Five excavation squares were opened, exposing 17 ancient rock-cut installations (Fig. 2): a winepress, bodedot, quarries and cupmarks. Stone-clearance heaps were also documented; in the center of the kibbutz—outside the excavation area—an unidentified installation and a burial cave were documented as well.
Winepress (L24; Figs. 3, 4). The winepress consisted of a treading floor (3.0 × 3.3 m, 0.1 m deep) and a collecting vat (1 × 2 m, 1.3 m deep), which yielded a few Byzantine potsherds (not drawn). The floor of the collecting vat was paved with white mosaic tesserae, but it was not preserved in its entirety; a sump was hewn in the southwest corner of the collecting vat.
Bodedot (L6, L13). Bodeda 6 (Fig. 3) comprised a treading floor (1.3 × 1.5 m, c. 10 cm deep) and a collecting vat (0.6 × 0.8 m, 0.4 m deep) with a small depression (c. 5 cm deep) in its center. Bodeda 13 (Fig. 5), hewn in a sloping rock surface, consisted of an elliptical treading floor (0.7 × 1.1 m, c. 0.2 m deep) and a collecting vat (0.7 × 1.0 m, 0.15 m deep).
Quarries. Eleven quarried rock outcrops were uncovered in the northwestern and southern parts of the site (L5, L7, L10–L12, L15–L17, L20–L22; Table 1). Some of the quarries had several quarrying steps, and some had quarrying channels or chisel marks. In Quarries 11 and 17 (Figs. 6, 7) had undetached ashlars.
Table 1. Quarries
Locus
|
Type
|
Description
|
Dimensions
|
5
|
Chisel marks
|
|
0.2 m long
|
7
|
Chisel marks
|
|
0.5 m long
|
10
|
Quarrying channels
|
Two quarrying channels
|
0.5 m long, 5 cm wide, 5 cm deep
|
11
|
Quarry
|
One quarrying step and an undetached ashlar
|
Quarry boundaries not detected;
max. exposed width 4 m. Ashlar
(0.5 × 0.8 m, 0.15 m high)
|
12
|
Quarry
|
Negative of one detached stone
|
0.6 × 1.0 m, 0.25 m high
|
15
|
Quarry
|
Three quarrying steps
|
Quarry boundaries not detected; max. exposed width 3 m
|
16
|
Quarry
|
Two quarrying steps
|
Quarry boundaries not detected;
max. exposed width 3 m
|
17
|
Quarry
|
Two quarrying steps and an undetached ashlar
|
Ashlar (0.5 × 0.8 m, 0.3 m high)
|
20
|
Chisel marks
|
|
0.8 m long
|
21
|
Quarry
|
One quarrying step
|
Max. width 2.5 m
|
22
|
Quarry
|
Two quarrying steps
|
Max. width 4 m
|
Cupmarks and Depressions. Two cupmarks were unearthed (L14, L25; diam. c. 30 cm). Cupmark 25 (Fig. 3) contained a depression in its center. Cupmark 14 was discovered near the quarries on the southern boundary of the excavation area. Also found were four depressions (diam. c. 0.1 m) aligned east–west, c. 1 m apart from each other (L9; Fig. 8).
Stone-Clearance Heaps. Three stone-clearance heaps that post-date the quarries’ use were discovered on the surface.
Agricultural Installation (L27; Fig. 9). In the center of the kibbutz, near a kindergarten, a rock outcrop was found to contain an entrance to a cave that is probably natural and has no signs of having been worked. Rock-cutting marks discovered on top of the rock outcrop, apparently belong to an agricultural installation, possibly a winepress. The installation may have served in secondary use, when a shaft was hewn in it leading down into the cave.
Burial Cave (L26; Fig. 10). The burial cave was documented in the center of the kibbutz. A rock-cut entrance (Fig. 11) leads via steps from the north face of a rock outcrop into the underground chamber. The cave is hewn on a north–south axis and contains arcosolia cut into the west and east walls. A roll-stone was found nearby.
The remains are characteristic of an agricultural hinterland, and may be associated with the nearby settlements remains at Kafr Bara. The installations were used to obtain building materials and to produce wine and oil. Except for a few pottery body fragments recovered from the bottom of the winepress’s collecting vat, no diagnostic finds that could help date the site were retrieved.