58 MORTEN HØRNING JENSEN 4. Rural Villages and Towns As mentioned above, surveys need to be complemented by a perspective from actual excavations, and it is to this body of evidence that we now turn. Four excavations of villages or towns from Galilee and the Golan with first-century layers will be considered. The settlements that I will briefly introduce here are Cana, Capernaum and Yodefat in Galilee and Gamla in the Golan. Of these, Yodefat and Cana are of special interest since their destruction during the Jewish War effectively sealed their first-century stratum 48. In order to measure the socio-economic pulse of these villages/towns, we must look for evidence of the following four points of focus: (a) enlargement or decline in the settlement perimeters, (b) signs of local industrial activity, (c) signs of public buildings, and (d) signs of stratified housing. Together, these four points of focus will provide another gauge on the socio-economic pulse of Galilee. A detailed survey of these four settlements paints a picture of the rural areas without signs of decline in the early first century. On the contrary, there was an expansion supported by small-scale local industries. (a) In Yodefat, evidence of olive oil, pottery, and textile production has been attested in the excavations. Further, the city expanded on the southern slope throughout the first century up until the war in 66. Most interesting is the discovery in the 1997 season of an upper-class area with an elite house where some of the beautiful frescoes in the geo- metric First Pompeian style are preserved 49. (b) The excavations at Cana likewise produced material evi- dence of a small village community in a steady process of ex- pansion. Two public buildings were found, as well as evidence of small-scale industrial activity, including oil production, tex- tile production and glass-blowing 50. 48 A longer treatment than is possible here can be found in JENSEN, Herod Antipas, 162-78. 49 For Yodefat, see esp. M. AVIAM, “Socio-Economical Hierarchy and Its Economical Foundations in First Century Galilee: The Evidence From Yo- defat and Gamla”, Flavius Josephus. Interpretation and History (eds. J. PA- STOR – M. MOR – P. STERN) (JSJSup 146; Leiden 2011) 29-38. 50 Cf. e. g. D.R. EDWARDS, “Khirbet Qana: From Jewish Village to Christian Pilgrim Site”, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary 49 (ed. J.H. HUMPHREY) (Portsmouth, RI 2002) III, 101-132.