A winepress hewn in hard limestone bedrock (Fig. 1) was exposed on a bedrock terrace above the northern slope of Nahal Repha’im, c. 20 m above the wadi channel. The winepress had a treading surface in the shape of an asymmetric pentagon (1; max. dimensions 2.5 × 2.5 m; length of sides: W––2.0 m, N––2.5 m, E––1.8 m, SE––1.5 m, SW––1.1 m; depth 0.15 m). Its floor sloped gently to the southwest (average gradient of 3.2%), toward the collecting vat. A small square settling pit (2; 0.35 × 0.50, depth 0.15 m) was cut in the southwestern corner of the treading surface. The must flowed from the settling pit to the collecting vat by way of an open, shallow channel (depth 0.1 m). The collecting vat was rectangular (3; 0.7 × 1.1 m, depth 0.75 m) and adjacent to the southwestern edge of the treading surface. A small square settling pit (4; 0.3 × 0.3 m, depth 0.15 m) was hewn in the western corner of the collecting vat.

 

The bedrock around the western and northern edges of the treading surface was worked and smoothed into a flat stone ledge (0.9 m wide in the west, 1.0–1.3 m wide in the north), c. 0.15 m higher than the treading surface. An elliptical cupmark was cut in the western stone ledge (5; 0.25 × 0.40 m, depth 0.17 m).

 

The winepress was covered with little soil that contained no diagnostic finds. Judging by its shape and the absence of plaster or mosaic, the winepress may have predated the Byzantine period.