Courtesy Bethsaida Excavations

A well-stocked wine cellar dates to the Hellenistic era (332–37 B.C.E.)—a time of regrowth for Bethsaida thanks to its strategic location between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. A residential quarter of private homes featured several rooms surrounding a paved courtyard, with walls more than 2 feet thick. In this house, dubbed the Wine Maker’s House, excavators found four large wine jars and pruning hooks. Another house yielded anchors, fishhooks, needles and lead net weights, as well as a seal depicting two figures flinging a net from a boat with a horsehead-shaped prow—all evidence of the importance of fishing in ancient Bethsaida.