NETIVOT, ISRAEL—Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority, assisted by volunteers and students, unearthed a press that was used for the mass-production of wine some 1,500 years ago in a village in the Negev. “First, the grapes were pressed. Then the juice was funneled through canals to a pit where the sediment settled. From there, the wine was piped into vats lined with stone and marble, where it would ferment until it was stored in clay bottles,” supervisor Ilan Peretz said in a press release. A cross had been etched into seashells that decorated one of the vats of the wine press. The excavators also found a workshop and a public building that had been decorated with marble latticework in the form of a cross and flowers. The team also recovered tools, seals, cups, and oil lamps. For more on ancient wine, go to "A Prehistoric Cocktail Party."
