A narrow strip (1.0 × 5.5 m; Figs. 2, 3) was opened, revealing a stone pavement (L200; 0.6 × 1.0 m, thickness 0.1 m; Fig. 4) that was partly laid directly on bedrock and partly on fill that consisted of quarrying debris and soil (L260). The northern part of the pavement abutted a robber trench (L100; width c. 1.3 m; Fig. 5). The excavation of the pavement’s foundation and the robber trench did not yield any datable finds.
A stone-built staircase descended from the level of the pavement to a narrow antechamber (L250; 0.7 × 1.5 m, height 1.8 m; Fig. 6) whose walls were built of fieldstones and founded on bedrock; the pavement’s flagstones constituted the antechamber’s ceiling. An entrance in the southern part of the western wall had two crosses engraved above it (0.6 × 0.7 m; Fig. 7). A hewn step led to the interior of a cave (3 × 3 m, height 1.1 m) that was carelessly hewn in hard limestone bedrock. Fieldstones and mortar repairs were discerned in the cave’s ceiling.
 
Some of the poorly preserved bones on the floor of the cave (L300) were articulated, attesting to primary burial. The deceased, aligned east–west, were laid next to each other with their heads in the west. The remains of at least ten individuals were discerned, including eight adults and two children. Two females and at least three males were positively identified among the adults. One of the males was 40–50 years of age and the children were 2–4 and 5–8 years of age.
Scattered on the floor of the cave (L300) and in the antechamber (L250) were fragments of pottery vessels, characteristic of the second half of the sixth century–beginning of the seventh century CE, which included a plain type of a Fine Byzantine Ware cup (Fig. 8:1), basins with ledge rims (Fig. 8:2, 3), a jug base (Fig. 8:4), a bag-shaped jar from the north of the country (Fig. 8:5) and a large intact lamp (Fig. 8:6).
 
Glass vessels and glass fragments (Figs. 9, 10) were collected near the entrance to the cave and beneath a pile of fieldstones (L310). These included bottles with a squat spherical body and a funnel-like neck (Fig. 9:1–4), bottles with a spherical body and a cylindrical neck (Fig. 9:5–8) and a juglet (Fig. 9:9). The bottles with the funnel-like neck are similar to each other and were apparently produced in the same workshop. The vessels were free and mold-blown; a pontil scar was identified only on the juglet. The glass assemblage is dated to the end of the Byzantine period (end of the sixth–beginning of the seventh centuries CE). A similar assemblage was discovered in a nearby crypt that belonged to the same architectural complex (Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, p. 295).