(9) Vineyards and Wine-vats.—The grape is often alluded to in the Bible, and directions are given as to how one may conduct himself in a vineyard (Deut. 23:24) and as to how thoroughly one might glean his vines (Lev. 25:5). The most complete description of a vineyard is in Isa. 5:1-8. The one feature of that description that would survive for an archæologist to discover is the wine-vat. These vats were often cut in the solid rock, and many of them have been found, both in excavating and in traveling over the country. The vats for pressing grapes and other fruits may be distinguished from olive-presses because they lack all arrangements for mechanical pressing. The grapes were trodden with the feet, and as the juice was pressed out it ran down into a deeper portion of the vat. Some of these vats are surrounded by “cup-marks” or hollow places cut in the stone in order to hold pointed-bottomed jars upright. Sometimes the cup-marks are connected with the main vat by tiny channels, through which any of the grape-juice that might drain from the outside of the jar, after the jar had been dipped in the vat, might run back; (see [Fig. 87]).
(10) Olive-presses.—Similarly, olive-presses are very numerous in Palestine. Presses were found in the stratum of the cave-dwellers of Gezer. The olive industry is, accordingly, very old. Olive-presses comprised, in addition to the vat, an upright stone with a large hole in it. In this hole a beam was inserted. This beam rested on the olives which were to be pressed, extending far beyond the receptacle containing the olives, and weights were hung on the end farthest from the stone; (see [Fig. 88]). Palestine in ancient times, as now, was covered with olive orchards, many of which had oil-presses. Such an orchard was called a “garden.” The Garden of Gethsemane, the scene of one of the most sacred incidents of the life of Christ (Matt. 26:36; Mark 14:32), was an olive orchard and took its name from the oil-press. Gethsemane means “oil-press.” Wine-vats and oil-presses were of various types, but into their forms there is not space to enter here[163]; (see Figs. [85], [86]).
The prominent place held by wine and oil among the agricultural products of the country is indicated by the receipts for the storage of various quantities of these articles which were found at Samaria.
(11) The Agricultural Calendar.—In the books of the old Testament the names applied to the months are, for the most part, names derived from Babylonia, but it appears that at Gezer they had a series of names for the months based on their agricultural year. In the stratum which contained remains from the time of the Hebrew monarchy, 1000-550 B. C., an inscription was found which, though the end was broken away, contained the following names for the months:
1. Month of ingathering. (See Exod. 23:16; 34:22.)
2. Month of sowing.
3. Month of the late [sowing?].
4. Month of the flax-harvest.
5. Month of the barley-harvest. (See Ruth 2:23; 2 Sam. 21:9.)
6. Month of the harvest of all [other grains?].