Zone 3: Areas C and D Eastern Structures and Baths
Area C lies south of the acropolis and is adjacent to a modern school. Measuring approximately 70 meters north to south and roughly 112 meters east to west, it is nearly as large as the acropolis. Excavations have revealed a large network of walls and two main phases of occupation contemporary with those of Area A. On the western side is a massive foundational structure, which according to the excavation reports represents a later renovation, evidenced by the use of ashlar blocks placed over earthen fill in order to form a threshold to the earlier structure. The excavators suggested that the wide foundational structure was originally a podium that supported a massive defensive tower, and that adjacent structures nearby should be interpreted as “spacious living quarters.” From this point, especially standing atop a tower, one could see in all directions, providing a distinct advantage for this King’s Highway overlook.
According to the reports, “the total building complex has similarities in its general outline with the two buildings in Area A” and like the acropolis buildings endured severe burning at the same time. The structures there yielded plaster floors contemporary with the structures in Area A, and virtually similar ceramics. Probes under the plaster floor yielded mud bricks, which excavators assert “must have fallen from an earlier structure” and may correspond to the mud brick period located in Area D.”
A large wall runs over and through an earlier bath area. Contemporary with the plaster floors that meet the earliest courses of the main walls is a large plaster reservoir-type structure disturbed on its southern end by construction of this later wall. Also visible in the bath complex is a basin and an ancient toilet.
Area D is located just below and west of the acropolis, not far from the modern school. Work in Area D has been relatively scant but here excavations have revealed two distinct levels of occupation beneath the typical IA II residential structures that despite several renovations continued in use into the Persian period. Beneath the neo-Assyrian occupation is an earlier level characterized by dry stone walls averaging about 50 cm wide. Notably absent is the usual Buseirah-type painted pottery and a later, yellowish mud-brick phase. Although not fully visible, the later rooms here are relatively small, some as little as 1 m x 4 1.3 m. The walls are made of mudbrick and the floor is covered by a rough-textured, brownish plaster, in stark contrast to the smooth, white plaster of the buildings on the acropolis. No direct contextual connection between Area D and the acropolis has been established.
Ironically, the rooms here have yielded significant pottery and domestic artifacts. A cooking pot handle with a stamped seal impression was found outside one of the rooms. Other domestic ware was found with impressions of bovine and caprid animals. On the floor of another room over 500 shards of pottery were found. This and other materials, including roughly 20 pieces of the window frame from a so-called “woman at the window” figurine were thought to be debris from the destruction of the monumental buildings of Area A.