During May 2005, a salvage excavation was conducted north of Moshav Ani‘am (Permit No. A-4491*; map ref. NIG 26995/76255; OIG 21995/26255), prior to the construction of a new neighborhood. The excavation, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, was directed by O. Zingboym (surveying), with the assistance of Y. Ya‘aqoby (administration), N. Getzov (guidance), I. Berin (drafting), H. Ben-David and M. Hartal (assistance in ceramic reading), Y. Gorin-Rosen (glass) and D. Syon (numismatics).
The excavation area was located on a basalt plain that descends gently westward, to Nahal ‘Ayyit. A stone heap piled atop a built tomb from the Roman period was excavated. Not far to the south, an excavation conducted at Kh. Amudiyya revealed artifacts dating to the Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman periods (HA 67-68:10 [Hebrew]). The site was also surveyed within the Survey of the Central Golan (ESI 18:5–6).
The Tomb (Figs. 1, 2). A rectangular burial cell (0.8 × 2.0 m, depth 0.65 m), dug into the ground down to the basalt bedrock level and lined with medium-sized fieldstones, was excavated. The tomb was probably part of a large burial field located north of the excavation area and connected to Kh. Amudiyya. Most of the tombs in this field were probably pit graves that did not survive. The tomb contained pottery from the Roman period, Kefar Hananya ware and a single fragment that originated from Kh. Hawarit in the northern Golan Heights and an elongated and decorated glass bead that is dated to the late Roman period. Most of the ceramic finds were characteristic of Jewish settlements in the Galilee and Lower Golan and some potsherds typified the Christian settlements in the Northern Golan (Panias). The tomb was located along the borderline between the Jewish settlement region in the Lower Golan and the Christian occupied area in the Upper Golan.
A Stone Heap (Fig. 3). The elliptical heap of fieldstones (3.0 × 4.7 m, height 0.92 m) was surrounded by a fieldstone circle that was a single course high and survived on the northern and western sides. The excavation of the stone heap revealed pottery from the Roman period, up to the middle of the fourth century CE and a single fragment decorated with a rope ornamentation that apparently dated to the Middle Bronze Age, as well as ammunition from the First World War (1914).