Tratamientos Silviculturales

Ayyelet Ha-Shahar is located in the Upper Galilee, east of Hazor. The building under discussion came to light during the excavation carried out by P.L.O. Guy in 1950 (Guy 1957).

2.3.2.1. The Building 2.3.2.1.1. Contextual Analysis

The building was constructed by using a construction technique known as “terre pisée” (in English: rammed earth) (see Chapter 4). Since the excavations have not disclosed the whole plan of the building, the excavators reconstructed the southern side as shown by the dotted lines (Plan 2.24). The building is almost exactly oriented to cardinal points of the compass. The restored plan shows four rooms, three of which are aligned in a single row (Rooms A, B, and C) while the fourth room i.e. Room D occupies the entire second row. Room A measured 16.7 × 6.2m and was flanking on either side by Rooms C and B. Both rooms are almost equal in size: Room C measured 6.2 × 3m while Room B measured 6.2 × 3.7m. In the middle of the east wall of Room A is a recess measured 2.9m-wide and 0.30m-deep. Door sockets (0.60m-deep) were dug into the interior corners of this room from both sides, and the two vertical bolt holes are in the middle of the threshold, which indicates that the door was a double leaf. Double-leaf

doors are made when more space is needed at the entrance. Remains of iron pivots and carbonized timber were found in the door-sockets.

As previously stated, Room D has not completely excavated, and the excavators have speculated its original form. In Room D1 are two vertical shafts, roughly 3m-deep and connected with a 0.60m-in diameter pipeline of pottery. The excavators cited that these installations served as a sewerage system in a bathroom. The floors of the building made up of pebbles and coated with a thin layer of lime plaster. The walls that were constructed mainly of packed mud brick were also covered with a thin layer of lime plaster. The long walls are very solid: the northern wall is 2.40m-wide, the central wall is 1.80m-wide, and the southern wall is 2.20m-wide. Meanwhile, the cross-walls are about 1.20m-wide. The variation in thicknesses led to the conclusion that the roof was barrel-vaulted, carried by the long thick walls. The finds were confined to the pottery vessels such as bowls, jars, juglets and a few Attic sherds (Reich 1975: 233-235; Stern 1982b: 3-4).

2.3.2.1.2. Topographical Location and Planimetric Analysis

The building was not the only building on the mound, but there were other scattered dwellings belong to the same occupation phase in the whole excavation areas at Ayyelet Ha-Shahar itself and Hazor (Stern 1982b: 4). Nevertheless, we do not have detailed information about these structures. The building had a 3m-wide entrance, opened in the center of the northern wall (loc.E). The opening led directly to Room A, which reached to Rooms B and C on both sides and Room D on the south as well. Room C reached to Room D1, and Room B reached to Room D.

As mentioned above, the excavator has reconstructed the south unexcavated part of the building and marked the locations of the doorways on different axes given the fact that the visitors should not see the inner part of the palace directly as is the case with the Assyrian palaces (Reich 1975: 233-236).

2.3.2.1.3. Functional Interpretation

The magnificent design of the building plus its vast size, ground plan, the construction and material techniques, and thicknesses of its walls, make it an elite building constructed for public purposes. In other words, it must have been a residence domicile of the local governor, his retinue, and the administrative staff who handled the governance and public administration from this palace.

The majority of the pottery sherds collected from the building are characteristic of the Persian period (Maisler 1952: 22; Stern 1982b: 3-4), with some Iron-Age sherds from the ninth-eighth centuries B.C.E. and from the Hellenistic period as well (Yeivin 1960: 29). The resemblance between the public building at Ayyelet Ha-Shahar and the Assyrian royal palaces motivated R. Reich to conclude that the building of Ayyelet Ha-Shahar was first erected in the Assyrian period and renovated in the late Persian period (Reich 1975: 233-237).

2.3.2.1.5. Type

S. Yeivin (1960) suggested that the building at Ayyelet Ha-Shahar was a palace based on its resemblance to the Assyrian palace at Arslan-Tash (Ancient Hadatu) in Aleppo Governorate (Plan 2.25). Both buildings had big entrances reach to parallel lines of rooms. The unexcavated Area E at Ayyelet Ha- Shahar served a forecourt, estimating that the throne room or the reception room in the palace at Arslan- Tash (i.e. Room XVIII) was reachable through a big door from a forecourt in the middle of its northern walls. The suggested podium incorporated into the depression in the common wall between Rooms A and B probably intended to place the throne. The lobby in the Assyrian palaces is usually located at one of the two sides of the reception room: at Arslan-Tash Palace, Room XVII was an anteroom, and Room XVI served as the stairwell. Hence, Room C has been identified as the anteroom leading to the presumed stairwell in the unexcavated Area G on the west and the bathroom i.e. Room D1 to the south.

Room B has been interpreted as another anteroom that perhaps was leading to another bathroom in the unexcavated areas; either on its east side or south of it. Room XX at Arslan-Tash served as the bathroom (Loud 1936: 153-160; Loud and Altman 1948: 10-13; Reich 1975: 233-237; Turner 1970: 177-213).

In the author's opinion, the comparison conducted by Yeivin is sketchy and unreliable for the following arguments: (1) the palace of Arslan-Tash contains three wings with two inner courtyards, but Yeivin peeled off the northwestern part of the centre wing and overlooked the other wings of the palace when conducted his comparison; (2) the south part of the building of Ayyelet Ha-Shahar is destroyed and therefore, the speculated courtyard in this part which could have been similar to that in the palace of Arslan-Tash, however, is unclear. Regardless, the deducted part of the palace of Arslan-Tash is very analogous to the preserved part of the palace of Ayyelet Ha-Shahar, with differentiation in the orientation. Based on the preceding, the author thinks that the palace of Ayyelet Ha-Shahar is a miniature of the Palace of Arslan-Tash.