Image Details

A living room in modern parlance, the traqlin served many purposes including dining and storage. Along the unseen walls, benches provide seating, the usual practice in private houses such as this. In the background, a wooden table bears imported tableware, and a low wall beyond the table segregates a small storage area at the western end of the room. Boards suspended above the table act as shelves for storage of perishable foods, effectively keeping these foods safe from rodents and household animals, a strategy still used by the Druze. The ladder, at right, leads to the sleeping loft. At floor level, behind the base of the ladder, openings in the window wall connect the traqlin with a storage room. A common feature of houses in the Golan in the time of Rabbi Abun, and in present-day southern Syria and northern Jordan, interior window walls give support for the ceiling and for the second story, while providing light and ventilation for the interior room. Some of the joints between the stones are plastered with mud to show how the wall would have looked in ancient times, when the whole interior of the house would have been mud plastered.