A four-room house, also known as an "Israelite house" or a "pillared house" is the name given to the mud and stone houses characteristic of the Iron Age of Levant.
The four-room house is so named because its floor plan is divided into four sections, although not all four are proper rooms, one often being an unroofed courtyard. It is also sometimes called a pillared house because two or all three of the parallel ground-level "rooms" are separated by one or two, respectively rows of wooden pillars. The pillars, however, are not the defining feature of the four-room house.
circa 1000 BCE
The design (reconstruction of a Semitic House) was based on a long house with four main spaces - a broad room in the back and three long spaces extending forward from it. The rooms were divided by stone pillars and walls. The central room was a courtyard, which was normally open to let in light since there were no windows in the house. The four-room house, also referred to as “Israelite house” and “pillared courtyard house,” emerged in the central highlands of Canaan during the late 13th -early 12th centuries BCE in response to environmental and socio-economic needs.
circa 1000 BCE
Excavations
About twenty such houses were excavated in Beer-sheba. A typical house design in the Israelite period (Iron Age I & II, circa 1200-586 BCE) was based on the "four-room house", which was three parallel spaces with a perpendicular space to them. The abundant new data collected from the recent discoveries further demostrate that this type of house is found in all the settlements throughout the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Like other places, the four-room house at Beersheba was incorporated in to the casemate wall of adjoining some other line of fortification as a single organic unit.
circa 1000 BCE
Description
The "four-room house" design was a compact house with thick external walls and a single entrance, designed for protection. It supported a roof, or even a second level where additional residential rooms were located. This was a dwelling place for the family, kitchen, storerooms and also a place for the cattle (ox and mules). The standard type was a rectangular design covering a total area of 150-200 square meters.
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The Madain Project is an online archive of Abrahamic History and Archaeology.
Abrahamic History & Archaeology is the study of history and archaeology with respect to the three Abrahamic Faiths without considering the religious and theological aspects. The goal of Abrahamic History is to understand how and why the religious doctrines and behaviours have evlovled and changed over time. Searching for patterns in the evolution of significant cultural events such as the development of farming, the emergence of cities, or the collapse of major civilizations for clues of why and how these have influenced the three major Abrahamic religions.
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