Daily Life In Ancient Israel

As it did everywhere else in the Ancient World, an Israeli woman's life was centered in the home. For the majority this was a small wattle-and-daub or baked clay and straw brick house in a village constructed around a spring or well. There were walled towns but apart from Jerusalem these were not that much bigger. An outside staircase to a flat roof might add to the living space, for the climate was mild and much of life was lived in the outdoors. Larger houses were built around a central courtyard. With space at such a premium inside the walls of a town, even a small tree or bush would have been a rarity, but most of the women who lived in a village would probably have had some sort of garden as a source of food, flowers and pleasure.