[SunkenCiv]

Interesting, those pillars. At first glance I thought, oh, Roman-era, but then again I doubt that they used hypercaust technology in the Middle East. Nice to know the scale I guess, before further guessing. If it were a basement cistern, it would have to have a source of runoff (i.e., be not on the top of a hill). Anyway, nice pic.

[ApplegateRanch]

Looking at that gable wall, I have to wonder how much of a hill it was, when built.

OTOH, a real 'four room house' wouldn't have had gables.

Somehow, this passage loses something in the translation: It is characterized by the functional division of the structure into four living spaces: three positioned vertically and the fourth horizontally. That sounds like something only Esher would love. ;-')

A model of a typical [Iron Age] Israelite house, the so-called four room house. [Wikipedia image & caption]