La Tranchee <>: Etudes d'architecture domestique.

• Author: Dunham, Sally
• Position: Review

By OLIVIER CALLOT. Ras Shamra-Ougarit, vol. 10. Paris: EDITIONS RECHERCHE SUR LES CIVILISATIONS, 1994. Pp. 420. FF 373 (paper).

This monograph is a re-analysis of a residential area of Ugarit that was excavated in 1959-1960 by C. F. A. Schaeffer on the south slope of the tell in a trench 190 by 30 meters. The first part of the study (pp. 14-99) is a careful description of each wall, room, and open space that was measured and examined by Callot at the site. Here he also gives information from older records and proposes reconstructions for each building. All of this is well illustrated with many detailed plans, sections, and drawings. The second part (pp. 102-213) is a synthesis of the characteristics of the architecture in this area, citing, where appropriate, examples from elsewhere at Ugarit. The topics covered include the organization of the urban space (streets, public places); building techniques; the organization of space in private houses; installations dealing with water, tombs, storage facilities and the possible activities that were carried out in the houses. A last chapter discusses the chronology of the buildings, while two appendices list the objects found, first by locus and then by registration number. This is a masterful study with excellent plans and drawings and with intelligent insights into every detail of the architecture, complementing a preliminary analysis of one house from this area (Callot 1983).

The Ville Sud is made up of blocks of contiguous buildings surrounded by streets and small public spaces. About halfway down the trench is a large public place intentionally planned in the last Late Bronze Age phase (III, ca. 1250-1180 B.C.), following an earthquake in ca. 1250 B.C. At the east end of this place is a partially excavated structure that Callot suggests could be an "official" building of some kind (pp. 109-10, 204-5). Indeed, all the architecture analyzed by Callot belongs to this latest phase, although where houses show evidence of alterations he thinks the older parts date to before the earthquake. In most of the buildings, however, Schaeffer's excavations had been carried down to well below the floor levels of this latest phase. Hence, foundations were exposed, but also in a very few places what may have been earlier walls (p. 206).

Schaeffer felt this was a quarter of artisans, especially metal workers (1960: 136; 1961-62: 190-91). Callot identifies several olive presses (pp. 191-96) and suggests that...