Remains from Canaanite Batash
Razed by fire at the end of the Late Bronze I period (about 1400 B.C.), a large Canaanite building in stratum VII at Tel Batash may have served as the local governor’s residence. The building’s debris yielded many imported Cypriote and Mycenaean objects, including a well-preserved vessel in the form of a bull with a looped handle on its back. The zoomorphic vessel may have been used in a libation ceremony or fertility ritual.
A storeroom below the steps leading to the second floor of the Canaanite residence contained rows of shattered storage jars, with wheat carbonized by fire. The bottom of a nearby jug held carbonized almonds and a fused cluster of bronze objects.
The discovery of two human skeletons with bronze arrowpoints and spearpoints beside the remains suggests a military destruction of the building, possibly the result of internal Canaanite conflict.