New Olive Press Complex Discovered

On May 11, 2019 Oren Gutfield, the lead archeologist from Israel, and a team of UVU faculty and students crawled on bended knee through a narrow tunnel and discovered a cavern with three complete olive presses. The tunnel was originally a small hole inside one of the smaller columbarium. Mounds of rock and dirt prevented easy entrance, but Gutfield and his UVU team were determined to dig up another discovery. After a few minutes, with the use of his pickaxe and hoe, Gutfield took a deep breath in, squeezed inside, and disappeared from sight. Soon, his voice came floating through the dusty darkness, he informed the group in Hebrew that he was stuck but gave a great laugh. Then he instructed those that were left behind to continue to enlarge the opening a little more and then to follow him. The room beyond, he declared, was amazing. The team set to work and one by one wormed through the tunnel. With their pants crusted in dirt and rocks floating amongst their hair, the UVU personnel emerged into a complex contained three well-preserved olive presses and the possibility of a fourth, now half buried under hundred years of dirt and disuse. Visible amongst the dirt was the obvious niches in which the people of Beit Lehi would crush their olives to create oil. Excitement was riddled on Gutfield’s face as he spoke in a mere whisper, “It’s perfect. It’s complete.” Quickly, he began to make plans the excavate the area next year. It seemed, however, that he couldn’t wait so long, as he immediately began to pull rock out of holes brush dirt off the olive presses. Then, for just a moment, the team took a moment to stand in awe and admire Beit Lehi’s most recent discovery.

This Olive Press complex is located in the Horvat A’muda area (or Place of the Pillars) which is the northern neighborhood of the Beit Lehi Regional project. This region now covers 36 square kilometers. You can view the panorama and experience this striking discovery for yourself.

-McKayla Boyd , UVU English Department