Winepress A (Fig. 2). The treading surface was square (L11; 4 × 4 m; height of walls 0.05–0.45 m). Signs of quarried channels were noted along its edges and in its center was a depression (L18; 0.8 × 1.1 m, depth 0.14 m), probably natural, which may have been the Mishnaic tapuah, used for consolidating the pulp for further pressing with a weight. Two narrow shallow channels (L19, L20; length 0.6 m, depth c. 1 cm) were hewn in the northern corner of the surface, conveying the must to the settling pit (L14; 0.60 × 0.65 m, depth 0.25 m) in the northwestern corner of the treading surface. A small sump (L17; diam. 0.2 m, depth 0.1 m) was cut in the western corner of the vat. The collecting vat (L15; 1.1 × 1.4 m, depth 1 m) was c. 0.2 m west of the settling vat and not directly connected to it. The must flowed into the collecting vat only when the settling pit was filled to capacity and overflowed. Traces of a thick grayish-white plaster layer (thickness to 15 mm) remained on the walls of the collecting vat and on its floor. A boss (0.15  0.30 m) was fashioned in the middle of the northwestern wall (c. 0.5 m below top edge), when the vat had been hewn, aiming to aid in the descent to the vat’s bottom. A sump (L26; diam. 0.5 m, depth 0.1 m) was cut in the eastern corner of the vat’s floor.

At a distance of 1.8 m southwest of the treading surface was a cupmark (L13; diam. 0.3 m, depth 0.25 m) and another cupmark (L27; diam. 0.15 m, depth 0.07 m) was 1.2 m north of the settling pit. It seems that the cupmarks predated the winepress and the larger of the two was probably used as a jar stand when the winepress was operated.

 

Winepress B (Fig. 3) was exposed c. 18 m south of Winepress A. The treading surface was almost square (L21; 2.0 × 2.3 m, height of walls 0.05–0.45 m). Near its center was a shallow rectangular depression, whose purpose is unclear. The settling pit (L22; 0.6 × 0.7 m, depth 0.4 m), to the north of the treading surface, was connected to it by way of a hewn channel (L25; length 0.3 m, depth 0.1 m). A narrow hewn gutter (L24; diam. 0.17 m, width 0.1 m) in the middle of the vat’s western wall conveyed the must to a bell-shaped collecting vat (L23; upper diam. 0.6 m, bottom diam. 1.4 m, depth 2 m), in whose southern side a sump (L28; diam. 0.8, depth 0.2 m) was cut in the floor.

 

Animal Pen (W1; Figs. 1, 2). This wall was located c. 2.5 m west of Winepress A. Its remains were visible for a further 150 m in a southeast–northwesterly direction down the steep slope, at the bottom of which two terraces (W2, W3) were joined to the animal pen. The wall of the pen (width 0.8 m) was built of two rows of roughly hewn fieldstones with a core of smaller stones. A trial section excavated in the wall next to Winepress A revealed a single course. The location of the wall and its construction indicate that it was probably used to demarcate boundaries between agricultural tracts. Connection between the wall and the winepresses was not found.