During January 2004, a trial excavation was conducted in the Qiryat Moshe neighborhood of Rehovot (Permit No. A-4074*; map ref. NIG 180095–134/643009–40; OIG 130095–134/143009–40), prior to construction. The excavation, carried out on behalf of the Antiquities Authority and funded by S. Hayyal, was directed by D. Golan, with the assistance of S. Ya‘aqov-Jam (administration), A. Hajian (surveying and drafting), T. Sagiv (field photography), E. Yannai (pottery consultation), M. Shuiskaya (pottery drawing), E. Ayash, M. Ajami, A. Gorzalczany and M. Peilstöker.
Remains of a building that had three construction phases were exposed. The walls (W101, W102, W106, W109; width 0.5–0.6 m; Fig. 1), built of small fieldstones, were preserved three courses high.
The remains of a kiln (L108) were found near the corner of Walls 102 and 106. A section of a wall (W105; height 0.8 m; Fig. 2), built of medium-sized fieldstones, was discovered at a depth of 1 m below the foundations of the building. A floor of small fieldstones (L104) abutted W105 from the north. A layer (L107) that included sand and a few potsherds was excavated below Floor 104. Only the corner of W109 with W102 was exposed; the rest of the W109 continued eastward, beyond the limits of the excavation.
The pottery vessels recovered from the excavation dated to the Ottoman period (eighteenth–nineteenth centuries CE) and included bowls (Fig. 3:1–3), a jug (Fig. 3:4), a cooking pot (Fig. 3:5), brown slipped and burnished pipes (Fig. 3:6, 7) and a hookah (Fig. 3:8).