During December 2006, a trial excavation was conducted at Qibbuz Afiq in the southern Golan Heights (Permit No. A-4957; map ref. NIG 26625/74237; OIG 21625/24237), prior to expansion. The excavation, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and underwritten by the Dor-El Company, was directed by O. Zingboym, with the assistance of Y. Ya‘aqobi (administration) and A. Shapiro (GPS).
G. Schumacher described the site of Fiq at the end of the nineteenth century CE in his book on the Golan (G. Schumacher, The Jaulan, London, 1888, pp. 136–146). Several surveys were conducted at the site: the Emergency Survey at the beginning of the 1970s (M. Kochavi [ed.], Judaea, Samaria and the Golan – Archaeological Survey 1967-1968, Jerusalem, 1972, Site 187, pp. 288–289), the village survey, the Israel Survey of the 1990s (License No. G-108/1993), as well as other surveys (H. Ben David, The Ancient Water Supply System of Hippus-Susita, in D. Amit, Y. Hirschfeld and J. Patrich [eds.], The Aqueducts of Ancient Palestine, Jerusalem, 1989, pp. 133–140). An excavation was conducted at the site in 1982 (License No. K-13; ESI 2:32–33), and various surveys that had been performed in the area revealed numerous architectural elements from churches and a synagogue that indicated the area was inhabited during the Byzantine period.
Before the expansion of the Qibbuz, preliminary examinations were performed with the aid of mechanical equipment to identify the northeastern boundary of the site. Antiquities were discovered in two lots adjacent to the excavation area (depth c. 1.5 m), which was in a flat basalt area, c. 10 m above the limestone bedrock.
A square (4 × 6 m; Fig. 1), expanded to the north, was opened and finds that dated to the Byzantine, Abbasid and Mamluk periods, as well as the modern era, were discovered.
Byzantine period (fourth–eighth century CE). The finds included a structure (W2, W4), founded on bedrock and built of square basalt stones (L105), which survived a single course high; an opening was set in W2 (Fig. 2).
Abbasid and Mamluk periods (ninth–tenth, twelfth–fourteenth centuries CE). Only potsherds were found.
Twentieth Century CE. Remains of walls and a concrete floor of a building were found (Loci 106, 107, 110; W1, W3; height 1 m). It seems that most of the building was located northwest of W1.