210930 . Accessed: 29/05/2014 18:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The American Schools of Oriental Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Near Eastern Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Thu, 29 May 2014 18:05:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Human Investment in Constructing a "Four-room"House 0 By Douglas R. Clark Next to food T Ihe constructionof stoneand brick four-room houses in the IronI southernLevant was pro- curement, the for extremelylabor-intensive, involving a varietyof tasks.The collection,preparation, pro- quest living quarters that were and of lime and in the duction, transportation application earth, stone, wood, clay protected against the processof buildinga house requiredsignificant time and effort.These requirementswere very intrusion of natural and demandingon villagerswhose subsistence-levelincome forced them to do most of the work human agents occupied a themselves, on top of the day-to-day tasks they performed merely to stay alive and feed major portion of the attention of the ancients. their families.Building construction was difficult,dangerous and demanding.and theirs was The original impetus for a hard lot. Yet despite their efforts,only remnants of their work remain today.This human early house construction investment was essentialfor their survivaland demonstratesthe and clearly persistence per- was tied to agricultural severance,ingenuity and innovation, and strengthand staminaof our forebearsin this region. pursuits."Generally, house construction started with the beginning of agri- culture; during the hunting and gathering stage of human history, people sought shelter in caves or under cliffs" (Khammash[citing A. E. Knauf] 1986: 9). Natural rock enclosures, fabric tents and open wind- breaks probably con- stituted most housing priorto buildingsof wood, stone or clay, since food- procurement strategies based on hunting and gathering and even the herding of sheep and goats did not require permanenthousing in the same way that settled farmingdoes. This points to comparativelyminimal human investment in house construction prior of basic as Types housing illustratedin modern Jordan. Clockwise from top left: a ruralhome, a cave dwelling, a Bedouin to the agricultural rev- tent and an agriculturalvilla. The need for permanent living quarters that were protected against the intrusionof natural olution in the ancient and human agents was a for humans at the advent of Sali Jo Hand. priority agriculture.By I Near East. 34 NEAR EASTERNARCHAEOLOGY 66:1-2 (2003) This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Thu, 29 May 2014 18:05:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Majorcycles of intensification and abatement in settlement Jarmo in Mesopotamia, Beidha in Petra, settlements in patternsthroughout the historyof the southern Levant remind Anatolia (such as Qatal Hoyiik and Hacilar), and Merimde in us that human building activity never remained stable or the western Nile delta, but what can we discover of the static. Periods of abatement brought more relaxed building process itself? And what might this tell us not only commitments of time and energy to house and city about building construction in Iron Age Jordan, but about construction. On the other hand, during times of intense construction across the millennia, from the Pre-pottery occupation and increased urbanization, as in the Iron Age, Neolithic (ca. 7000 BCE) to modern times? A recently constructionexpanded and took on greatercomplexity. excavated pillaredhouse at Tall al-'Umayri,immediately north While archaeologistshave studied the architecturalremains of the Madaba Plains, gives us an opportunityto examine the of domestic buildings in the ancient Near East for decades, human investment in terms of the time and energy expended they have seldom considered the human element of the constructing four-roomhouses-the typical dwelling-during construction process. We know of houses and villages the earlyIron I period. constructed of mudbrick, wood or stone at least back to the In antiquityas today,many issues had to be addressedbefore a sixth and seventh millennia BCE. Jerichois one example, as are house could be built. These include planning and fund-raising, provision for labor, locating, collecting, transporting and preparing materials, preparation of the site, purchase or Tall al-' Uriavri manufacture of appropriate tools, lifting, leveling and ,^l^^^:^ ^ ^: ~--- ATopo,aphicT PlDo, April 1. 1997 materialsinto surfacesfor ^--^';*-^^ 3 ----/ 5Crcalct- urian ftr, OataClllclil adheringbuilding place, finishing ' kaiablptll$is Ptj,ct ]996 sesDn ><=__<-=_-----%' _C- -:E:^ - - by: pragmaticand aesthetic purposes,maintaining, reusing, and _ _ _ _ _ _ _X g o CleanBald renovating when necessary-all important considerations. Add to these the enduring heat, humidity, long hours, physicaldebilitations, pests and varyingdegrees of difficulty and danger inherent in the process, and the complexity of buildinga home in antiquitybecomes even more apparent. Stone HouseConstruction during Iron I in the SouthernLevant Although we do not have any direct textual descriptions of the building activities or construction design of houses from the Iron I period, archaeologistshave focused a good A- deal of attention on so-called "four-room"or "pillared" houses and small from this period. Their I- 921, agrarianvillages * . -- wiers K': connections with early tribal entities that we traditionally call Ammon, Moab and Israel,have occupied archaeologists and biblical scholars with some of late and will Topographic map of Tall al-(Umayri, an Iron I site located south of Ammarn intensity in Jordan. The excavated area labeled Field B on this plan contained an likely continue to do so for some time. A growingconsensus Iron I period four-room house built of stone. suggests that these tribal entities initially settled in small Keyto Section of WesternDefense Tall al- Umayri System Field B at Tallal-'Umayri, Jordan B 1 3 4 Section of Western Defense System-Field -- 913m MSL* 1 Eastern Wall of Building 2 Beaten-earth surface of food- preparation area -- 910 3 One of three post-bases (perpendicular to the section), likely supporting a curtainwall between food-preparation area and cultic room 4 Flat stone (altar?)on pavement facing ---905 standing stone against inner "casemate" wall 5 Inner "casemate" wall surface of "casemate" -- 901 6 Beaten-earth .I: 1 rn I:z :mll : :: . storeroom 7 Ladderplatform for access to upper story 8 Outer "casemate" wall 9 IronI rampart 10 MiddleBronze rampart (fracturedby earthquake) 84 11 Bedrock Square 780 7J89 7J88 7J87 786 7J85 12 Iron I defense/retaining wall 13 Iron IIdefense/retaining wall The western defensive system in Field B at Tall al-'Umayri, seen here in section, 14 Iron I moat base beneath Middle Bronze moat base included a moat, rampart and perimeter wall. 15 Bedrock NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 66:1-2 (2003) 35 This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Thu, 29 May 2014 18:05:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Iron I four-room houses discovered Ocale throughoutthe hill countrytypically measured ten to 5m twelvemeters long and eight to ten meterswide. The A c N broadroom, extending across the back end of the building,may have been two meterswide and opened Rampart into an area containing three long rooms, each separatedfrom the othersby a wall or a row of pillars or posts that also supportedthe ceiling or roof. The two side roomsnormally housed animals,leaving the central long room to serve for domestic activities surroundingfood preparationand consumption. w-- B1 This pattern is clear in the best preserved and, likely, one of the earliest examples of this type of house, excavatedin FieldB at Tallal-'Umayri, south of Amman, Jordan (perhapsthe Abel-Keramimof A1 Judg 11:33). This late thirteenth/early twelfth- centuryhouse (BuildingB), and others as well that do not followthe four-roomplan, was surroundedby an extremely well-defended fortification system, including a moat, rampartand perimeterwall. The buildersutilized the broadroomsof the two adjacent houses to this in excavation(Buildings 0; exposed point DRAWNBY: A and B) as an integratedpart of what appearsto be Douglas Clark a double-walldefense systemin places. An external LarryHerr John Lawlor enclosure, perhaps an animal pen, lay in front of i Robert McBain B to the east within an WillPiller building open courtyard. *'2)IV7 We have completelyexcavated both early Iron I and believe that were two stories -;I buildings they over their full extent. This gives us an idea not only of the size of these domestic structures but also the of the wall into which had been MADAIA