The Four-Room House Found at Izbet Sartah

A typical Israelite dwelling from about the 12th century B.C.

The four-room Israelite house at Izbet Sartah. Two people sit on the long walls dividing the main space of the house into three rooms which are perpendicular to the fourth, foreground room. The straight earthen walls overlying the house are not architectural; they are unexcavated balks or catwalks used by archaeologists to divide their digging space into five meter squares. The balks contain a vertical record of the various archaeological levels or strata. The storage silo in which the abecedary or alphabet was found is marked 605.

This drawing corresponds to the photograph, above, of the four-room house. The numbers distinguish the rooms.