The surveyed area is partly covered with a dense Mediterranean thicket and partly with deciduous orchards that entail intensive agricultural activity. The elevation of the surveyed area ranges from 495.9 m above sea level in the southwestern part, close to the Ma‘alot-Hurfeish road, to 575 m above sea level at the northeastern end. Twenty-eight antiquities sites, which represented different finds and installations, were inspected (1–26, 28, 29; Fig. 1). Most of the sites (1–21, 26) belong to Khirbat ed-Duweir of the Byzantine period; to the same period belongs another site with building remains (24). The other five sites (22, 23, 25, 28, 29) are earlier and consist only of small finds.

Khirbat ed-Duweir (map ref. NIG 228489–822/768067–297). The settlement remains at this site were dated to the Byzantine period and had previously been examined in the survey of the Upper Galilee (IAA Reports 14, p. 27). Most of the building stones at the site were robbed; some of them were in secondary use in farming terraces built by the residents of the Arab village Suhmata, which was abandoned in 1948. Despite the repeated use of the ruin’s stones, clearly visible at the site were the outlines of buildings and streets, numerous cisterns, a large water reservoir and different agricultural installations that attested to a thriving settlement in the Byzantine period. Six building complexes (8, 12, 16) in an alley that is aligned east–west and part of it can still be seen (14), building and wall remains (3, 5, 10), remains of olive presses (2 [weight], 4, 9, 11, 15), a winepress (20), a large hewn water reservoir (18; Fig. 2), a burial cave (19), remains of a large sarcophagus lid (13) and cisterns (1, 6, 17, 21, 26) were surveyed. The church in the center of the site gave it its name. It was excavated in 1932 by N. Makhouly and M. Avi-Yonah, who dated it to 555 CE, based on an inscription in the mosaic floor (QDAP 3, 1934:92–105). Remains of the church were identified in the survey—some walls from the building, including the apse and a cistern (7; Fig. 3)—and architectural elements that belonged to it were found scattered around the church, including a capital decorated with a floral pattern (Fig. 4).

 

Site 22 (map ref. NIG 228859/768389). A scatter of flint implements (diam. c. 60 m), including a hand axe from the Lower Paleolithic period.

 

Site 23 (map ref. NIG 228408/768427). A scatter of flint implements (diam. c. 60 m) from the Upper Paleolithic period.

 

Site 24 (map ref. NIG 228544/768544). A small farmstead that dated to the Byzantine period and was part of the agricultural hinterland of Khirbat ed-Duweir. A fieldstone-built compound (14 × 14 m; Fig. 5) with a tower in its southeastern corner was surveyed. A large heap of fieldstones in the middle of the compound was piled after the site had been abandoned and the stone collapse was cleared. The ceramic finds collected from the compound dated to the Byzantine period.

 

Site 25 (map ref. NIG 228453/768625). A scatter of flint implements (diam. c. 200 m). It was impossible to date the finds, yet they may be connected to the flint tools from the Chalcolithic period that Y. Aharoni had discovered nearby in 1952 (map ref. NIG 2287/7685).

 

Site 28 (map ref. NIG 228633/769041). A bronze dagger (length 0.28 m; Fig. 6), dating to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, was found on surface at the edge of an orchard. Similar daggers are known from tombs of this period and it therefore seems that the dagger was part of a funerary assemblage that was damaged when the ground was prepared for planting trees.

 

Site 29 (map ref. NIG 228633/769331; Fig. 1:29). A large flint hand axe (Fig. 7), dating to the Lower Paleolithic period, was found in an orchard.