Largest wine factory in the world from Byzantine period unearthed in Yavne

• Author: ROSSELLA TERCATIN
• Published date: 11 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The factory was used to produce the legendary regional wine, known as Gaza or Ashkelon wine after the ports from where it was exported all over the Mediterranean. It included five impressive wine presses, large treading floors where the grapes were crushed, two huge octagonal vats, storage rooms and kilns to produce jars to conserve the wine.

The facility is said to have produced as much as two million liters of wine annually.

Yavne is located in central Israel and was an important city some 1,500 years ago was, according to IAA archaeologist Dr. Jon Seligman, co-director of excavation with Dr. Elie Haddad and Liat Nadav-Ziv.

"Yavne was important enough to be put in a map from the period with Jerusalem, featuring three large churches," he said. "First and foremost, it was a Christian town. But we also know that there were populations of Jews and Samaritans living there during the same time period. It had a bishop. It was located in what at the time was on a major road, called the sea highway, which went from north to south, and on its junction with the Sorek River."

The wine factory's remains were first uncovered during a salvage excavation prior to the construction of a new residential and commercial neighborhood. In Israel, all development projects must be accompanied by such excavations.

"We have been exposing an industrial area of ancient Yavne," Seligman said. "We found remains of other industries, for example, producing glass and metal. We also found remains from other periods, such as a house from the ninth century and some other buildings from the interim period between the Byzantine and Islamic periods."

In addition, the remains of another wine press was uncovered, dating back some 2,300 years ago, during the Persian period, testifying to the city's long tradition in wine production, as stated in the Mishna, which mentions a vineyard of Yavne.

After the...