JERUSALEM—A 1,600-year-old winery has been unearthed at a construction site that was once home to a nineteenth-century orphanage located just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls. The winery is thought to have been part of a large manor house. It featured a pit with a press screw anchored in it surrounded by a pressing surface paved with a white mosaic. Eight cells around the pressing surface were used for storing grapes and possibly for blending their juices. Traces of a private bath house, including terracotta pipes and bricks, were found near the winepress. Some of the bricks were stamped with the name of the Tenth Roman Legion, one of the four garrisoned in Jerusalem until A.D. 300. These bricks may have been produced at the nearby site of Binyanei Ha-Uma. “Once again, Jerusalem demonstrates that wherever one turns over a stone ancient artifacts will be found related to the city’s glorious past. The archaeological finds discovered here help paint a living, vibrant, and dynamic picture of Jerusalem as it was in ancient times up until the modern era,” archaeologist Alex Wiegmann of the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a press release. To read more about ancient wine making, go to "French Wine, Italian Vine."
