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inhabited them. Various points can be made about the four-room house pertaining to the culture of their inhabitants. Disparity in house sizes and build quality within towns seem to be a result of socio-economic stratification within cities. Four-roomed houses are found in isolation or built in clusters of grouped units. It can be observed that smaller urban houses, that shared walls between them, were most likely inhabited by nuclear families, while the larger stand-alone houses belonged to extended and wealthy families such as the urban elite. Through the analysis of space syntax within the four-room house, it can be said that the four-room house reflects an
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floor plan consists of three axial rooms, connected by one “broadroom" at the rear of the building. Although a majority of houses were not found standing, through analysis it can be concluded that some houses stood two stories tall. Not all four-room houses were stand-alone houses in the typical
American sense. While some houses were found in isolation, other houses were found with shared walls, and even shared the back broadroom wall with a thicker, outer, defensive city wall. The houses could be constructed in a circular pattern, where the outer city wall connected all back broadroom walls, such as in a combination of the
47:
63:
159:. The floors were composed of beaten earth and flagstone pavement. Finely layered ash and clay helped keep the floors smooth and level. As seen by the sheer volume and weight of all of the stones, wooden pillars, and mudbrick walls used in the construction of the four-room house, it can be said that construction was a team effort that took a lot of energy.
31:
154:
wall and the residential wall. The normal walls were around one meter thick, and were constructed of fieldstones. The exterior defensive walls were thicker. The surfaces of exterior walls were likely plastered to prevent erosion from rainfall, which could be heavy and intense in the winter and spring
102:
and for storage. There were multiple variations on the basic four-room house. Some had a five-, three-, or two-room layout, and sometimes the rooms were divided by additional walls into smaller areas. Acknowledging these sub-types of the four-room house, the popularity of the structure started at the
149:
Through archaeological excavations and anthropological studies, it is possible to report on building materials and possible methods used in the construction of the
Israelite four-room houses. The Iron I four-room houses typically measured ten to twelve meters long and eight to ten meters wide. The
128:
ideology. The typical four-room house had a layout where all the inner rooms were directly accessible from the house's central space, suggesting that all rooms were equal and there was no hierarchy to the space. The four-room house was unlike the typical
Canaanite-Phoenician dwelling, which had a
93:
because two—or all three—of the parallel ground-level "rooms" are separated by one—or two, respectively—rows of wooden pillars. The pillars, however, are not the defining feature of the four-room house, and this error of terminology leads to the confusion of four-room houses with other buildings,
123:
There have been multiple theories on why the four-room house construction was so popular. Architectural analysis can be made of the residential units by the way they are grouped, the relationship between structures, their size, internal divisions, and the size and structure of the families that
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writes that although "he Iron Age pillared houses, the "four-room house," are not uniquely
Israelite", listing up several Iron Age non-Israelite sites where such houses were found, he nevertheless states that they are unlike the older, "Late Bronze II pillared house discovered at
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such as storehouses and stables, where pillars were widely used, but which were not constructed under the four-room house layout. When an upper floor was included, the inhabitants used it as living quarters, while the ground floor was used as a
85:
The four-room house is so named because its floor plan is divided into four sections, although not all four are proper rooms, one often being an unroofed
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writes that "The Iron Age pillared houses, the "four-room house," are not uniquely
Israelite. They are found in Iron Age non-Israelite sites such as
833:
74:, also known as an "Israelite house" or a "pillared house" is the name given to the mud and stone houses characteristic of the
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141:", and finally concludes that, all considered, "they are characteristic of Israelite sites." Their origins are uncertain.
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of the region. The plastering would have demanded a significant quantity of lime to be manufactured, which required a
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Clark, Douglas R. (2003-01-01). "Bricks, Sweat and Tears: The Human
Investment in Constructing a "Four-Room" House".
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layout where some rooms could be entered only by passing through other rooms, hence showing a hierarchy of access.
818:
17:
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Shiloh, Yigal (1987-01-01). "The
Casemate Wall, the Four-Room House, and Early Planning in the Israelite City".
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414:
Israelite house" or a "pillared house" is the name given to the mud and stone houses characteristic of the
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344:
Bunimovitz, Schlomo; Faust, Avraham (2003). "The four room house: Embodying Iron Age
Israelite society".
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beginning of Iron Age I (end of the eleventh century BCE) and dominated the architecture of
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Following is a tentative list of
Israelite four-room houses at various excavation sites.
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422:. Although sometimes considered particularly Israelite, this idea has been challenged.
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115:(of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE) the architecture type was no longer utilized.
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Although sometimes considered particularly
Israelite, this idea has been challenged.
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496:, vol. 66, no. 4, 1997, pp. 387–413. NOVA SERIES, www.jstor.org/stable/43078144.
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VII, but they are unlike the Late Bronze II pillared house discovered at
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Ji, Chang-Ho C. "A Note on the Iron Age Four-Room House in Palestine."
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The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches
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Archaeological house-type often associated with early Israelites
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582:"A Note on the Iron Age Four-room House in Palestine"
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Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
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Digital 3D reconstruction of basic space distribution
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620:"Tell Abu al-Kharaz: A Bead in the Jordan Valley"
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446:and they are characteristic of Israelite sites (
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354:(1–2). Scholars Press, Atlanta, GA: 22–31.
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395:. Bloomsbury. p. 101 (footnote 32).
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163:List of sites with four-room houses
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50:A reconstructed Israelite house,
557:. Madain Project. Archived from
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107:through Iron Age II until the
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700:The Biblical and historical
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111:. After the destruction of
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618:Fischer, Peter M. (2008).
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788:Historicity of the Bible
624:Near Eastern Archaeology
580:Ji, Chang-Ho C. (1997).
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829:Vernacular architecture
717:Twelve Tribes of Israel
819:Ancient Jewish history
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52:10th–7th centuries BCE
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809:Archaeology of Israel
472:. Brill. p. 76.
389:Zevit, Ziony (2003).
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38:house, the so-called
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636:10.1086/NEA20697190
561:on 27 November 2021
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207:Tell Abu al-Kharaz
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424:Ziony Zevit
257:Tell Qasile
242:Tel Rumeida
232:Tel Megiddo
134:Ziony Zevit
126:egalitarian
803:Categories
702:Israelites
630:(4): 211.
586:Orientalia
494:Orientalia
444:Tel Batash
408:27 January
280:References
274:Israelites
139:Tel Batash
660:167145910
644:1094-2076
541:114526261
376:162312425
328:163481398
227:Tel Hazor
221:Beersheba
186:Jerusalem
100:livestock
87:courtyard
36:Israelite
652:20697190
598:43078144
434:IV, and
416:Iron Age
263:See also
212:Tel Arad
152:casemate
119:Analysis
76:Iron Age
533:3210930
368:3210929
320:1356991
197:Lachish
768:Tanakh
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246:Hebron
172:Avaris
105:Israel
96:stable
80:Levant
773:Bible
656:S2CID
648:JSTOR
594:JSTOR
537:S2CID
529:JSTOR
448:Mazar
372:S2CID
364:JSTOR
324:S2CID
316:JSTOR
113:Judah
640:ISSN
605:2021
567:2021
474:ISBN
410:2017
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