Image Details

COURTESY TEL GEZER EXCAVATION PROJECT

COMPLEX CONSTRUCTION. Adjacent to the monumental gate and abutting the casemate wall is a large administrative complex. Similar in design to palace architecture known from other sites in the southern Levant, the building consisted of a spacious central courtyard surrounded by at least 15 rooms and divided by a central partition of finely dressed ashlars. Some of the rooms featured olive presses, grinding surfaces, and clay ovens for cooking, while the two thick-walled chambers adjacent to the gate in the southeast of the structure were likely part of a defensive tower. Not a royal residence but rather an administrative center, the building was connected to the western side of the city through a stone-paved street and staircase uncovered in the north.