Yasur-Lau Assaf. Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond
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232 philipp stockhammer
Figure 11. Tiryns, Northeastern Lower Town, Phase 1, LHIIIC Early 1/2: spatial distribution of
sherds of carinated cups (FS 240) (Stockhammer 2008: Fig. 85).
household archaeology in lhiiic tiryns 233
Figure 12. Tiryns, Northeastern Lower Town, Phase 1, LHIIIC Early 1/2: spatial distribution of
sherds of HBW vessels (Stockhammer 2008: Fig. 87).
234 philipp stockhammer
At the beginning of the Post-Palatial period, Mycenaean potters began
imitating the HBW vessel type of the carinated cup in Mycenaean
painted ne ware, probably to enlarge their clientele to include the
HBW consumers. ey applied a monochrome paint to these cups to
get a color impression similar to the dark-brown–black appearance of
the immigrants’ vessels. e spatial distribution of the Mycenaean car-
inated cups in the meaningful contexts in Tiryns in the early twelh
century bce reveals a signicant correlation with the immigrants’ tra-
ditional pottery ware, showing that they were both probably only used
by the migrants and their ospring. is can be demonstrated by the
spatial concentration of both features in the settlement plan of Phase 1
of the Northeastern Lower Town of Tiryns: the concentration of all
pottery with regard to sherd count and sherd weight clearly shows
several huge concentrations of pottery (Fig. 10) that I would interpret
as rubbish dumps. However, the deposition of the carinated cups (Fig.
11) and the HBW sherds (Fig. 12) is restricted to just one of the rub-
bish dumps. In my view, this rubbish dump can be connected with
the hearth nearby (located in small squares LXVIII 31/5.6), for which
construction HBW sherds were also used. e users of the HBW and
the carinated cups discarded their rubbish only in one place, while
other households seem to have used dierent rubbish dumps in which
the HBW and carinated cups are missing.
During the second phase of settlement in the Northeastern Lower
Town with the outstanding room 8/00, HBW and monochrome cari-
nated cups are almost totally absent. In Phase 3 of the Northeastern
Lower Town aer the destruction of room 8/00, the share of HBW in
the total amount of pottery strongly increases, from two sherds per
cubic meter of excavated sediment in Phase 2 to 32 sherds per cubic
meter in Phase 3 (cf. Stockhammer 2008: Figs. 68–71). Moreover, the
spatial distribution of the HBW is also meaningful in Phase 3 (Fig. 13).
e architecture of this phase consists of several rooms grouped
around a huge courtyard. In the rooms to the south of this courtyard
only Mycenaean cooking pottery was found, no HBW. Furthermore,
these rooms stand out in their conspicuously good construction, espe-
cially in the use of huge ashlar blocks for the foundations. In one of the
rooms to the north of the courtyard, a large number of HBW sherds
were found, but hardly any Mycenaean cooking ware. is room was
furnished with a hearth and two storage tubs and four other storage
tubs were placed immediately outside this room, thus suggesting stor-
age and cooking activities in the room and its vicinity. In Phase 3 of the
household archaeology in lhiiic tiryns 235
Figure 13. Tiryns, Northeastern Lower Town, layers of Phase 3 (marked with gray), LHIIIC
Middle 1: spatial distribution of Mycenaean cooking ware and HBW. All small squares that are
marked produced more than a single sherd of the relevant wares. e number of sherds per
square unit is indicated by the number in the symbol (Stockhammer 2008: Fig. 98).
236 philipp stockhammer
Northeastern Lower Town the inhabitants still seemed to be anxious to
keep the HBW and probably also their users, i.e., the Italian migrants
and their ospring, away from representational contexts. is does not
necessarily mean that the users of the HBW were restricted in their
freedom or were slaves. However, there is no doubt that the migrants’
material culture and therefore perhaps also the migrants were not
invited to or were unwanted in private and communal contexts. us,
it is not surprising that HBW in the Northeastern Lower Town and on
the Lower Citadel is concentrated in contexts of storage and hearths.
is correlation of Italian immigrants and contexts of food prepara-
tion might point to a preference of the inhabitants of Tiryns for Italian
cuisine, although pasta and tomatoes were still unknown.
Taking together the evidence from the palace of Pylos and the
Lower Citadel and Lower City of Tiryns, one may conclude that every
participant of a Mycenaean feasting community could easily recognize
the status the participants had or would have liked to have had. e
change in the Mycenaean feast from the Palatial to the Post-Palatial
period and within the Post-Palatial period was closely connected with
the change in the system of society and its ideological background.
