The cistern discovered in the excavation was part of the western agricultural hinterland of the settlement at Be’er Shevaʽ in the Byzantine period. This hinterland, first established during the Byzantine period, extended west and north of the city and included cisterns, dams, farmhouses and other structures that have been found in surveys and excavations conducted west and north of the city (Nahshoni 2000; Sonntag 2012; Israel, Seriy and Feder 2013; Nikolsky 2014).