A thorough examination of Iron Age II (c. 1000–86 B.C.E.) dwellings excavated in Israel and Judah reveals a strong tendency to orient houses to the east.1 This preference is even far more noticeable in isolated, self-standing buildings, which had relatively little restrictions on their construction. More than 80 percent of these self-standing structures were oriented east, southeast and northeast. This preference to orient houses to the east was evident also in nucleated settlements, that is, villages and cities clustered around a center, where any new construction would need to conform to the existing settlement fabric. Even there, some 60 […]