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE EXTENDED FAMILY:
A HOUSEHOLD COMPOUND FROM IRON II
TELL EN-NAṢBEH
Aaron J. Brody
is treatment of household archaeology at Tell en-Naṣbeh initiates a
broader program of research on Iron Age II residential compounds at
the site. By studying ceramics and small nds in their original archi-
tectural contexts, I will investigate aspects of daily life in a fortied vil-
lage at the household level. is provides a bottom-up view of Judean
society that stands in contrast to the top-down view of royal or elite
society typically represented in various texts of the Hebrew Bible dur-
ing the period of the United and Divided Monarchies. is household
approach also stands in contrast to most Iron Age II excavations in the
region that have focused primarily on the archaeology of urban cen-
ters and other outposts of the central authorities, such as fortresses.
1
Were the pillared houses at Naṣbeh the residencies of nuclear or
extended families? e data presented allow me to dene a particular
ve-building compound as the home of three nuclear families whose
houses were physically linked. Shared or pooled resources of these
three nuclear families, revealed through household archaeology, sug-
gest that this compound housed one extended family.
Tell en-Naṣbeh, Its Iron II Households, and Methodology
Tell en-Naṣbeh is an eight-acre site located twelve kilometers north-
west of Jerusalem. W. F. Badè of Pacic School of Religion directed
excavations at the tell for ve seasons between 1926 and 1935. Nearly
two-thirds of the settlement was excavated, in addition to extramural
tombs. e objects and project documentation analyzed and processed
at Pacic School of Religion resulted in two nal report volumes
1
Notable exceptions are found in the research of A. Faust. For one example, see
Faust 2000.
238 aaron j. brody
(McCown 1947; Wampler 1947). ese reports, while exemplary for
their day, are plagued by diculties posed by the early understand-
ing of stratigraphy and the lack of detailed contextual information.
J. R. Zorn reanalyzed the stratigraphy of Naṣbeh based on the proj-
ect’s original notes, photographs, and architectural plans (1993a). He
phased the site into ve main strata: Stratum 5, Early Bronze I pits
and tombs cut into the bedrock; Stratum 4, Iron I silos and cisterns
cut into the bedrock; Stratum 3, an Iron IIA–IIC fortied village; Stra-
tum 2, Babylonian/early Persian period pillared houses; and Stratum 1,
Hellenistic/Roman period scattered remains (Zorn 1993a, 1993b).
Zorn’s detailed stratigraphic research provides the architectural phas-
ing necessary to frame household archaeology at the site. e expedi-
tion’s original object notes, or millimeter cards, record ceramics, small
nds, and even some ecofacts by context (Badè 1934: 34–38, 40–41).
ese notes allow for the study of archaeological deposits in individ-
ual rooms and features, whose contemporaneity can be veried using
Zorn’s phasing.
2
is process is impossible to duplicate using the data
presented in the two nal reports (McCown 1947; Wampler 1947).
ere are well-understood hesitations in using materials excavated
in the 1920–30s, the infancy of archaeology in this region. e under-
standing of stratigraphy was basic, and a locus was primarily dened
as an architectural unit (room) with little consideration for layers
within this unit, let alone probable pits (see Zorn 1993a). e exca-
vation was conducted at a rapid pace with relatively little recording
occurring beyond architectural features and corresponding nds, as
is excellently portrayed in Badè’s excavation manual, a revolutionary
study for its time, when eld methods were hardly discussed (1934).
In many ways this current study will test the feasibility of conducting
contextual analysis on the Naṣbeh materials using the original excava-
tion records, with the caveat that both excavation and documentation
practices and standards were very dierent from what they are today.
Naṣbeh’s Stratum 3 is a very wide exposure, a rarity these days,
which allows for a broad understanding of lifeways in multiple house-
hold compounds as well as for comparisons between numerous con-
temporaneous households at the site in the Iron II period. is is in
2
e object notes, or millimeter cards, are housed at the Badè Museum at Pacic
School of Religion. ese records are now databased and will be available on the Inter-
net through Open Context, http://opencontext.org.
the archaeology of the extended family 239
contrast to the recent analysis of one pillared house at Tell Halif, which
has added critical detailed information to the understanding of the
household in ancient Israel (Hardin 2001, 2004). However, synthetic
reconstructions based on a single example, no matter how rened, are
tenuous. us, the opportunity for a macrolevel approach to house-
hold archaeology at Naṣbeh, using the original objects’ notes framed
by discreet architectural units, is promising and eventually should be
conducted site wide.
e household was the basic social, economic, religious, and judi-
cial unit in the ancient Near East (Wright 1992: 763–764; Blenkin-
sopp 1997; Meyers 1997; McNutt 1999; Schloen 2001). erefore,
in-depth archaeological research on common houses is fundamental
for understanding aspects of society, economy, religion, and justice in
its broader Near Eastern context. Very few eld projects in the south-
ern Levant or synthetic studies have focused on the methods and theo-
ries of household archaeology (notable exceptions include Stager 1984;
Daviau 1993; Lederman 1999: 120–138; Ilan 2001; Schloen 2001; Har-
din 2001, 2004; Meyers 2003d; Gadot and Yasur-Landau 2006). Sev-
eral recent studies have reconstructed the social structure of ancient
Israelite households based primarily on architectural analysis (Faust
2000; Schloen 2001: 175–180).
