Ten years ago I published an article dealing with the household and its activities, which was based on the finds in Stratum II at Beer Sheva. The attention in archaeological research is mainly focused on the public structures that are exposed on the tells, such as city walls, gates, palaces and temples. An analysis of the data in the public buildings reveals a picture that reflects the life style of a very limited portion of the population consisting of the social elite. In order to understand what most of the population’s life style was like of one must focus on the private residential areas, that is, inside the households. Since they are small and accessible the households make it possible for effective and independent research for examining the relationship between the material finds and the economic and social activities.
The questions that I examined are: Which activities were performed in the households? Is it possible to define specific work regions? Is it possible to define women’s activities and men’s activities? What conclusions can be drawn about the social strata and the social/spatial organization of the city based on an analysis of the households?
In that article I analyzed only some of the residential buildings. In this lecture I will review the other residential buildings at Beer Sheva and I will examine if the model that was proposed matches them also.
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