Gan HaGat (Wine Press Garden)

Gan HaGat — the Wine Press Garden — is a tiny urban park in central Tel Aviv built around a Byzantine-period wine press cut into the limestone bedrock. The press, around 1,500 years old, sits exposed in the centre of the park, with explanatory boards in Hebrew and English.

It is a small, easily missed spot, but a useful reminder that the apparently new Tel Aviv sits on much older ground.

things to do sight archaeology
A story
In the late 1980s an archaeological survey ahead of a planned high-rise discovered an intact Byzantine-era wine press, with the central crushing floor and the collecting cisterns cut into the bedrock. Rather than demolish, the developers built around the site and turned it into a small open park.

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