Naḥal Tut (Site VIII): A Fortified Storage Depot from the Late Fourth Century BCE (pp. 131–189)

Excavations at the site revealed a large building complex, comprising casemate walls built on bedrock around a large central courtyard with corner towers. It was a well-planned and well-fortified complex, located at a strategic point. The complex was occupied for a brief period of time, at the very end of the Persian (Achaemenid) period and the very beginning of the Hellenistic period (c. 350–325 BCE). It was destroyed by a violent destruction, which claimed human victims. The destruction was dated by a single bronze coin of Alexander III to 336–323 BCE. The pottery finds at the site were homogenous, including bowls, kraters, cooking pots, a flask, jugs and juglets, storage jars and lamps. Metal tools and weapons were found as well. The stone implements included a pair of fine hopper-rubber millstones, which were imported from the Aegean. Beneath the building were exposed walls of a Middle Bronze Age IIA–B building, alongside pottery vessels and animal bones. Subsequent to the destruction of the Persian-period building, the site served as a cemetery during the Mamluk–Ottoman periods.