The excavation unearthed a segment of a wide, north–south wall (W101; exposed length 7 m, width 1.1–1.2 m, height 0.45 m; Fig. 3), which continued both north and south, beyond the excavated area. Based on the observation conducted during the mechanical digging, the wall extends for at least another five meters further to the south, approaching the tributary streambed; its northern extension remains unknown. The excavated segment slopes slightly southward, toward the streambed. The row of basalt stones which was encountered at the outset of the excavation formed the eastern face of this wall, which was well-defined and straight; the western face of the wall was not as well defined (Fig. 4). Both faces of the wall were built of unworked, medium-sized and large basalt stones. Between them was a core of small basalt stones. The wall was preserved for the most part only one course high, and occasionally up to two courses high. It is slightly tilted toward the west, perhaps as a result of a seismological tremor, as suggested by collapsed basalt stones alongside its western face. The wall was founded on a layer of sterile, compact red clay soil. A probe (1 × 2 m) through this layer, opened in the southwest corner of the excavated square, reached the natural basalt layer (large boulders) at a depth of 1.5 m below the present surface without encountering any anthropogenic deposits.
A total of 125 rather minute pottery sherds were retrieved during the manual excavation from the top of W101 (L100) and from in-between its building stones (L101). Of these, 14 were diagnostic, dating from the Byzantine or the Early Islamic period; nine are illustrated here (Fig. 5). They comprise both imported (Fig. 5:1–3) and locally manufactured (Fig. 5:4–9) vessels. Imported fine ware is a common feature at sites in the Jordan and Jezreel Valleys of the fifth century CE, and includes specimens belonging to two main groups, both of which were found in the excavation: Phocaean Ware (LRC) is represented by Hayes’s Form 3 (Fig. 5:1, 2; Hayes 1972
:329–338); and Cypriot Red Slip Ware, represented by a variant of Hayes’s Form 2 (Fig. 5:3; Hayes 1972
:373–376), which was produced in Cyprus and is generally dated to the middle of the fifth century CE. A small bowl (Fig. 5:4) belongs to the rouletted bowl Form 1 (Magness 1993
:185–187), dated to the fourth and fifth centuries CE. The grooved rim bowl (Fig. 5:5) and the arched-rim basin (Fig. 5:6) are typical local vessels, dated to the early fourth–sixth centuries CE. The hard-fired ware holemouth with a thickened rim (Fig. 5:7, 8) was found, for example, in the early Islamic stratum at Capernaum (Loffreda 1974
) and is dated to the sixth-seventh centuries CE and, as is the jar in Fig. 5:9.
In addition, a few small white tesserae and a stone spindle whorl (Fig. 5:10) were collected.
The function of W101 is difficult to ascertain. As it is rather long (over 13 m) and straight, somewhat massively built with only one well-defined straight face, and does not seem to have any adjacent floor level, it probably was not part of a building; this conclusion is supported by the relative paucity of potsherds. Furthermore, based on a nearby trial excavation carried out in 2001 (Tepper and Covello-Paran 2012
) and a 2007 survey in the area (Tepper 2012
), it seems most likely that W101 was part of an enclosure wall of an agricultural complex that may have included a Byzantine farmhouse.