In May 2019, a salvage excavation was conducted on 3040 Street in Yafo, on a flight of steps linking Ha-Zedef Street to Yafo Port Street (Permit No. A-8531; map ref. 176521/662033; Fig. 1), prior to the replacement of buried infrastructure and the construction of new steps. The excavation, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and funded by ‘Ezra and Bizron Housing Company Ltd., was directed by L. Rauchberger (preliminary inspection and field photography), with the assistance of Y. Amrani and E. Bachar (administration), V. Essman (surveying and drafting), A. Dagot (GPS), I. Delerson (plan), A. Bouchenino and A. Reiss (preliminary inspection), D. Barkan and D. Abu-Salah (IAA Tel Aviv District) and S. Giler (historical consultation).
The excavation was conducted on a stepped cast-concrete ascent that was built during the British Mandate era (Fig. 2); it is marked on a map of Jaffa from 1936 (Haddad and Rauchberger 2019:2*, Fig. 4) and is visible in a photograph from the 1930s (Recht 2012). The ascent is located on the western slope of Yafo’s Maronite neighborhood, which was founded in the late nineteenth century CE and stretches along a kurkar ridge about 0.5 km south of Tel Yafo. Architectural remains and small finds from the Persian, Hellenistic, Late Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic and Crusader periods, as well as from the late Ottoman period and the British Mandate era were previously uncovered to the southeast and northeast of the current excavation area (Rauchberger 2019, and references therein; Permit Nos. A-8265, A-8407, A-8649).
Two squares (A, B; Fig. 3) were opened on the lower part of the hill, northeast of the Rosenthalis House; it uncovered remains of two walls built of kurkar stones and dating from the late Ottoman period (second half of the nineteenth–early twentieth centuries CE).
Square A. The excavation revealed a wall (W106; length c. 0.95 m; Fig. 4) built of broken stones bonded together with red mortar and set in a layer of yellow sand (L100, L105, L107). Meager finds retrieved from the layer of sand include body fragments of vessels made of brown clay, part of a white porcelain bowl, shards of brown glass bottles, a broken window pane and a nail (not drawn). Broken building materials that were also found in this layer include a rectangular brick with square holes (not drawn) and Marseille roof tiles manufactured by the Roux Frères and Martin Frères factories (Fig. 5; de Vincenz 2020:338–339, Fig. 19:1–4). The finds date from the late Ottoman period (second half of the nineteenth–early twentieth centuries CE). The wall probably continues beneath the wall that surrounds the northeast side of the courtyard of the Rosenthalis House.
Square B. A wall (W102; length c. 7 m; Figs. 6, 7) was revealed 0.9 m away from the northeastern facade of the Rosenthalis House and parallel to it. The wall was constructed partly of rectangular dressed stones and partly of fieldstones and was set on a foundation of dressed stones bonded together with red mortar. The southwestern side of the wall was damaged by a modern sewage pipe. The wall was built into a layer of yellow sand (L101, L103, L104) that yielded a few finds, including body fragments of Black Gaza Ware and pottery made of brown clay, part of a green-glazed pottery bowl, a body fragment of a stoneware bottle, and a piece of a glass bracelet (not drawn). Broken building materials that were also found in the layer include roof tiles, rectangular bricks with square holes, and clay floor tiles made by factories in Marseille (not drawn). The finds date from the late Ottoman period (second half of the nineteenth–early twentieth centuries CE). Wall 102 was found so close to the Rosenthalis House and parallel to it, suggesting that it originally surrounded the building’s northeastern facade, although it may predate the building.
The walls uncovered in the excavation were dated to the late Ottoman period based on the red mortar used in their construction, the small finds from the layer of sand into which they were built, and their proximity to the Rosenthalis House—a luxurious residence that was probably built in the late nineteenth century CE (Recht 2014).
Haddad E. and Rauchberger L. 2019. A Crusader-Period Moat and Other Remains from Yafo (Jaffa), Yehuda Ha-Yammit Street. ‘Atiqot 95:19*–42* (Hebrew; English summary, 257–259).
Rauchberger L. 2019. Yafo, Adam Baruch Street. HA-ESI 131.
Vincenz A. de. 2020. Ottoman-Period Ceramic Artifacts from the Magen Avraham Compound, Yafo (Jaffa). ‘Atiqot 100:293–347.