Page 52 - Holyland Magazine - 2017 Edition

First Century Roofs at

Nazareth Village

Layer upon layer, the Both photos: Affixing of reeds unto beams
composition of the
roofs can be found in
the Bible

Nathaniel Wiseman –
Guide at Nazareth Village

Nazareth Village has invested heavily
in being an authentic representation
of life in the first century. The
undertaking to reproduce roofs as
they would have been two thousand
years ago was a difficult one. No roofs have
remained intact after such a long time. So
Nazareth Village commissioned a thorough
review of the archeological and literary
evidence, bolstered by ethnographic and
anthropological studies, to determine what
materials, styles and techniques would have
been used in roof construction.

"Houses in the biblical period had flat roofs it is grown up." This verbal image makes it The supporting structure of the roof can be
made of dirt or clay upon which grass would clear that roofs were made of earth-based deduced from the Mishna:
often grow" (Psalm 129:6, II Kings 19:26, materials—that enabled grasses to easily "The trunk and branches of a sycamore
Isaiah 37:27). They were constructed by spring up on them, but that these grasses tree were called beams and were used for
laying brushwood across rough sycamore were short lived—they got scorched by the building. Therefore when buying or selling
beams and binding them together using hot sun. a field that contained a sycamore tree, the
mud. A heavy roller was kept on the roof to
compact the material after rain.1

The biblical references provided make it
possible to identify the material on the exterior
of the roof. The verses mention "… grass
upon the housetops, which withers before

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