Prophet Elias Hill

Judging from the finds, it was here that a small community clustered together comfortably, largely out of sight of passing boats to the south, but perched high enough to watch the routes into the valley from all four compass points. The modern path up the hill to the chapel zig-zags up the northern side, and this no doubt was also used in antiquity, since all other ways are too precipitous for comfortable climbing. The steepness of the slope lends itself to easy defense, even on the northern side. Its distance from the coast suggests a home to farmers rather than fishermen.

Two other locations to the west of the Kofinas ridge yielded quantities of chert debris without any associated pottery. Other tracts in this area revealed petrified wood and high concentrations of 'chert flakes' which may indicate quarrying.

Prophet Ilias Hill also produced a small number of Ottoman green and brown glazed sherds, however, none of the findings have had substantial building remains which could be associated with these finds, other than the chapel on top of Prophet Ilias and some dilapidated field walls. The Early Bronze Age material was much greater in quantity.

On Prophet Ilias a more thorough count of surface material was undertaken by marking out a grid at 10 m intervals and counting all material within a 1 m radius of each intersection of the grid lines. This was done both for sections of the Lower Terrace and the Upper Terrace on the northern slope as well as on the western slope.