This report presentst the results of extensive excavations at H. Shallale and its environs, one of the biggest ancient sites on Mount Carmel, which took place between 2002 and 2007. Surveys revealed a 3500 year occupation history from the Bronze Age to British Mandate Palestine. Due to fundng issues the excavations did not cover the Bronze and Iron Age areas, and the report thus focuses on Hellenistic to modern Shallale. The site is cautiously identified as the "City of Carmel" mentioned by Pliny.

On the death of Dan Urman in 2004, his colleagues set about completing his unfinished manuscripts, including this volume: Rafid on the Golan (its ruins remain in a demilitarized zone controlled by United Nations forces), one of Dan UrmanAes last archaeological projects. He succeeded in completing the chapters detailing the survey of the houses in the village, carried out during the years 1968-1970. The houses were measured, photographed, and an overall map was drawn, which included all houses, alleys, footpaths, public areas and water reservoirs. The survey team realized that Rafid was an unusual archaeological resource that preserved scores of ancient buildings still standing from foundation to the rafters, constructed of basalt. Dan Urman saw in the survey of Rafid and in the scientific material collected within its framework the highest achievement of the Golan survey: the intact buildings built of decorated basalt could, in his opinion, serve as a model of the building style prevalent in the Roman and Byzantine periods - not only on the Golan, but also on the Korazim and Issachar plateaus. Because of the long time that elapsed between the survey and the preparation of the material for publication, it was necessary to find a Golan expert, who would complete lacunae in the manuscript and present with the rich archaeological material from Rafid also the general background and new research on the Golan and the region bordering on it. Dr. Moshe Hartal from Israel Antiquities Authority, who worked in the original survey team with Dan Urman agreed to work on the manuscript and added the following chapters: The geographical setting, the architectural decorations, the Hauran-style architecture and a synthesis of the history of Rafid in the various historical periods.

Between 1996 and 2002 a series of excavations took place on the site of a large estate villa at Raqit on Mount Carmel, the buildings of which occupied approximately two acres. The results are published here, with discoveries including an unroofed water reservoir, two burial caves (containing the remains of fifty individuals), oil and wine presses, agricultural terraces and workshops, and a synagogue. Supported throughout by photographs and illustrations of the remains, the report discusses each structure in detail before assessing what this extensive site, identified as belonging in the Roman period to the Marinus family, reveals about settlement patterns on Mount Carmel from the Persian to Byzantine periods. Appendices present discussions and catalogues of the dinds, including the human remains, decorative stonework, inscriptions, oil lamps, pottery and glass vessels, metal objects, animal remains and dendrochronology samples.

By publishing these ten essays in English in the BAR series the research carried out by the contributors, and the evidence and fieldwork methodologies they cite, is made available to a much wider audience. This volume contains an important collection of case studies and overviews of rural settlement in Israel from late prehistory to the modern period. Addressing broad questions on the physical nature of settlements, their appearance and disappearance from the archaeological record, the relationship between rural and urban sites, settlement patterns and processes, and economic activities, the contributors offer a good cross-section of approaches to the subject.

Under threat from the military, a major program of research was launched at the site of Sumaqa and its surrounding area. Survey and excavation revealed a series of ancient sites (to be published separately) and a complex historical and architectural sequence in the town itself. This volume reports on excavations between 1983 and 1995 at the synagogue, two large dwelling complexes, a cistern and cave, an oil press, six workshops, and three wine presses. These buildings were the subject of detailed investigation through excavation, planning, studying the various building phases and isolating chronological evidence. The result is a good historical and architectural sequence for the major developments at Sumaqa from the Roman to Late Medieval period.

Report on the archaeological survey of the southern and western slopes of Mount Hermon, a marginal region inhabited in ancient times by the Ituraeans, a people of Arab origin referred to in the Bible as sons of Ishmael and known to us mainly as an ethnic and political entity in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Through decription and analysis of the remnants and finds discovered in the sites explored Dar provides a synthesis and clarification of historical subjects and questions related to the culture and religion of the Ituraeans in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.