Governor’s Palace (Palace VI)
The excavation of Palace VI, interpreted as the governor’s palace, confirmed the identification of Aphek with Tell Ras al-Ain. Since no Late Bronze level pottery was discovered in Ory’s original excavation of the mound in the 1930s, M. Noth came to a hasty conclusion that Aphek should be identified with Tell Qana, a small mound located four kilometers west of the site. The discovery of the governor’s palace in 1974 led to a reconsideration of Aphek’s previously assumed identity. Except for this palace and two large wine presses found on the western slope, no other remains of the Late Bronze age were detected in the excavation areas. This might suggest that Palace VI was an isolated structure at Aphek during this period; however, large parts of the acropolis remain unexcavated and may yet hold evidence of a more extensive occupation.
The governor’s residence (Palace 6) was built at the southwest corner of an earlier residence (Palace V) dating to the 14th century BCE and located just south of the earlier Middle Bronze palaces in Area B. While the excavators know that Palace V had large stone-paved courtyards and a row of columns in front of the northern outer wall, the plan of Palace V cannot be fully reconstructed due to the damages suffered during the building of the present residence in the early thirteenth century BCE.
Instead of a spacious palace with courtyards, halls, and rooms, the governor’s residence was a public, fortress-like structure. Its dimensions measure 16.7 m x 15.7 m, with its entrance on the northeast side. A paved passage led up to the entrance, along which visitors passed through a well-defended gate. On the east side of the gate is a monolithic trough some 2 m long, from which a scarab of Ramesses II was recovered. The palace was originally a 2 to 3-story structure covering an area of over 500 sq. m. The ground floor was the service floor, with two halls, two rooms, and an inner room with a staircase. The ground floor was constructed of stonewalls 1.4 m thick and 2 m high. The walls of the second floor would have been constructed of mudbrick. The ground floor was constructed partly of stone and partly of plaster, whereas the upper floor and ceilings would have been made of wood beams, branches, and plaster. While none of the upper story has been preserved, the remains of mudbrick, plaster, and wood beams—along with pottery and jewelry mixed in the debris—indicate that the upper-story was the residential level of the governor’s palace.
Palace 6 was a typical fortified Egyptian residency, similar to other Egyptian governors’ residences built at key locations in Canaan during the period of Egyptian rule in the Late Bronze Age. Other Egyptian residencies can be found at Beth Shan, Tell el-Far’ah (South), Tel Sera’, Tel Mor, and Deir el-Balah. Palace VI of Aphek was unique in that it lacked a central courtyard on the ground floor and that its walls were built of stone, rather than traditional mudbrick. In the northwest corner of the palace stood a U-shaped stairwell of wood, brick, and stone set within a square tower, 3.5 m x 3.5 m in size, leading to the upper story. Seven monolithic steps of the stairway, significantly cracked from the heat of the fire that destroyed the building, were found still standing in the entrance of the stairwell.
Often considered the most exciting finds at Aphek are numerous cuneiform documents discovered in the debris. Five documents were found near the stairwell beside the stonewall at the doorway. One of the tablets is a lexical text with three entries of an agricultural nature, and other entries were interpreted as “god,” “hand,” and “great” (or “large”). The guidelines on this tablet suggest that it was a local reference list of lexical information, or perhaps a school exercise. The other fragments appear to be from routine administrative tablets by a scribe recording considerable quantities of items, presumably at Aphek.
Two long storage hallways occupy most of the ground floor of the palace. The halls are all 3.5 m wide but differ in length. The southern hall is 8.5 m in length, while the northern halls are just 6.75 m long.
A 0.5-m-thick layer of homogenous light-brown soil runs all along the southern wall of the Egyptian residency. During the 1976 season, an inscribed faience ring was found in this disintegrated mudbrick material, inscribed with the words “Amun-Re, abundant in every favor, praise and joy.” The ring belongs to a large category of rings from the New Kingdom inscribed with confessions of faith and praise. The excavators suggest that the ring was worn by an Egyptian traveling in Canaan through Aphek.