Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
In the 1994 season of the excavations in Ramla, archaeologist Don Glick, digging on behalf of Israel Antiquities Authority, exposed in a field on the eastern part of the city, some 600 m. to the south east of Birkat al-ՙAnaziyya, a complex of water installations consisting of two small basins or troughs (one 1.00 × 1.50 m. and the other 0.50 × 0.62 m.), and water canals and pipes. One of the canals was covered with a slab of marble, with an Arabic inscription, in a secondary usage. In the course of fitting the stone to its new purpose, it was cut and a few lines from the top and bottom of the inscription were lost. From the contents of the inscription, as we shall soon see, it can be learnt that the field and the water installations continued to be in use, long after the inscription ceased to serve its purpose, for it was utilized in the repairs of the water installations in the field at some later date.