During May 2007, a trial excavation was conducted near Hayyim Barlev Boulevard in Jerusalem (Permit No. A-5137; map ref. NIG 22194–200/63391–7; OIG 17194–200/13391–7), prior to the construction of the light railway. The excavation, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and underwritten by the Moriya Company, was directed by A. Nagar, with the assistance of R. Abu Halaf (administration), T. Sagiv (field photography), E. Belashov (drafting), R. Vinitsky (metallurgical laboratory), N. Katsnelson (glass) and D.T. Ariel (numismatics).
The excavation was carried out on a gentle hill slope that descends to the east, between the National Headquarters of the Israel Police and Ammunition Hill. The site is located along an ancient road that linked Jerusalem to Samaria. The excavation revealed a stone quarry on a bedrock outcrop (length c. 38.5 m; Fig. 1).
Two vertically hewn bedrock sides (southern—width 0.86 m, height 0.27 m; eastern—width 0.95 m, height 0.2 m) and severance channels of three medium-sized stones that had not been completely quarried out were exposed in the southern part of the outcrop (Fig. 2). Two rock-hewn steps, c. 14.5 m north of these rock-cuttings, were discovered (Fig. 3). The upper step was narrow (length 1.45 m, width 7 cm, max. height 0.25 m) and the lower step was wider (length 1.45 m, width 0.65 m, height 0.4 m). Three severance channels around a stone (0.45 × 0.55 m) that had not been detached were exposed on the southern side of the lower step.
The ceramic finds from the excavation were mixed and ranged in date from the Iron Age until the Ottoman period. Other finds from the excavation included three coins, two of which dated to the second–third centuries CE (IAA 111736, 111737) and the third, found north of the excavation, to the fourteenth century CE (IAA 111738); pieces of lead and a glass fragment that is dated to the Roman-Byzantine periods. The finds were not discovered in situ; they apparently came from the alluvium or fill that was brought to the site when the adjacent road was paved. Hence, the date of the quarry is unknown.