Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T00:12:45.460Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How long does it take to burn down an ancient Near Eastern city? The study of experimentally heated mud-bricks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Mathilde C.L. Forget  and
Ruth Shahack-Gross
Mathilde C.L. Forget
Affiliation:
Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel Current address: Fives Machining, 46400 Saint Laurent Les Tours, France
Ruth Shahack-Gross*
Affiliation:
Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel Current address: Department of Maritime Civilizations, The Leon Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Khoushy Avenue, Haifa 3498838, Israel
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: rgross@univ.haifa.ac.il)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many famous archaeological sites have been subjected to destructive fires, whether hostile or accidental, including Near Eastern cities constructed largely of mud-brick. But how long did it take to burn down a city? The mud-bricks themselves provide a valuable record. By heating experimental bricks of different sizes, shapes and compositions to high temperatures, the minimum duration of an ancient conflagration can be calculated. The resulting equations were applied to bricks from the destruction of Tel Megiddo at the end of the Iron Age I, and indicate that the burning lasted a minimum of two to three hours: a much shorter period than expected.

Keywords

Near EastBronze AgeIron Agefireconflagrationmud-brickcombustion
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 353 , October 2016 , pp. 1213 - 1225
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ben-Tor, A. 2013. Who destroyed Canaanite Hazor? Biblical Archaeology Review 39: 27–36.Google Scholar
Berna, F., Behar, A., Shahack-Gross, R., Berg, J., Boaretto, E., Gilboa, A., Sharon, I., Shalev, S., Shilstein, S., Yahalom-Mack, N., Zorn, J.R. & Weiner, S.. 2007. Sediments exposed to high temperatures: reconstructing pyrotechnological processes in Late Bronze and Iron Age strata at Tel Dor (Israel). Journal of Archaeological Science 34: 358–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2006.05.011 Google Scholar
Canaan, T. 1932–1933. The Palestinian Arab house: its architecture and folklore. Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 12: 113–247.Google Scholar
Carter, C.B. & Norton, M.G.. 2013. Ceramic materials science and engineering. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Cline, E.H. 2011. Whole lotta shakin’ going on: the possible destruction by earthquake of Stratum VIA at Megiddo, in Finkelstein, I. & Na'aman, N. (ed.) The fire signals of Lachish: studies in the archaeology and history of Israel in the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian period in honor of David Ussishkin: 55–70. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns. Google Scholar
Dalman, G. 1928–1942. Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann. Google Scholar
Driessen, J. 2013. Destruction: archaeological, philological and historical perspectives. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain. Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I. 2009. Destructions: Megiddo as a case study, in Schloen, D.J. (ed.) Exploring the longue durée: essays in honor of Lawrence E. Stager: 113–26. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns. Google Scholar
Forget, M.C.L., Regev, L., Friesem, D.E. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2015. Physical and mineral properties of experimentally heated chaff-tempered mud-bricks: implications for reconstruction of environmental factors influencing the appearance of mud-bricks in archaeological conflagration events. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2: 80–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.01.008 Google Scholar
Friesem, D.E., Boaretto, E., Eliyahu-Behar, A. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2011. Degradation of mud-brick houses in an arid environment: a geoarchaeological model. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 1135–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.12.011 Google Scholar
Friesem, D.E., Karkanas, P., Tsartsidou, G. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2014a. Sedimentary processes involved in mud-brick degradation in temperate environments: a micromorphological approach in an ethnoarchaeological context in northern Greece. Journal of Archaeological Science 41: 556–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.09.017 Google Scholar
Friesem, D.E., Karkanas, P., Tsartsidou, G. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2014b. Where are the roofs? A geo-ethnoarchaeological study towards the identification of roofs in the archaeological record. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 6: 73–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-013-0146-3 Google Scholar
Gur-Arieh, S., Boaretto, E., Maeir, A. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2012. Formation processes in Philistine hearths from Tell es-Safi/Gath (Israel): an experimental approach. Journal of Field Archaeology 37: 121–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0093469012Z.00000000011 Google Scholar
Homsher, R.S. 2012. Mud-bricks and the process of construction in the Middle Bronze Age southern Levant. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 368: 1–27.Google Scholar
Love, S. 2012. The geoarchaeology of mud-bricks in architecture: a methodological study from Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Geoarchaeology 27: 140–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gea.21401 Google Scholar
Love, S. 2013. Architecture as material culture: building form and materiality in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Anatolia and the Levant. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32: 746–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2013.05.002 Google Scholar
Mishra, S. & Usmani, J.A.. 2014. Energy conservation in mud house as compared to brick-wall building in India. International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Studies III/II: 151–56.Google Scholar
Nagarani, N., Mayilsamy, K., Murugesan, A. & Sathesh Kumar, G.. 2014. Review of utilization of extended surfaces in heat transfer problems. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 29: 604–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.08.068 Google Scholar
Namdar, D., Zukerman, A., Maeir, A.M., Katz, J.C., Cabanes, D., Trueman, C., Shahack-Gross, R. & Weiner, S.. 2011. The 9th century BCE destruction layer at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel: integrating macro- and microarchaeology. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 3471–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.08.009 Google Scholar
Nodarou, E., Frederick, C. & Hein, A.. 2008. Another (mud)brick in the wall: scientific analysis of Bronze Age earthen construction materials from east Crete. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2997–3015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2008.06.014 Google Scholar
Nur, A. & Burgess, D.. 2008. Apocalypse: earthquakes, archaeology, and the wrath of God. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Regev, L., Cabanes, D., Homsher, R., Kleiman, A., Weiner, S., Finkelstein, I. & Shahack-Gross, R.. 2015. Geoarchaeological investigation in a domestic Iron Age quarter, Tel Megiddo, Israel. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 374: 135–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.374.0135 Google Scholar
Stevanović, M. 1997. The age of clay: the social dynamics of house destruction. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16: 334–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jaar.1997.0310 Google Scholar
Torrence, R. & Grattan, J.. 2002. The archaeology of disasters: past and future trends, in Torrence, R. & Grattan, J. (ed.) Natural disasters and cultural change: 1–18. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Twiss, K.C., Bogaard, A., Bogdan, D., Carter, T., Charles, M.P., Farid, S., Russell, N., Stevanović, M., Yalman, E.N. & Yeomans, L.. 2008. Arson or accident? The burning of a Neolithic house at Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Journal of Field Archaeology 33: 41–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/009346908791071358 Google Scholar