• Beth She'arim: general plan
  Beth She'arim: general plan
  
  Stern et al (1993)
  from Stern et al (1993)
• Fig. 1 Map of the excavation areas
  Figure 1
  
  Map of the excavation areas
  
  Erlich (2021)
  from Erlich (2021)

• Beth She'arim: general plan
  Beth She'arim: general plan
  
  Stern et al (1993)
  from Stern et al (1993)
• Fig. 1 Map of the excavation areas
  Figure 1
  
  Map of the excavation areas
  
  Erlich (2021)
  from Erlich (2021)

The excavation shows that Bet She‘arim was first settled in Iron Age II, probably in the ninth century BCE. The excavated areas yielded no significant finds from the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. The earliest architectural remains were found on the hilltop, where a building was constructed in the second century BCE. In this period, small bell-shaped storage installations and possibly also cisterns were hewn into the soft chalk bedrock. The Hellenistic settlement contained Phoenician-style walls and Phoenician pottery types. In the first century BCE, a substantial building, possibly a fort, was built on the hilltop, in use until the first century CE. This building may have been part of the royal estate and the camp of the Roman commander Aebutius, against whom Josephus fought (Josephus Life 24).

In the Middle Roman period, the late first and the second century CE, an urban settlement developed at Bet She‘arim and continued into the mid-fourth century CE.

... In the middle of the fourth century CE the site apparently underwent a change, attested to by the collapsed buildings and filled-in spaces. However, there is not much evidence for this, and it is impossible to determine the exact date and circumstances of the town’s destruction and decline in the mid-fourth century CE.

In the early Byzantine period, after the mid-fourth century CE, the town was rebuilt on different lines from that of the previous settlement.

... The early Byzantine stratum was destroyed in a single, violent event, which included large-scale stone collapse and the destruction of buildings, evident in most of the excavated areas. The town’s destruction may be attributed to the earthquake of 419 CE.

After the town’s destruction in the early Byzantine period, the settlement on the site was reduced in size. From the fifth–sixth centuries CE, there are meager settlement remains in some areas. Architectural remains, installations and a few imported vessels are attributed to this period. The architectural remains include the building paved with mosaics, excavated in the 1980s (Vitto 1996), which may have been located in the center of the settlement or may have been part of a farm or monastery. No remains from the Early Islamic period have been found; the settlement may have shifted to a nearby location. The hill was reoccupied in the Mamluk period, probably in the fourteenth century CE. Remains of a building, possibly a fort or a farm, were discovered in Area A. In the Ottoman period, the tomb of Sheikh Abreik was built on the hilltop and a small hamlet of tenant farmers was built on its slopes. In the First World War, an Ottoman military post was built on the hill summit.

Approximately twenty squares and half-squares were excavated west of the Sheikh Abreik hilltop and east of the basilica (Mazar 1957), exposing remains dating from the Hellenistic or Early Roman periods until the Ottoman period (Fig. 2). The stratigraphy in this area is complex, with both earlier and later walls, sometimes dating centuries apart, lying on the same level, the earlier building stones in secondary use in the later buildings.

Iron Age and Hellenistic finds were recovered in rock cuttings and soil pockets. In the Roman period (second–third centuries CE), a part-hewn and part-built water reservoir was constructed in the eastern part of the area.

... During the fourth century CE, this area underwent changes: the installations were filled with soil and rubbish, walls were built in the arched reservoir, putting it out of use, and some rooms appear to have collapsed.

In the Byzantine period (mid-fourth–fifth centuries CE), the area was rebuilt with a partial change of plan in the walls and openings, and the construction of irregularly angled walls incorporating stones in secondary use.

... The haphazard alignment of the building walls may be the result of an earthquake in the fifth century CE. Later, in the fifth–sixth centuries CE, the area of the arched reservoir was paved with stones and the western miqveh served as a rubbish pit. The sixth-century CE remains are relatively limited and are located near the surface, including a fragment of a rare pottery artifact decorated with incised motifs that may be a lamp holder or an incense burner (Fig. 4).

Some Mamluk-period walls were exposed, mainly in the central part of the area, as well as packed floors incorporating small stones, and small installations such as a basin and a tabun. Earlier architectural features were reused for building in the Mamluk period. In some places, the Mamluk building penetrated down almost to the bedrock. Many glass bracelets and a small assemblage of weapons also date to this period.

In the Ottoman period, a structure paved with floors of small, packed stones was built in the northern part of the area. One of the walls is tilted, as if damaged by an earthquake; this may have been caused by the 1837 earthquake that devastated Safed (A. Agnon; pers. comm.).

About twenty squares and half-squares were excavated near the eastern side of the hilltop, where no archaeological remains were visible on the surface before the excavation (Fig. 5). The strata here lie on top of each other, as in a tell, and they reach a depth of about four meters from surface down to bedrock. The remains date from the Iron Age until the present day, the earliest finds being a few Iron Age II pottery sherds retrieved in cracks in the bedrock in the central part of the area.

Remains of a structure, whose walls were built in characteristic Phoenician style with roughly dressed upstanding stones interspersed with fieldstones (Fig. 6), date to the Hellenistic period (probably the second century BCE). Pairs of rock-hewn bell-shaped silos had stone lids over their openings. Pottery sherds characteristic of Hellenistic Phoenicia were recovered.

