5/1968

Contents
Ancient Palestinian Dwellings, by H. Keith Beebe      38
The Excavation of Tell er-Ras an Mt. Gerizim, by Robert J. Bull      58
Another Change of Address!      72
Ancient Palestinian Dwellings
H. KEITH BEEBE
Occidental College
In Deuteronomy 22:8, we find an ordinance requiring newly constructed homes to have a parapet on the roof to prevent people from falling off. We know about Moab's fat king who sat receiving foreign tribute and diplomatic calls "in his cool roof ehamber" (Judg. 3:20). We imagine the anxiety of Sisera's mother as she looked from her latticed window (Judg. 5:28) and the terror in Jezebel's eyes as she heard Jehu order her thrown from the upper story window (II Kings 9:30-33). We visualize David on the roof of the king's house as he lusted after the bathing Bathsheba (II Sam. 11:2). Vexatious Ezekiel compared the false prophets of Israel to those who built a mudbrick wall and daubed it with whitewash only to have the first hailstorm wash it away to its stone foundations (Ezek. 13:10-16). Even with frequent allusions to roofs, doors, bedrooms, courtyards, walls, rafters, upper rooms, steps whieh measured the time of day (II Kings 21:11), and cellars where no one puts a lamp, we are unable without archaeological assistance to visualize a house of biblical times. Because of the paucity of description in the Bible and other arehaie records and the inevitably incomplete character of archaeological remains, we usually visualize ancient Palestinian domestic units in light of modern Palestinian houses. This comparison must be used cautiously because Arab houses are structured with regard to specific social customs and economic conditions, different from those of ancient Palestine.
The refined techniques of archaeology have been unable so far to give us, using Millar Burrows' words, "for each period of biblical history a eom-
 

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