Area A. Two excavation squares, meant to investigate underneath the stone clearance heap (diam. 13 m, height 4 m), were opened. Building remains were not found, except for a carelessly built wall of large stones that marked the boundary of the heap. The few potsherds dated mostly to the Byzantine period, while some were of the Second Temple period. In addition, a flint sickle blade, a bronze ring and a small, thick concave wall fragment of a splendid glass bowl (Fig. 1) were found. The translucent glass is coated with a milky lime encrusted weathering. The incised decorated pattern on the exterior is composed of a frieze, which consists of rhombi, filled with a reticulated pattern, whose outline is accentuated by two grooves along the edges. A horizontal shallow engraved strip extends below the frieze and above oval facet cuts. Bowls of this type date to the third–fourth centuries CE and are known in the western and eastern sides of the Roman Empire, although they are extremely rare in the Land of Israel.

 

Area B. An elliptical stone clearance heap, aligned north–south (12 × 16 m, height 4 m). A section trench (width 2 m) was cut across the heap, revealing no ancient finds.

 

Area C. A rock-hewn winepress and remains of a building were exposed (Fig. 2). The winepress consisted of a treading floor (c. 2.35 × 2.65 m) and a collecting vat (c. 0.8 × 1.0 m; depth 0.5 m), which were connected via a perforation hewn in the side of the bedrock partition that separated them, allowing the must to flow directly. A hewn settling depression (diam. 0.4 m, depth 0.1 m) was at the bottom of the collecting vat and a bedrock-hewn cupmark (upper diam. 0.36 m, depth 0.25 m) was some 3.5 m east of the collecting vat. The winepress was devoid of diagnostic finds.

 

Remains of a building (c. 3.0 × 3.2 m) whose walls were constructed from large masonry stones (max. dimensions 0.45 × 0.60 × 0.85 m) were found 5.5 m south of the winepress. The building, whose interior (c. 1.8 × 1.8 m) was not excavated, as well as its surrounding, was covered with small stones that had been cleared from the area and yielded a few potsherds that dated to the Byzantine period. The building was, most likely, a field tower (a watchman’s booth).