Area A (4.5 × 6.5 m; Figs. 2, 3). Very disjointed sections of a large architectural complex that was probably a public building were discovered in the limited excavated area. The remains were too meager to either reconstruct its plan or understand it. A massive wall (W50; width 1.0 m, preserved height 1.1 m) traversed the excavation area in a general east–west direction. It was built of small fieldstones and apparently, both its faces were plastered. Its western part was founded on bedrock and its eastern end was built atop a fill of brown garden soil. A bedrock pavement (L12) north of the wall was overlaid with an intact clay krater of the Early Byzantine period (Figs. 3; 5:1), which contained chicken bones.

 

Sections of a stone-slab pavement (L15) survived north of the bedrock pavement; some of the slabs had an irregular shape. Approximately 1.3 m from W50 and parallel to it, a row of square, finely worked pavers (max. dimensions 0.5 × 1.0 m) was incorporated in the floor; three contiguous pavers remained in situ. The fourth, easternmost paver was dislodged when the ditch for the sewer pipe was dug. This row probably served as a column foundation. The orientation of W50 and the row of stones raises the possibility that they were part of a church. Yet, even though W50 and the stone floor seem to belong to the same phase, it is not certain and the wall may have been constructed later.

 

The stone floor was overlain with layers of fill and collapse that included architectural elements and later occupation phases that were readily apparent in the sections delineating the excavation area. Two pit graves (T103 and T104), carelessly built south of W50 and covered with irregular-shaped stone slabs, were ascribed to one of the later phases.

 

The ceramic finds recovered from the fill layers were mixed and dated to the Late Hellenistic (first century BCE; Fig. 5:2, 8), Early Roman (first–second centuries CE; Fig. 5:3–6, 9) and Early Byzantine (fourth–fifth centuries CE; Fig. 5: 7, 10) periods. Five of the six coins in the fills were identified. They dated to the second quarter of the second century BCE (Antiochus IV, ‘Akko; IAA No. 96081); the end of the second–beginning of the first century BCE (Hasmonean, Jerusalem; IAA No. 96079; Hasmonean, Alexander Jannaeus; IAA No. 96078) and the first century CE (two procurator coins: Antonius Felix from 54 CE; IAA No. 96080 and Festus from 59 CE; IAA No. 96077). A broken stone disk (Fig. 5:11) perforated in the center was retrieved from one of the fill layers (L5). Incised crude circles, surrounding the perforation and along the circumference, decorated the disk. Although comparisons for the disc were not found, it seems to have functioned as a loom weight.

Area B. Three tombs (T100–T102; Fig. 4) were discovered 35 m north of the architectural remains. The two bedrock-hewn northern tombs were rectangular pit graves. Tomb 100 (0.50 × 1.75 m, max. depth 0.75 m) was completely plundered; Tomb 101 (0.60 × 1.75 m, max. depth 0.80 m) contained a few bones, as well as several fragments of pottery vessels and numerous fragments of glass vessels, dating to the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. To the south, a bell-shaped burial complex (T102; 2.2 × 2.3 m) that probably contained several graves was discovered. Signs of looting were visible, but the complex was not excavated due to opposition of ultra-orthodox circles.