Staff of the Israel Antiquities Authority work at the site of a newly-discovered 1,200-year-old rural estate in the southern Israeli Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev desert, on Aug, 23. 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

Photo taken on Aug, 23. 2022 shows aerial view of the site a newly-discovered 1,200-year-old rural estate in the southern Israeli Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev desert. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

Photo taken on Aug, 23. 2022 shows wares unearthed at the site of a newly-discovered 1,200-year-old rural estate in the southern Israeli Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev desert. (Photo: Xinhua)

 

A staff member of the Israel Antiquities Authority works at the site of a newly-discovered 1,200-year-old rural estate in the southern Israeli Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev desert, on Aug, 23. 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

 
Israeli archaeologists have discovered a 1,200-year-old luxurious rural estate in the southern Negev desert, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said Tuesday.

The estate, first of its kind in the Negev, was exposed in excavations carried out by the IAA prior to the expansion of the Bedouin city of Rahat.

The building, dating back to the early Islamic period, was constructed around a central courtyard, and comprised four wings with rooms.

In one wing, there was a hall paved with a marble and stone floor as well as walls decorated with frescos. The extant small fresco fragments were finely colored in red, yellow, blue and black.

Other rooms had plaster floors, and in more rooms, very large cooking ovens were uncovered.

Among the small finds were fragments of delicate decorated glass dishes.

In the building courtyard, the team found a unique vaulted complex overlying a three-meter-deep rock-hewn water cistern.

The vaults, which were carefully constructed, probably led into additional underground uncovered complexes for storing foodstuffs at fairly cool temperatures.

The supporting vaulted structures also enabled the residents to move around underground safely and comfortably, to protect themselves from the scorching summer heat, and to drink cool water from the adjacent cistern, the researchers noted.

Shreds of a clay oil lamp used for lighting the dark rooms were also retrieved on the vault floors.

The researchers assessed that a wealthy high-status landowner, overseeing farmsteads in the northern Negev, may have resided on the estate.