The excavation was carried out on the eastern fringes of Khirbat Burnat (HA-ESI 114:46*–47*) where a cave and a wall were exposed (Fig. 1).
Three squares were opened in the cave (12 × 14 m) and three layers of fill were discerned. The upper layer (thickness 20 cm) contained finds from the Ottoman period (Loci 102, 108). It overlaid, at a depth of 50 cm, a layer of black ash (Loci 103, 109) that was probably the remains of a hearth or a burnt layer from the Byzantine period. The fill below the burnt layer contained worn potsherds, dating from the Persian to the Byzantine periods. A few potsherds, apparently from the Chalcolithic period and Early Bronze Age I were found in the western square, 20 cm below the ash layer.
The floor of the cave was exposed at a depth of 1.1–2.0 m. A square opening (L106; 40 × 80 cm), blocked by a stone, was discovered in the ceiling of the cave, whose western part had collapsed.
A wall, extending for a distance of 20 m, surrounded the cave on the south and southwest. The wall was built of large fieldstones (length up to 1m), placed on bedrock. A few potsherds that mostly dated to the Byzantine period were found in two trial squares (Loci 104, 105), opened on either side of the wall.