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Yosef Garfinkel

The excavators at Sha‘ar Hagolan have identified the architectural remains of several buildings, including a huge 3,600 square-foot structure with a triangular central courtyard and eight rectangular rooms (shown here). This is one of the earliest known examples of a “courtyard building”—a style of architecture that remains popular in many Near Eastern villages to this day. West of the building complex (at far left in the photo), archaeologists have unearthed 75 feet of a straight 10-foot-wide, clearly demarcated street; east of the building (at far right) they have exposed a 45-foot-long, 3-foot-wide curved alley. The Yarmukians, that is, did not just create mysteriously beautiful figures, they also created a small town.