The Progress of a Dig: 1938 and 1940
Tell el-Kheleifeh in aerial views at the end of the 1938 excavation season (above) and at the end of the final season in 1940 (below). In 1938 Glueck uncovered the large four-room house (red tint) he initially identified as a smelter for copper ores. The subdivided room at the top of the photo (north) is considered one room; three long rooms below it comprise the other three rooms.
In subsequent excavation seasons, it became clear that in the earliest settlement at Kheleifeh this large four-room house—approximately 40 feet on each side—was located in the center of a square fortress with a casemate wall. Although in the 1938 aerial the eastern and southern sections of the casemate wall are obscured in ruins from later periods, the eastern line of casemate rooms can be identified (blue tint). The southern section cannot be discerned.
By 1940 Glueck had expanded the excavation east and south. Clearly outlined are the four-room house, upper left (red tint), and the eastern and western rows of casemate rooms (blue tint) in the wall that enclosed the fortress. Even the southern row of casemates (blue tint) can be seen.
All four sides of the later fortress’s solid offset/inset wall (green tint) can be traced. The later fortified settlement retained a portion of the earlier casemate fortress, creating something like an inner enclosure or courtyard in the northwest quadrant of the new solid-wall fortress. The northern and western sides of the earlier casemate wall were then outside the new solid wall, which also destroyed a portion of the northern wall of the four-room house. The later solid-wall fortress also included a poorly preserved outer wall at the southeast corner (green tint).
The gate complex of the solid-wall fortress was located in the southern wall. In its earliest phase, this gate (green tint) consisted of four rooms (two on each side). Below, an exploded view of the fortress at Tell el-Kheleifeh helps us to better understand the two building stages at the site.
