In December 2018, a salvage excavation was conducted on Ha-Moledet Street in Nes Ziyyona (Permit No. A-8382; map ref. 180492/648414), prior to construction. The excavation, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and financed by Y. Greenberg, was directed by L. Rauchberger (field photography), with the assistance of Y. Amrani and A. Bachar (administration), M. Kahan (Surveying and Drafting), A. Dagot (GPS) and A. Tamir (trial trenches), as well as D. Barkan, I. Radashkovsky, A. Bouchenino, V. Shustin, K. Serezo and D. Golan.
Archaeological excavationas have been conducted northwest of the site (
Golan 2016, and see references therein; Fig. 1) revealing building remains from the Byzantine period as well as irrigation systems from the Early Islamic, Ottoman and British Mandate periods.
Two squares were opened (A, B; Figs. 2, 3). Square A yielded an irrigation channel and a wall. Square B yielded a layer of brown soil mixed with small stones (L104) but devoid of archaeological finds.
The irrigation channel (L101; max. length c. 4.6 m; Fig. 4) runs along a general southwest–northeast axis, but its northern part turns westward. Its foundation was built of kurkar stones, and only broken kurkar stones bonded with pinkish mortar remain from its walls (Fig. 5). The channel floor was made of gray lime-based plaster mixed with numerous broken shells of a various sizes and a few charcoal grits. The poorly preserved channel was covered by a layer of dark brown soil mixed with some modern debris (L100). The channel could not dated; however, similar channels unearthed in previous excavations in the vicinity were used for irrigating fields from the Early Islamic period to the present day.
A wall (W102; max. length c. 1 m; Fig. 6) was unearthed c. 1.9 m east of the channel and at a lower level. It was built of broken kurkar stones of various sizes bonded with gray lime-based plaster mixed with a few charcoal grits. The wall was built into a layer of hamra soil devoid of archaeological finds and extended beyond the boundaries of the excavation.