Vinter’s House
Another courtyard-style house is found in Area C just north of the Fisherman’s House and is contemporary with it. It was dubbed the “Vinter’s House” because of the four large, complete storage jars found in a cellar, 4.5 m x 5.7 m in size, capped by long basalt stones. The jars, with wine residue still inside, date from the end of the second to the first century BCE.
Situated atop the tell, the upper level of this house afforded its residents a spectacular view in all directions. In the courtyard, remains of the original pavement are still visible. A large pit was dug in the center of the courtyard sometime during the medieval period. The walls around the courtyard are over 0.7 m thick and made of small stones set in fine masonry. Recent restoration efforts are visible throughout this assemblage. At the southeast corner of the courtyard, excavators found several large basalt beams believed to have been the remains of a collapsed corbelled roof that partly covered the courtyard.
Some very interesting discoveries around the northern end of the courtyard have been made. During the 1993 season excavators found an iron strigilis, which is a flat, curved scraper used by Greco-Roman athletes for the purpose of removing perspiration and oils from the skin. The following season excavators working near the entrance of the room at the north end of the courtyard discovered two fragments from the remains of a broken jar marked with geometric incisions on their outer surfaces. The remainder of the jar, recovered from a first-century CE context, could not be completely restored, but four of the shards restored to their original placement revealed a cross-shaped design, most likely representing a star or the sun. The excavators were able to determine that the incision had been made with a sharp, pointed tool sometime after the the jar was fired and before its eventual destruction. The shard bearing the upper extension of the cruciform incision has not been recovered. Finally, just outside the walls of the Vintner’s House excavators discovered a small clay figurine of a bearded man with a tall headgear. According to the excavators, a similar figurine was recovered in situ from the north Phoenician coastal site of Tel Amrit and dated to the Persian period.
The house’s kitchen, which measures 11 m x 4.5 m, has an oven near the entrance on the western wall leading to the courtyard. An array of grinding implements and cooking pots were also found. Long iron nails were recovered near the 1-meter-wide doorway to the courtyard, suggesting to excavators that the entrance was framed in wood and may have had a hinged door. An iron key of Hellenistic-Roman type, three bronze pruning hooks, and a gold earring were also found nearby.
At the western end of the building is the residential dining room, or triclinium, with its door to the courtyard along the room’s southern wall. The lintel of the door was recovered just outside the entrance. West of the triclinium a double wall divides the room from a smaller, irregularly shaped room. The precise function of the room has not been determined, but a bench lies on the western side of the double dividing wall. Its irregular shape is probably due to its proximity to the angle of the street running along the western side of the house. A section of this street has been preserved in situ and incorporated with the modern tourist path. If the owner of this home was indeed a landowning vintner, the family may have enjoyed a modest amount of political, as well as social, advantage.