By analyzing artifacts within their architectural frameworks, we can
interpret room use and function, household activity areas, and the
division of gendered space more precisely than if we relied solely on
analysis of architecture for social-spatial reconstructions (for recent
studies in household archaeology, see Bermann 1994; Allison 1999b;
Nevett 1999; Barile and Brandon 2004). is household archaeology
methodology, aided by interpretive insights from ethnoarchaeology
and ethnohistory (Watson 1979; Kramer 1979, 1982a; Stone 1981;
Stager 1984; A’amiry 1987; Horne 1994; Kamp 2000), allows for a
more rened reconstruction of ancient family, household, and social
structures.
The Household Compound and Its Architecture
Stratum 3 Naṣbeh contains thirty-two three- and three+-room houses
and ten four- and four+-room houses (Zorn 1993a: 119–121). One
compound of ve attached houses was chosen for this pilot study,
for several reasons. is compound is oen chosen to illustrate the
240 aaron j. brody
three-room house type (Stager 1984: Fig. 9g; Holladay 1992: Fig.
HOU.01.B); three-room houses are the most common household type
in Stratum 3 at Naṣbeh (Zorn 1993a: 137–138), and there is very little
evidence of later construction on top of, or disturbance of, this house-
hold compound.
3
e compound is in the southwest of the site, and is made up of
a two-room structure in the northwest, three standard three-room
houses, and an atypical three-room house in the southeast (Fig. 1).
4
e ve buildings are attached by common walls, and are surrounded
by streets to the north, west, and south, and an unexcavated “rubble
heap” on the east. is compound is made up of sixteen rooms, one
bin, and two cisterns.
e two-room structure has a broad room in back, Room 609, and
a large room in front, Room 607, which is typically interpreted as a
courtyard (Zorn 1993a: 649).
5
is building shares its southern wall
with a three-room house with a broad room at its rear, Room 610, and
two long rooms separated by pillars, Rooms 608 and 588. A small room,
Room 606, is divided o of the front of Room 608. A small rectangular
feature, Bin 355, is in Room 588, covering the entrance to Cistern 359
(Zorn 1993a: 652–653). is house shares its southernmost wall with
another three-room house, with its broad Room 612 at the rear and
two long rooms divided by pillars, Rooms 584 and 580. is build-
ing’s southern wall is shared with the next three-room house with its
broad Room 579 in back. Its northern long room is separated into a
small Room 577 in front and larger Room 578 in back; the second
long room, Room 576, is over Cistern 354. e h building is an
atypical three-room house made up of three broad rooms: Room 575,
separated by pillars from Room 581, and Room 513.
3
Four “Roman ribbed ware” sherds were registered in the compound: two in Room
609, one in Bin 355, and one in Room 575. ese are clearly intrusive, and may have
washed into the area from a higher spot on the tell or introduced by modern plowing
or animal activity.
4
Zorn numbers the ve buildings 142.02, 142.03, 159.04, 159.05, and 159.06 from
north to south. For the architectural and stratigraphic details, see Zorn 1993a: 649–
653, 736–741.
5
Zorn views most individual three- and four-room houses as each containing its
own courtyard (1993a: 142), an interpretation followed by Schloen (2001: 175–180).
I will suggest, based on artifact analysis, that the courtyards for this compound were
located only in the two outermost buildings and are not found in the three central
three-room houses.
the archaeology of the extended family 241
Almost every wall in this compound is made of one row of single
stones, 31–47 cm wide (Fig. 1). Walls built on single-course stone
foundations are a typical construction feature of Stratum 3; the widths
of these walls average 43 cm and usually range between 36 and 50 cm
(Zorn 1993a: 123). Later phases in Stratum 3 have rebuilt walls with
two rows of stones, with widths averaging 71 cm and ranging from 54
to 88 cm (ibid.). C. Kramer has researched traditional village houses
Figure 1. Iron II household compound at Tell en-Naṣbeh; scale: each square
is 10 m
2
(courtesy of the Badè Museum, Pacic School of Religion).