Yosef Naveh carried out a trial excavation in the following year, finding animal bones, flint flakes, shells and sherds identifying the site as a public building from the Chalcolithic-Ghassulian period, possibly a shrine.

[3] The excavations at the temple site have unearthed a compound consisting of a main building on the north, a smaller one in the east, and a small circular structure, 3 metres (9.8 ft) in diameter and probably serving some cultic purpose, in the center.

Within were found animal bones, sherds, an accumulation of ashes and the clay statuette of a bull (or ram[5]) laden with a pair of churns.

[2][3][4] The gatehouse contained an inner and outer entrance, and in the gate chamber stood a stone bench, about nine to twelve inches high (23-30 cm).

In the stone wall between the smaller building and the small gate, excavators have uncovered the outlet of a channel which appears to have been used to dispose of liquids, probably water, from the installation.

[1] David Ussishkin has suggested that the Nahal Mishmar hoard, discovered 7 miles (11 km) south of Ein Gedi in 1961 by Pessah Bar-Adon, was in fact the temple's cult objects.

Containing 429 articles, 416 of which are copper objects including maceheads, sceptres and small crowns, the hoard forms "a unique collection of equipment for use in the Ghassulian ritual" and must have been used in a central sanctuary.

Bar-Adon has suggested some fragmentary ruins near the cave where the hoard was found might have been a comparable cultic location and a possible alternate source.