Early Bronze Age I remains were excavated in one square. A wall (min. length 10 m), preserved six courses high, was exposed below a sand dune that was removed. The wall’s foundation (width 1.2 m) was built of kurkar blocks (0.30–0.35 × 0.35 × 0.35 m) and its upper structure consisted of light colored mud-bricks with dark fill between them (size of mud bricks 0.1 × 0.3 × 0.5 m). Mud-brick construction was added to the eastern face of the wall (width c. 1 m), probably to thicken it. The wall, which was constructed into a layer that included fragments of pottery vessels from Early Bronze Age I, was the outer wall of a structure that had an open area with several pits (not excavated) to its east. Two rooms were discovered west of the wall. A floor that abutted the wall in one of the rooms was overlaid with Early Bronze Age I pottery vessels. This room was enclosed to the south with a mud-brick wall on a fieldstone foundation, to the west with a wall that was as wide as the length of one mud brick and to the north was a wall of pale red mud bricks. Another floor was discovered west of the room. An installation that abutted the outer wall was in the second room. The remains of a fire in the rooms indicated that the entire structure was probably consumed in a conflagration. The ceramic remains on the floors included jugs, juglets and fragments of jars and holemouth jars, as well as several sickle blades, small pieces of bitumen and seeds (sent for 14C analysis), dating to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age I.

 

The outer wall apparently cut a mud-brick wall whose plan was unclear. It was also predated by another curved wall that was as wide as two mud bricks and oriented north- northwest–south-southeast. Its wider foundation was built of small kurkar stones (c. 0.25 × 0.25 × 0.25 m) and preserved two courses high.

 

The continuation of the building (its southeastern corner?) was probably found in the excavation conducted by Y. Haimi in a lot to the south (Rehov Ha-Tayyasim 23; Permit No. A-4382, not yet published).