Area A (Figs. 2, 3). The excavation yielded a drainage channel that ran in an east–west direction (L103). The channel was bounded on the north by a stone embankment (W1; Fig. 4), and was probably bounded on the south with a similar embankment, but it was not preserved. The channel was dug into a layer of red clay soil (L105), apparently resulting from erosion of Givʽat Hamra. Pottery sherds ascribed to the Early Roman period (first century CE), including a discus lamp (Fig. 5:6) and a Herodian lamp (Fig. 5:7), were discovered in this layer.
Flat basalt stones, probably paving the channel’s floor were exposed at the bottom of a probe that was excavated inside the channel, slightly south of the embankment wall. Also discovered at the bottom of the probe were pottery sherds from the Early Roman period (first century CE), including a krater (Fig. 5:2), a casserole (Fig. 5:3) and a jar (Fig. 5:4). In the upper part of the probe were ceramic artifacts that date from the Late Roman period (second century CE), including a juglet (Fig. 5:5), sherds from the Byzantine period (fourth-fifth centuries CE), including a bowl (Fig. 5:1), and three coins, one from the first century CE (Table 1:22) and two from the end of the fourth century CE (Table 1:23, 24). In the upper part of the channel, along the embankment wall, was a narrow strip of eroded earth (L103). The soil in the strip was mixed with stones, abraded sherds, coins (Table 1:6–19) that range in date from the Seleucid dynasty(?) to the reign of Emperor Marcian (450–457 CE), metallic items, colored tesserae of various sizes and a gold leaf (Fig. 6). It seems that the soil and the finds in it had been swept into the channel, which was not cleaned out once it ceased to be used.
Based on the artifacts found in the channel, it seems that it was dug in the Early Roman period and was used until the fifth century CE. In the Late Ottoman period, the area was covered with loose, black agricultural soil (L101) that contained numerous pottery sherds and coins from several periods (Table 1:1–5). A lead rifle bullet from the Ottoman period (eighteenth–nineteenth century CE) that dates from the time when the area was covered with top soil was discovered on the stones of the embankment at the bottom of the layer of agricultural soil.
 
Area B. A terra-cotta pipe was discovered during the preliminary inspection of the area. A backhoe was used to excavate a trench (c. 1 × 10 m) to expose the entire length of the terra-cotta pipe (diam. c. 0.1 m; Figs. 7, 8). The pipe was placed on the ground, along a northeast–southwest axis. It continued northward, beyond the limits of the excavation, and was severed in the south by modern construction debris that had been buried there. The pipe was built of homogeneous terra-cotta sections, each of which had a wide end and a narrow end (Fig. 5:8); the narrow end of the pipe was inserted into the wide end of the pipe located behind it. A thin layer (thickness 0.3 m) of soil devoid of finds accumulated over the pipe, above which was a thick layer (c. 1 m) of loose, black agricultural soil, similar to that found in Area A. Based on the location and alignment of the pipe, it may have conveyed water from one of the distribution pools along the city’s aqueduct to the city’s western cemetery or to its western suburbs.   
 
The drainage channel uncovered in Area A was dug in the Early Roman period, no later than 70 CE, and went out of use in the fifth century CE. It may have been dug to regulate the drainage of Caesarea Philippi when the city was rebuilt by Agrippa II in 54–61 CE. It seems that the channel ceased to be used due to changes in the drainage regime of the area. It was probably at that time, when the embankment that bordered the channel on the south was destroyed. Due to the changes in the drainage regime, no pottery sherds or coins that postdate the fifth century CE were swept into the channel. The coins discovered in the channel—from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods—reflect the city’s centrality and the commercial ties of its inhabitants with the residents of other cities in the Eastern Roman Empire. It was only in the Late Ottoman period that the channel and its surrounding area were covered with soil for the purpose of preparing the land for agriculture (Tepper 2007).
The terra-cotta pipe exposed in Area B was probably part of the city’s ancient water system. The water conveyed in the pipe may have been drinking water for the city’s suburbs, or served for washing or for preventing fires resulting from the cremation of corpses in the cemetery.
 
Table 1. Coins
No.
Locus
Basket
Ruler
Date
Mint
Bibliography
IAA No.
1
101
1010
Constantine I
330–335 CE
Antioch
LRBCI:30, No. 1356
158025
2
101
1045
Valens
364–367 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:100, No. 2657
158029
3
101
1050
 
383–395 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:102, No. 2768–2771
158030
4
101
1019
 
Fifth century CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:102, No. 2806–2808
Cf. LRBC II:103, No. 2810
158028
5
101
1061
al-Salih Salih al-Din Hajji II
1388–1389 CE
Damascus
Balog 1964:246, No. 532
158047
6
103
1026
Seleucid(?)
First century BCE
 
 
158035
7
103
1027
Agrippa II
67 CE
Panias(?)
Cf. TJC:233, No. 130
158036
8
103
1054
Domitian
81–96 CE
Caesarea
Cf. CHL:276, No. 39
158041
9
103
1021
Nabataean
First century CE
 
 
158046
10
103
1039
Commodus
177–192 CE
Canatha
CHL:154, No. 7
158043
11
103
1009
Roman provincial
Second–third centuries CE
 
 
158031
12
103
1023
Constantine I (after his death)
341–346 CE
Antioch
Cf. LRBC I:31, No. 1397
158033
13
103
1020
 
351–361 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:100, No. 2632
158032
14
103
1031
 
364–375 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:100, No. 2653, 2654
158037
15
103
1048
Arcadius
378–383 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:101, No. 2729–2731
158042
16
103
1047
 
378–383 CE
Antioch(?)
Cf. LRBC II:101, No. 2729–2731
158045
17
103
1024
Theodosius I or II
Fourth or fifth century CE
 
 
158034
18
103
1034
Theodosius II
425–450 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:90, No. 2236
158044
19
103
1032
Marcian
450–457 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:96, No. 2469
158026
20
104
1013
Roman provincial
104/5–166/7 CE
Tyre
Cf. BMC Phoen.:265, No. 341
158039
21
104
1022
 
Fifth–sixth centuries CE
 
 
158038
22
105
1028
Roman provincial
44/5–75/6 CE
Sidon
Cf. BMC Phoen.:171, No. 173
158040
23
105
1060
Arcadius
393–395 CE
 
Cf. LRBC II:95, No. 2422
158027
24
105
1044
 
395–408 CE
Cyzicus(?)
Cf. LRBC II:98, No. 2580
158000