Image Details

Glacis at Tel Beer-Sheba. The excavated trench in the tell’s slope exposes a ninth century B.C. glacis, the steep artificial slope abutting the outside of the city’s walls, built to hinder a direct attack on the walls by battering rams or assault troops. The base of the original ninth-century B.C. city-wall is present on the top of the mound, but cannot be seen in this picture. Constructed with alternating layers of pebbles and clay, this glacis was topped of by a plaster layer to prevent erosion. The plaster layer appears as a white line in the trench’s right wall in the lower portion of the slope. Toward the upper part of the slope, on the left side in the trench, a layer of large stones appears uncovered. This stone layer was laid above the plaster surface of the glacis in this section and would have been exposed then, as now. This facing also appears as stones jutting out of the trench’s right wall in the upper continuation of the white plaster line. The stones seen on the surface at the top of the slope, to the right of the trench, constitute the surface of a later, possibly Roman, glacis.