Table of content's in Hebrew and in English

Qanat systems operated mainly in arid and semi-arid regions to obtain ground water by means of gravitation. This sophisticated technology was identified at three sites in the ‘Arava—‘En ‘Avrona, ‘En Yotvata and ‘En Marzev—and provided water all year round for household and irrigation needs. Excavations at these sites exposed agricultural farms, comprising a qanat system, a reservoir, a cultivated area and rectangular structures. Finds include pottery, stone and glass vessels, metal finds, coins and epigraphical finds, as well as organic material, botanical remains, melanopsis shells and faunal remains, dating to the Early Islamic period (late seventh–ninth centuries CE). This date for the introduction of the qanat-system technology in Israel is in accordance with the evidence from other countries in the Levant. 

An excavation at the Ramlod Interchange exposed a subterranean circular, plastered installation, with one course of its vaulted roof still extant and two rectangular openings. The fill in the upper part of the installation consisted of animal bones, pottery sherds and fragments of glass vessels, and in the lower part were complete pottery and glass vessels, roof tiles and ceramic tiles mixed with charcoal and animal bones. It seems that the assemblage was discarded into the pit between the second half of the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries CE. The installation, built on the hill at the outskirts of the city, was apparently one of many cesspits discovered in Ramla and its vicinity. 

A salvage excavation within the boundaries of the ancient city of Ramla revealed four strata. The earliest, Stratum IV, comprised an earthen fill, containing potsherds—including imports from Egypt and China—stone and glass vessels, dating from the mid-eighth to the tenth centuries CE. Stratum III included three architectural phases: fragmentary remains of installations and a wall foundation (Phase IIIc); remains of a large building, which was erected upon three terraces (Phase IIIb); and an ashlar-built, paved circular installation (Phase IIIa). The finds from Stratum III date from the mid-eighth to the eleventh centuries CE, and include potsherds and animal bones. The building was probably built during the Abbasid period and used until the Fatimid period. Stratum II is mainly attested by robbery trenches and Mamluk-period potsherds. Stratum I was dated to the Ottoman period based on ceramic pipes. 

Excavations east of Moshav Ge’alya uncovered a cemetery and a habitation site dating to the Mamluk period. Within the cemetery, four types of burial tombs, oriented in a general west–east axis with the deceased facing Mecca, were found. These were individual cist burials, which were covered with ceramic vessels that were used in place of covering slabs. The covering vessels belong to three well-known, Mamluk-period ceramic types (mid-thirteenth–early sixteenth centuries CE): bag-shaped jars, water lifting devices (antiliya) and beehive containers. Other finds include meager glass finds, coins, iron horseshoes, square-sectioned iron nails, a bronze arrowhead, jewelry, spatulas, a buckle and a fragment of a two-sided bone comb. The remains excavated at Ge’alya were most probably part of a small village or farm in the agricultural hinterland of Yavne, and add important data to the ethnological picture of the region.