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AT HOME
The four-room house you just saw in the main text had all
the creature comforts of the Ninth century BCE: natural air
conditioning, a wine press and olive press, wall niches for
oil lamps, you name it. On rainy nights, you might allocate
one of your rooms as shelter for one or more of your farm
animals. A typical four room house might take up 1,000 square
feet, sometimes more, sometimes less. Jerusalem had dual level
versions built on terraced areas, like Ahiel's house, which
you'll see later in the story.
Homes like this one might be occupied by a family of 10.
In the ancient world, Social Security was the number of children
who survived to maturity to take care of you in your old age.
In the ancient world, older children were also an essential
labor source, whether you were a farmer, a vintner, a carpenter
or most anything else. Naturally, children had an important
role in ancient society, although it's a role over which most
historians spend little time. To guarantee fertility, both
Canaanite and Israelite families resorted to fertility plaques
and statuettes. Usually a nude Astarte was represented, although
Egyptian goddesses such as Hathor were sometimes preferred.
To the modern eye, these figures seem like the ancient equivalent
of a men's magazine centerfold, but in fact, their true purpose
was less titillating.
Once a family was blessed with children, you had to make
sure they had toys. While relatively few surviving toys have
been found in the land of Israel from the Biblical times,
it does seem clear modern tastes and ancient tastes in toys
at least partially coincided. The Rockefeller Museum in east
Jerusalem offers several examples: clay animals with wooden
wheels and tethers that served as ancient pull toys; clay
figures of people kneading bread, even taking a bath. Granted,
these aren't Barbie dolls or Power Rangers, but kids no doubt
spent many hours in their own fantasy world with these figures.
Life at home for adults wasn't all work. A few examples of
board games have been found that appear to be based on either
the Egyptian senet game or the local hounds and jackels. We
don't fully understand the rules of play, but have reason
to believe the games played something like today's Parcheesi,
itself an ancient game.
Diet
We in America are almost completely isolated from famine,
and for the most part, we can get the same fruits, vegetables,
meat, and breads throughout the year. In the ancient world,
life was more feast and famine, depending largely on the rains.
Bread was produced from barley, emmer wheat, and other grains.
Flat, unleavened cakes were probably more common than leavened
breads, although both were regularly produced. Breads were,
of course, whole grain, and whole grit. Let me explain. Back
in the good old days, when you took your grain to the local
equivalent of a grist mill (I had to get my name in somewhere!),
the flour you got back would inevitably include a good many
bits of stone grit from the grinding process. Over the years,
this would contribute mightily to tooth decay and loss. Dental
studies of ancient Egyptian skulls indicate that both local
sand and grit from bread led to the wearing down of the teeth.
Instead of cavities and gum disease, today's dental culprits,
you simply wore your teeth down to the stumps in ancient times.
Other foods found in the ancient diet included: grapes, figs,
dates, pomegranates, leeks, olives and olive oil, lentils,
beans, cucumbers, and apples. Meat was available, but expensive.
In most Near Eastern cultures, beef was most often found at
religious festivals. In ancient Israel, the use of meat was
also restricted because of basic considerations of kashrut,
the ritual slaughter and preparation of meat. Lamb, especially
mutton, was relatively more common. Fish, both fresh and dry-salted,
were reasonably common as well. Dairy products came mostly
from goats, and consisted mainly of curds and cheese. This
may have been the most important source of fat. Seasonings
included salt, honey and a variety of other spices.
If all this makes you thirsty, there was always water, except
during the relatively frequent droughts. Milk was usually
processed into foods that would have a longer 'shelf-life.'
Alcoholic beverages took the form of wine and beer, both local
and imported (for the wealthy). Wines in the ancient world
usually had flavoring additives of some kind, and sweet wines
were preferred, which probably means Elijah would be upset
if you poured a kosher Cabernet in his Passover cup! From
what we know of ancient Egyptian and Philistine beers, they
were apparently very hearty, dark brews, with an alcohol content
in the neighborhood of 7%, roughly double the alcohol 'bite'
of a standard American lager.
ON THE JOB
While fewer than 1% of the Jewish population worldwide claims
farming as their profession, it was clearly the most important
job in ancient Israel. Farmers either owned their own small
plot, or just as frequently served as tenant farmers for larger
land owners. The class conflict of the rich and the poor in
this area was frequently the theme of the tirades of the great
Biblical prophets, and a very early expression of protest
against the excesses of the wealthy. While the land of Israel
is relatively kind to farmers in the Jezreel Valley and the
Galilee, making a living off the rest of it was a genuine
challenge. Hill country farmers had poor, rocky soil to contend
with, drought, and winter frosts that often ended up as snow
storms.
If you were well-to-do or intellectually gifted, the sure-fire
job was that of a scribe. With the ingenious development of
the alphabet, the number of letters you had to learn went
from hundreds down to 22. In the Biblical period of the First
Millenium BCE, it's a safe bet that no more than 5-10% of
the population was even partially literate. Scribal skill
gave you access to government jobs, international travel (especially
if showed multi-lingual talent), and positions in commerce,
since trade was the ultimate reason why writing was developed
in the first place.
Other jobs included soldier, stone-mason, carpenter, metal
worker, vintner, baker, beer maker (closely related to bread
making in the ancient world), and slave. While Israel had
laws regarding the duration of one's term as a slave, the
wealthy apparently ignored traditions involving the manumission
of slaves.
If this thumbnail sketch of daily life in the Bible has made
you hungry for more, try:
John Rogerson, Atlas of the Bible(New York: Facts on File,
1989), especially pp. 142-159.
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