JERUSALEM, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Israeli archaeologists have exposed a 1,500-year-old massive wine factory, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said Monday.
The huge and well-designed industrial estate from the Byzantine period has been excavated over the past two years in the city of Yavne in central Israel.
It is the largest complex of winepresses known in the world, according to the IAA.
The archaeologists said about 2 million liters of wine were manually produced at the site every year.
The plant had five magnificent winepresses, four large warehouses for aging and marketing the wine, and well-planned access between the facilities.
The team has also found tens of thousands of fragments and intact clay amphorae, known as Gaza jars, made at the site in large kilns and used for wine storage.
Around the treading floor, where the grapes were crushed barefoot to extract the liquid, compartments were built for fermenting the wine.
Next to them were two huge octagonal-shaped vats for collecting the wine.
Decorative niches in the shape of a conch, which adorned the winepresses, indicate the great wealth of the factory owners.
The excavation also revealed rare and even older winepresses from the Persian period dating to about 2,300 years ago, showing a continuum of wine industry at the site over many centuries. Enditem