Front Matter

A small excavation near Khirbat el-‘Umdan in the lower Judean Shephelah exposed stone floors bearing remains from the Late Chalcolithic period. The rich finds from the excavation comprise pottery vessels, such as V-shaped bowls, large basins, store jars, holemouths, churns and cornets, and a fragment of a zoomorphic figurine; groundstone vessels; flint tools, including many sickle blades; and a cash of three copper axes and a copper-alloy macehead. Also found were some 30 burned olive stones and animal skeletal remains. It seems that the settlement at the site existed for a short period in the first phase of the Late Chalcolithic period, a date further supported by three Carbon-14 dates.

A Middle Bronze Age II burial cave, reusing a Chalcolithic burial cave, was discovered during excavations carried out at Mazor (West). The Middle Bronze Age remains accumulated above the cave’s bedrock floor, utilizing the entire space. Seven individuals were discovered and about 50 intact or restorable MB II pottery vessels were retrieved, as well as three metal pins, three flint items and animal bones. It is probable that the cave, and other MB II sites in its vicinity, belonged to a system of villages and associated mortuary grounds, which were related to the main urban center at Tel Afeq.

The excavation conducted at Bene Beraq yielded remains dating from Middle Bronze Age II and the Byzantine, Early Islamic and Ottoman periods. Five poorly preserved tombs and a pottery kiln were dated to the end of MB IIA–beginning of MB IIB; the kiln resembles other such installations found in the central coastal plain. It seems that the site was a small satellite site located along Naḥal Ha-Yarqon, contemporary with the large cities of Afeq-Antipatris, Yafo and Tel Gerisa. The finds from the Late Roman–Byzantine periods included many antilia vessels, pointing to the existence of an antilia well nearby. Two perpendicular plastered kurkar channels were part of an irrigation system, which operated during the Ottoman period and the days of the British Mandate.

Excavations at Ḥorbat Ṭarbenet in the Jezreel Valley revealed four settlement strata: Stratum IV (Hellenistic period) yielded pottery and a coin, but no architectural remains; Stratum III (Roman period) included the remains of a bathhouse; Stratum II (Byzantine period) yielded the remains of a house and a plastered installation; and Stratum I (Early Islamic period) yielded pottery and coins, but no architectural remains. The bathhouse pool (natatio) yielded a large number of tubuli and fragments of a marble statue of Heracles that might have adorned it.

An excavation conducted at Ẓahal Square, outside and west of the Old City wall of Jerusalem, uncovered remains dating from the late Byzantine–Umayyad to the late Ottoman period, revealing evidence of Jerusalem’s urban expansion in different periods and its fortifications. The earliest remains are a Greek inscription, etched in bedrock during the late Byzantine–Umayyad period. Hewn walls of a deep moat and remains of a forewall from the late Early Islamic period were uncovered, allowing for a reconstruction of Jerusalem’s fortification system along the northwestern corner of the Old City. The city walls and the moat fell into disuse after their destruction by the Ayyubid Sultan al-Malik al-Mu‘azzam ‘Isa in the first quarter of the thirteenth century CE.