Storehouses (Zone 1)

Overview

Three large rectangular structures interpreted as storehouses lie in the northern part of the city just east of the city gate. Each building has two parallel rows of pillars running along the longer side, dividing the building into three long spaces. Such structures, commonly known as tripartite pillared buildings, are found at Iron Age sites throughout Israel and surrounding areas, where they appear to have served a few different functions. For example, while the tripartite pillared buildings at Beersheba almost certainly served as storehouses, the ones at Megiddo have been interpreted as stables. The excavators argue that the structures at Beersheba were “active storehouses,” for in addition to several storage jars they found in the outer rooms several objects one would not expect to find in a storehouse, including cooking pots, oil lamps, grindstones, and loom-weights. As “active storehouses,” products would not only have been brought in and stored but also would have been inventoried, measured, and prepared for redistribution.

Beersheba’s three tripartite pillared buildings adjoin one another and have basically identical plans with 9 to 11 pillars forming the inner walls. Using pillars to delineate each room instead of a solid wall helped to provide light and ventilation for the entire building. The pillars, which were made of stone and squared with a chisel, were set atop a low solid wall, known as a socle, and filled with silt and unhewn stone. Because the innermost hall is slightly higher than the outer halls, the socles were likely used to hold the fill that created the raised floor of the inner room in place. The walls also prevented anyone from going between the rooms, which is why each hall has its own entrance to the street.

The excavators believed that the central room of the buildings offered a passageway for the transportation of goods. The street is slightly wider near the storehouses than elsewhere, likely facilitating deliveries. Some of the spaces between the pillars would have held troughs for feeding the animals that brought goods to the storehouses. Furthermore, not far from the storehouse, on the other side of the gate, there was a large amount of ash from burnt straw, which the excavators think may have been a hayloft for animals used in connection with the storehouses. The inner hall had a tamped earthen floor, while the outer halls were paved with stones. Most of the pottery finds came from the outer rooms, with very little coming from the center. The pottery was largely from storage vessels used to contain foodstuffs such as flour, oil, and wine.

In the fifth season of excavation, excavators discovered pieces of a dismantled four-horned altar built into the one of the Stratum II storehouse walls and a nearby glacis. Pieces of it were found in the easternmost storehouse, in the wall that creates an opening to the easternmost hall. There the excavators found blocks of dressed stone, three of which were identified as the altar’s horns. Another stone was found similar to the previous stones, but with the projection broken off. Because the wall was plastered, no one could see that the altar’s stones had been built into the wall. The excavators were able to reconstruct the altar, which originally was probably .8 meters tall. The stones would have been incorporated into a proper temple, although it is not known where the temple was located. Aharoni suggested that the temple would have been in the basement building in the western quarter of the city, but this does not explain why the heavy stones were carried to the other side of the city and not concealed in the walls of the basement building. It has been suggested that the altar was dismantled as part of King Hezekiah’s religious reforms, with its stones reused in the walls as a means of concealing them.