The plastered water tunnel traversed all the excavation squares (length 17 m) and apparently conveyed water from a well, as yet undiscovered. Remains of plaster were preserved on the exterior face of the tunnel’s eastern wall. Numerous fragments of saqiye vessels were discovered in the excavation and therefore, it may have been a saqiye well. A 9 cm elevation difference exists between the southern and northern ends of the tunnel. A smooth plastered pool (L17) at the southern section of the tunnel had two outlets; the one in the west led to a ceramic pipe sealed with a plug and the one in the south connected to a plastered tunnel (W114; length 2.2 m), which was lower than the northern tunnel (W110).

 

The two pools were built parallel to and east of the water tunnel. Fragmentary ashlar stones were exposed in the area between the tunnel and the pools, evincing a wall that once stood and separated between them. The larger of the two pools (L26; 3.3 × 5.8 m) was paved with a white mosaic, enclosed within a frame of red tesserae in three straight rows. The floor sloped northward and was overlaid with numerous fragments of Gaza jars. A settling pit (L27; 0.6 × 0.7 m) was cut in the northwestern corner of the pool and to its south a decorated ceramic bowl was incorporated in the mosaic floor of the pool. An outlet in the center of the pool’s southern wall (W102) may have been used to convey liquids to the small pool (L13; 2.35 × 3.30 m), which was entirely plastered and contained a large quantity of plaster remains and potsherds in its southern part.

 

The ceramic finds from the excavation dated to the end of the Byzantine period and the beginning of the Early Islamic period and included fragments of jars (Fig. 2:1–4), saqiye jars (Fig. 2:5) and a wheel-made lamp from the end of the sixth century CE (Fig. 2:6), as well as fragments of two glass goblets and the lower part of a bottle (Fig. 2:7–9), dating to the Byzantine period, a stone bowl fragment from the end of the Byzantine period (Fig. 2:10) and a fragment of a decorated marble column in secondary use (Fig. 2:11).