Stratum III. A section of a wall (W17; length 2 m) built of large round kurkar fieldstones was exposed on top of a quarry at a depth of 2 m below the surface; it was preserved a single course high. The northern part of the wall was severed by a later drainage channel, and its western part was covered by a later stone pavement. High masses of kurkar bedrock were noted in the quarry, which had been left there at the time of the rock-cutting to serve as a barrier against the waves (Raban 1986). Shells and fragments of pottery from the Hellenistic period, particularly bowl fragments (Fig. 3:1, 2), were discovered next to the wall and above the bedrock.
 
Stratum II. The floor and walls of the western hall in the building were documented. The southern (W23) and western walls of the hall were hewn in the bedrock and plastered, and their upper part was built of kurkar stones. An opening was set in the western wall; its bottom part was rock-hewn and the upper part was built. The opening was blocked in the Ottoman period. The northern wall of the hall (W24; Fig. 4) was built of kurkar ashlars and an opening and two windows were set in it. An arch was built between the western and eastern halls, of which two engaged pillars that were founded directly on the bedrock were preserved (Fig. 5). The floor of the western hall (L26) consisted of limestone slabs and was preserved throughout most of the hall. A mills game board (Fig. 6) was discovered engraved in one of the floor’s stones. The hall is dated to the Crusader period on the basis of the construction and the plan of the building.
 
Stratum I. The two halls of the building are ascribed to this layer, along with an underground vault located south of the eastern hall. The opening in the western wall of the western hall, which was built in the Crusader period, was sealed. The eastern hall was first built in this period and it is larger than the western hall, but their plan is similar. Presumably, the eastern hall was built on the remains of a building from the Crusader period, which was destroyed and its remains were not discovered in this area. The floor of the eastern hall was lime-plaster (L10) and founded on fill consisting of dressed building stones deposited above the bedrock. Two iron cannonballs (Fig. 7) were discovered above the floor, in the northeastern corner of the hall. Potsherds dating to the Ottoman period (nineteenth century CE) were discovered in the floor bedding, including bowls (Fig. 3:3, 4), small coffee cups (Fig. 3:5), casseroles (Fig. 3:6, 7), jugs (Fig. 3:8), jars (Fig. 3:9, 10) and clay tobacco pipes and hookahs (Fig. 3:11–13). In addition, fragments of glass vessels, shells, pieces of iron and several coins were discovered in the floor bedding. Among the coin are a fals from the Mamluk period (fourteenth century CE; IAA 138071), a manghir of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman II struck in the Constantinia mint(1687 CE; IAA 138072) and two Ottoman coins from the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries CE. A drainage system that led to the underground vault (L25) was exposed in the eastern hall. A terracotta pipe was incorporated in the eastern wall of the hall (W21). It drained water from the roof to a channel (L19; length 3.4 m, width 0.3 m, depth 0.27–0.33 m) hewn in the bedrock beneath the floor, next to the northern wall of the hall (W20). Channel 19 was connected to another channel (L12; length 6.5 m, width 0.3–0.5 m, depth 0.25 m) that was built perpendicular to it beneath the floor and drained southward, to the underground vault; on its way it passed beneath the southern wall of the hall (W22; Fig. 8). In a later phase, the sides of Channel 12 were raised and covered with kurkar slabs (Fig. 9). The underground vault was part of the system of city walls that date to the Late Ottoman period. This was a trapezoidal vault (length 15 m, width 1.85–3.10 m, height 3.5 m; Fig. 10) that was built below the floor level of the hall. A terracotta drain pipe was discovered above the floor level in the middle of the vault’s southern side (W30). In the upper part of the vault’s eastern and western sides (W28, W29) were recesses, probably for securing wooden beams. In a later phase of the Ottoman period, a refuse pit (L14) was dug into the plaster floor of the eastern hall. The pit was filled with soft black soil mixed with metal, animal bones and potsherds from the Ottoman period. 
 
Remains of a well-constructed building from the Crusader period were discovered in the excavation. It seems that this building was partly destroyed and in the Ottoman period its plan was altered. An underground vault was built south of the building in the Ottoman period. The vault was probably part of ‘Akko’s city walls and the building’s drainage system led to it. A quarry that probably dated to the Hellenistic period was exposed beneath the building’s remains.
 
 
 

 
Raban A. 1986. Rock-hewn Installations along the Coast of the Western Galilee. In M. Yediyah, ed. The Western Galilee Antiquities. Tel Aviv. Pp. 209–234 (Hebrew).