Transitions, Urbanism, and Collapse in the Bronze Age - Essays in Honor of Suzanne Richard - Jesse C. Long, Jr.
16. The EB IV Household Architecture of Phase A in Area B at Khirbat Iskandar
Transitions, Urbanism, and Collapse in the Bronze Age - Essays in Honor of Suzanne Richard - Jesse C. Long, Jr.
Shelby Webb Green [+]
Abilene Christian University
Jesse C. Long, Jr. [+]
Lubbock Christian University
Description
Shaped and segmented by culture, architecture is a reflection of the social organization of the society that created it. This paper applies this theory to the Early Bronze Age site of Khirbet Iskandar in Central Jordan. On the heels of the “collapse” of Early Bronze Age II-III urbanism, the succeeding EB IV reflects a sociopolitical organizational change to a rural period of sedentary agricultural settlements, as well as to a complementary stratum of pastoral-nomadic subsistence throughout the southern Levant. The EBIV phase at Khirbet Iskandar is extremely significant in the fact that substantial architecture, such as house complexes, fortifications, and even a gateway, have been uncovered providing opportunity for studying the spatiality of an EBIV permanently settled agricultural settlement. This paper discusses the last occupational phase at Khirbat Iskandar: Phase A in Area B. For each sub-phase of Phase A, it first provides a description of the house complexes and then considers the cultural conventions present in the architecture, through the use of sightline and access analysis diagrams. From this, a sketch of possible “standard” house characteristics in Phase A is constructed. Overall, the Phase A architecture at Khirbat Iskandar shows a trend from less privacy to more privacy between households, as seen in the increasing partitioning of space.