Ambiguous Evidence: Storehouses or Stables?

Excavators at Beer-Sheva and Megiddo have proposed two conflicting theories regarding the function of nearly identical public buildings at their two sites.

At top is a drawing of a pillared building at Beer-Sheva as reconstructed in its most probable form by the excavators. The raised, or clerestory, roof, would have allowed light and air into both the side rooms and the central hall.

Note that the floor of the side rooms differs from the floor of the central hall; the side rooms of pillared buildings were typically paved with unhewn stones or stone cobbling while the central hall was unpaved. Though this building had entrances leading to both the central hall and to the side rooms, most pillared buildings had entrances leading only to the central hall.

The excavators recovered vast amounts of pottery from the side rooms of this and two other pillared buildings at Beer-Sheva—including 136 intact vessels from a single room—leading them to conclude that the buildings had been storehouses.