Paved Plaza and Palace
At the northern end of Area A is a large area paved with smooth stones that extends more than 15 m feet to the southern face of a bît hilani-style palace in Area B. The assemblage, which lies just inside the well-preserved eastern side of the IA II city wall, was disrupted by a mid-20th-century Syrian trench; however, elevations indicate that the earliest layer of the pavement is contemporary with the foundation of the 10th century BCE palace. Identification of this assemblage is based on the typical bît hilani-style floor plan found throughout the northern Levant. The building measures some 28 m x 15 m in size. Facing southward it overlooks the large, paved plaza and toward the lake. Its walls, which are up to 2.75 m wide in some places, were constructed of massive basalt boulders weighing as much as a ton. The earliest distinguishable floor of the structure appears to have been made of crushed limestone 50 cm thick in places and graded over compacted dirt and bedrock. The palace’s main hall is large and rectangular, measuring approximately 20 m x 4.75 m in size. It lies parallel to a rectangular vestibule, measuring 13.5 m x 2.5 m, along the building’s broad façade. The vestibule is surrounded by eight rooms. The difference in size between the larger main hall and the vestibule is made up by Rooms 1 and 2 at the western end, a common feature of the bît hilani style.
The building’s bît hilani floor plan was disrupted by the installation of partitioning walls that blocked up the southern entrance and effectively ended the building’s use as a palace. Modifications to the pavement include addition of a canal. At the end of the canal, at the southeastern corner of the plaza)\, a row of masseboth (standing stones) was found. These later phases indicate that the building continued in use during the assaults by the forces of Ben Hadad I (ca. 885 BCE), but after Tiglath-Pilesaer III’s destructive conquest of the city (734 BCE), this once impressive palace no longer served the needs of a powerful administrator in the region. This assertion is based on the unusual number of basalt loom weights recovered from the locus of what was originally the palatial throne room. Hellenistic-Roman period (Level 2) walls and pottery recovered from the ruins of this structure indicate even further modification and adaptation.
Significant ceramic finds were recovered in and around this structure, including a figurine head with an atef crown and an IA II jar handle inscribed with the Hebrew-Phoenician characters mem-kaph-yod, probably representing the name Micaiah. Toward the end of the 1994 season, excavators working at floor level near the eastern end of the main hall discovered a badly worn, bluish-colored faience figurine some 6.4 cm in height. Formed in the likeness of a dwarfed male, the figure represents a fertility aspect of the Egyptian god Ptah, described by Herodotus as the Pataekos, or “little Ptah.” Although its specific function remains in question, the Pataekos figurine is not uncommon in the Levantine archaeological record. In addition, a molded clay figurine of a woman wearing an Egyptian Hathor hairstyle was found near the Iron Age entrance to the palace. Finally, over twenty complete Iron Age vessels were recovered from Room 7, located along the northern wall and adjacent to the corner room designated Room 8.