Zvi Gal

Israelite settlers built this two-room pillared building on the summit of the hill in the eighth century B.C. after the second—and final—destruction of the fortress. Pillars—constructed of stacked stone drums—divide the rooms, a technique that typifies buildings at other Israelite sites of the time. The opening of a rock-cut grain storage pit appears at lower center.

Author Zvi Gal tells us that this settlement based its economy on olive oil because he discovered at least three oil presses inside a well-built structure and another outside. The site possesses the largest complex of oil presses yet discovered in Biblical Galilee. The settlement was abandoned after it was destroyed, probably by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser (745–727 B.C.), known in the Bible as Pul (2 Kings 15:19).