A model of the Arad house, found in one of the houses during excavation
When archeologists excavated Arad, they found many stone dwellings in what seemed to be a residential area. Streets and alleys ran between the blocks of houses that were of differing sizes (500 to 1500 square feet), but they were nearly identical: a walled courtyard, a long living room and a small or kitchen.
The rectangular living room was open to the courtyard on one side, and slightly below the level of the yard. Two or three steps led up to a wooden door, which pivoted in a socket in the stone threshold. Low stone benches lined the walls and in the center of the room was a stone base, on which a wooden pillar stood, supporting a roof made of wooden beams, bundles of straw and plaster.
The kitchen contained a grinding stone and a stone mortar embedded in the floor. Containers of dried mud for storing grain, and clay stoves for heating and cooking have also been found.
reconstruction of the Arad House
at Tel Arad
Similar houses have been discovered at other Early Bronze archaeological sites, but they were first found here, and in more abundance.
Tel Arad is a 250-acre site of the biblical city of Arad, northwest of the modern city. Here archaeologists have carefully reconstructed a walled city visitors can explore, including the dwellings whose style became known as the “Arad house.”