33. THE IRON AGE DWELLINGS AT TELL QASILE by Amihai Mazar NE of Larry Stager’s main fields of interest has been Iron Age dwellings and daily life. It is thus appropriate to discuss an important group of Iron Age I–IIA dwellings at Tell Qasile in a volume in honor of Larry. Most of these buildings were exca- vated under the direction of the late Benjamin Mazar, with whom Larry had a close friendship and many common subjects of interest. This paper is thus also a small token to this friendship. Tell Qasile is a 1.3-hectare site located on the western slope of a sandstone (kurkar) ridge overlook- ing the Mediterranean Sea and the Yarkon River (figure 1). The ancient name of the site is unknown. Four excavation seasons directed by Benjamin Mazar in 1949–1951 and 1956 revealed in the southern part of the site (Area A) part of an Iron Age town with nine buildings arranged on both sides of an east-west street (Maisler [Mazar] 1950–1951; Dothan and Du- nayevsky 1993; Mazar 1980:9–12, 74–77). Seven of these buildings can be defined as dwellings of vari- ous sorts. Between the years 1972 and 1989, I exca- vated Area C, to the north of Area A, where a series of temples and four additional buildings, probably dwellings, were fully or partly excavated. Altogether, eleven dwellings were excavated in Strata XII–X, comprising the largest sample of Iron Age I dwellings outside of Tel Masos. Following a severe destruction at the end of Stratum X, four of these houses were renovated during the Iron IIA pe- riod (tenth–ninth centuries B.C.E.). The houses mentioned in this paper are arranged in table 1 by area and in order of stratigraphic sequence. Buildings other than dwellings are also shown in this table, but these will not be discussed in this paper. Although a final report on the first seasons of excava- tion at Tell Qasile was not completed, the high qual- ity of the documentation enables reliable analysis of the architecture and of the distribution of finds. The analysis and overall reconstruction of the stratigraphy at Tell Qasile was not an easy task be- cause some of the mudbrick structures were in use for a long time and passed through several construction phases, while others were in use for only a short time. A clear stratigraphic marker was the severe destruc- tion by fire of Stratum X, which created a thick layer of reddish burned-brick debris throughout the site. The schematic plans presented in this paper (figures 2–5) are based on Dunayevsky’s last version of the plans and on my own understanding of the stratigra- phy, which differs from that of Dunayevsky’s mainly in relation to the stratigraphic attribution of Building L and several details relating to Buildings K and J. The first part of this paper is more descriptive, while in the second part of the paper I will analyze several issues relating to the plan of the town, its houses, and its population. Table 1. Architectural Units Excavated at Tell Qasile, Areas A and C Stratum Area A Area C Dwellings Other Buildings Dwellings Other Buildings XII — — 335 (“hearth building”) Temple 319 XI J? U? Q (industrial) 341 (= 201), 147? Temple 200 Z (early phase?) Shrine 300 X K, J, W, O, L (commercial/administrative) 225, 495, 326? Temple 131 M, R, Q Z (tripartite pillared store building) Q1 (shop/workshop) IX K, J, W, O L? — Temple(?) 118 VIII K, J, W, O L? — — Note that Stratum VII is missing from this table. In my view, its very definition was based on a misunderstanding of the history of Building L. If this building is assigned to Stratum X, as I suggest, no remains justify the existence of Stratum VII as an independent stratum. After the 1972–1974 seasons, I assigned the label “Stratum VII” to a wash layer found above Strata XI–VIII remains. This layer contained eighth–seventh-century pottery (Mazar 1985:109–10). This period was not represented in Area A. O