During August 2008, a salvage excavation was conducted in Nahal Soreq (Permit No. A-5495; map ref. 21899/63684), prior to the construction of the separation fence. The excavation, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and underwritten by the Ministry of Defense, was directed by A. Nagar, with the assistance of Y. Ohayon and E. Bachar (administration), M. Kipnis (surveying) and I. Berin (drafting).
The excavation was carried out on a slope covered with farming terraces, along the eastern bank of Nahal es-Shumar, which flows north to Nahal Soreq (Fig. 1).
The excavated area (c. 26 sq m) yielded an agricultural compound, surrounded by terraces, in which a watchman’s hut was documented (Fig. 2).
The agricultural compound (c. 11–19 × 26 m) was fenced-in and divided by terrace walls (W3–W9) into three stepped terraces (A, B1, B2). A built rectangular surface (L100; 2.9 × 3.9 m, height 1.5–3.5 m) in the center of the compound was incorporated in the terrace. It seems that it served as a foundation for a watchman’s hut (Fig. 3). The hut and the walls, founded on bedrock, were built of various size fieldstones. The walls that abutted the watchman’s hut on the west (W1, W2) were constructed differently from two rows of medium–large stones with a core of small fieldstones (Figs. 4, 5); a roughly hewn stone was placed widthwise at the end of W1 in the west. Between Walls 1 and 2 and Wall 3 were openings that allow passage between the farming terraces.
The meager finds recovered from the excavation included a few potsherds that dated to the Byzantine period (fifth–seventh centuries CE); they were not in situ and cannot be used to date the construction of the complex.