Image Details

Israel Finkelstein/Tel Aviv University

A four-room house at Izbet Sartah characteristic of Israelite dwellings during the Iron Age. The four-room house is characterized by three parallel long rooms, which are separated by walls or rows of columns, and a fourth room at one end of the house that is perpendicular to the others. Sometimes these rooms are subdivided, and subsidiary rooms may be added, but the general plan remains the same. Most of these houses had a second story, and some scholars believe that the center room was unroofed and served as a courtyard.