Archaeologists carrying out a dig prior to the expansion of the town of Rahat have found the remains of a 1,200-year-old palatial estate that had cooled rooms to escape the heat.
The find hailed as exciting by the experts is the first of its kind in the Negev and has been uncovered by a team from the Israel Antiquities Authority. They found not only a building courtyard, but a unique vaulted complex overlying a 10-foot-deep, rock-hewn water cistern underneath it, dated to the Early Islamic period (8th-9th centuries AD).
