fiZION-GEBER — GLUECK 471 



number of human, animal, and fish bones, most of which, unfor- 

 tunately, had almost completely disintegrated. It soon became 

 obvious that only one person had been buried there. Several frag- 

 ments of the skull were recovered, as well as part of a lower jawbone, 

 with several teeth still embedded in it. Careful sifting of the debris 

 in the grave yielded 24 human teeth. With the dead person, probably 

 a man, were found the remains of a camel. It may well have been 

 his favorite dhalul, his racing camel. Next to the skull fragments 

 were two three-handled jars, the only ones of the type recovered in 

 the excavations. Inside one of them was a delicate little bowl, con- 

 taining bones of a small bird, a small animal, and a fish. The joints 

 of the spine of a large fish could be seen in position. The last meal 

 provided for the final journey of the buried man was a sumptuous 

 one. A millstone, a mortar, and a fragment of a cosmetic palette 

 were also found in the grave. This burial is the earliest one belong- 

 ing to an historic period ever discovered in a controlled excavation 

 in Transjordan. Trenches were run in all directions from this one 

 grave in an attempt to discover others, but in vain. It seems safe 

 to assume, however, that there could not have been many burials as 

 comparatively elaborate as the grave in the dry moat. The bricks 

 in the rectangular grave were of the same size as those in the fortifi- 

 cation walls of Period II. The walls of the grave were rather thin, 

 having the thickness of only the width of a brick. The rectangular 

 grave measured about 3 by 1.80 meters. 



Not only was it possible to trace the complete line of the fortifica- 

 tions of this period, but part of the very brickyard was discovered, 

 from which the bricks were taken for the building of the fortification 

 walls. It is to be remembered that in Period II, the site was still 

 more on the order of a large caravanserai than of a settlement proper. 

 "With the exception of the smelter-refinery, and the south and east 

 sides of the industrial square which had escaped being destroyed or 

 built over and were consequently reused in Period II, there was 

 nothing else inside the enclosure formed by the fortification walls. 

 There remained a great courtyard, in which the trading caravans 

 may have rested at nighttime. 



At the southeast corner of this great compound were left long rows 

 of rectangular bricks, of exactly the same size as those used in the 

 construction of the fortification walls of Period II. For the con- 

 stniction of these walls thousands upon thousands of sun-dried mud 

 bricks were necessary. The areas inside and outside the proposed 

 lines of the fortification walls were transformed into huge brickyards. 

 Bricks were made and then laid out to dry in symmetrical rows, with 

 spaces between each row and spaces between each brick to enable the 

 rays of the sun to get at each brick from all directions. First the 



