In November–December 2005, an excavation was conducted within the precincts of the Wasset antiquities site (Permit No. A-4646; map ref. 26862–82/78274–9), prior to installing electric poles. The excavation, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and financed by the Israel Electric Company, was directed by W. Atrash (photography), with the assistance of Y. Ya‘aqobi (administration), D. Sandhaus-Re’em (pottery reading) and H. Tahan-Rosen (pottery drawing).
The site is located on a basalt plateau at Wasset Junction in the Golan Heights, between Moshav Sha‘al and Kibbutz Merom Golan (Fig. 1). A survey (License No. S-116/2009) and an excavation conducted at the site in 2006 (
Bron 2007) yielded pottery from the Early Bronze Age and Hellenistic period and architectural remains from the Roman period. These helped establidh the following settlement sequence: The site was most probably inhabited already in the Early Bronze Age, was abandoned for a long time and reoccupied during the Hellenistic period; that settlement continued to exist until the Late Roman–Early Byzantine period, after which it was abandoned, resettled in the Mamluk period and abandoned once again in 1967.
Two squares were excavated: Sq I yielded a deposition layer and Sq II—remains of collapsed walls of uncertain date. A scant amount of pottery sherds from the EB II, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods and the modern era was found in both squares.
Square I contained a layer of gray-brown soil (thickness 25–30 cm) deposited on basalt bedrock. Indications of weathering were clearly visible on the bedrock (Fig. 2). The pottery recovered from this square included an EB II pithos with an everted rim (Fig. 3:1), as well as a cooking pot with a plain rim (Fig. 3:2) and a base of a ridged piriform jug (Fig. 3:3), both from the Roman period.
Square II. Collapsed, small and medium-sized basalt fieldstones were found in the southwestern part of the square. A large quantity of modern explosives was found in a layer of gray-brown soil, below and between the stone, bringing the excavation to a halt. Pottery sherds from EB II, the Hellenistic and the Roman periods were found; most of the ceramic artifacts date to the Roman period, including a ridged Galilean bowl (Fig. 3:4) and a cooking pot with a plain rim (Fig. 3:5). The area was disturbed as a result of modern activity and could not be dated on the basis of the finds.
The finds indicate that Sq I, where no architectural remains were found, was located outside the archaeological site, whereas Sq II, where building remains were discovered but not exposed, was located at the center of the site. The ceramic finds corroborate the chronological conclusions reached following the previous survey and excavations.