In the next phase, probably in the first century BCE and the beginning of the Early Roman period, a long wide wall, blocking the earlier Hellenistic building on the north, and additional perpendicular walls were built.

... In the Roman period, a large structure built on top of the earlier walls had ashlar-built walls and rooms paved with stone slabs, most of which were robbed in recent centuries. The building may have been an administrative center built in the second century CE and functioning until the third or fourth centuries CE. Rooms near the eastern side of the building yielded rich third-century CE finds, as well as tubuli pipe fragments and marble slabs that indicate the presence of a nearby bathhouse. This area, near the hilltop, was probably the town’s civic center in the Roman period.

After the mid-fourth century CE, the area underwent a complete transformation, and an oil pressing complex was built above the remains of the large building in the western part of the area (Fig. 9).

... In the Byzantine period, this central part of the Roman town was evidently transformed into an industrial area housing various installations.

The nature of the area in the Mamluk period is not known, since only mixed fills from the Ottoman period yielded Mamluk sherds.

In the Ottoman period, the area was close to the sheikh’s tomb. Deep pits found throughout the area were filled with layers of ash and rubbish from all periods, with no architectural remains. Since some of the pits cut into walls and floors, they were probably the result of dynamite detonated by the Ottoman troops entrenched there during World War I. In the British Mandate period, the Yoffe and Zaid families built a village on the site and leveled the area with soil (A. Yoffe, pers. comm.).

The area yielded finds dating from Iron Age II until the Ottoman period.

Area C1

The earliest finds were Iron Age II sherds retrieved on the bedrock. A street sloping down the hill, of which only the drainage channel was preserved, is attributed to the Late Roman–early Byzantine period. The rooms of houses on either side of the road were probably built in the third or fourth century CE and destroyed in the early fifth century CE. One of the rooms contained collapsed walls mixed with a large quantity of potsherds and a hoard of coins dated to the second half of the fourth century CE. The collapsed rubble yielded a bifacial Iron Age stamp seal that was in secondary use (Fig. 11; Erlich 2020).

Meager remains were attributed to a later phase, probably the Byzantine period. Above these remains, about fifteen pit graves without diagnostic finds found throughout the area were the late Ottoman-period graves of Muslims who wished to be buried near the sheikh’s tomb.

Area C2

The earliest remains comprise rock-cuttings, including a cistern that was visible before the excavation and that could not be dated; it was breached by several rooms. The surface remains included floor foundation layers, exposed in a few places and attributed to the second century CE. Further down the slope, patches of floors, walls and a section of a street built in the third century CE and in use until the early Byzantine period (fourth–mid-fifth centuries CE), were exposed. In the fifth century CE, stone paving was laid in the western part of the area, overlying earlier walls; the paving continued in use until the sixth century CE. Some of the underground spaces were reused in this period. The area was not settled after the sixth century CE.

Water installations, streets, rooms and a hiding complex, probably all part of a residential area, were exposed in eleven excavation squares (Fig. 12). Based on the pottery, the remains are dated mostly from the Early Roman to the mid-Byzantine periods, although some earlier sherds were also retrieved.

The northern part of the area

Four Roman-period water storage installations were excavated.
... Middle Roman-period pottery recovered from the street bedding on both sides of the channel dates the street’s construction to about the second century CE.

In the early Byzantine period, one cistern opening (Fig. 12:2) was blocked up with a wall and rooms were built. A room with a floor overlain by collapsed rubble was exposed here (Fig. 12:5); about 80 coins discovered in the collapsed debris and in the floor bedding, provide a terminus post quem of 363 CE for the floor’s construction. The room fell out of use only one or two generations later, at the beginning of the fifth century CE. A few fifth–sixth-century CE finds were discovered above the early Byzantine habitation level, mainly in stone collapse layers and on the surface. A stone podium and an adjacent basin (Fig. 12:6) in the northeastern part of the area are also attributed to the Byzantine period. Based on the pottery in the street-drainage channel, it probably became blocked up at the beginning of the fifth century CE.

The southern part of the area

South of the street remains, a few rooms were built in the Roman period.
... The room was built in the first or second century CE and abandoned in the mid-fourth century CE, when it was almost entirely filled in with rubbish. In the fourth century CE, the passage to the arched room was blocked, and a rectangular plastered pit yielding complete fourth century CE pottery vessels was hewn. In the early Byzantine period, a packed earth floor was lain above the arch, for which purpose the upper part of the arch was leveled and served as a wall. This floor was overlain by a crushed chalk floor from the middle Byzantine period.

To the east of this room, additional rooms were also built in the mid-Roman period and used until the fourth century CE, and then reused in the Byzantine period. A hiding passage was hewn northward from the southern corner of the arched room; it cut through earlier cavities such as the cistern to the north of the streets’ drainage channel (Fig. 12:2). The passage had several branches, an entrance shaft, a sealing stone, lamp niches, and a few levels and small chambers (Fig. 14). After the passage was hewn, the opening from the arched room was blocked up; the finds from this blockage date to the second century CE. One chamber yielded meager finds that probably date from the third–fourth centuries CE. The passage was probably hewn at the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and it may have been reused later.

The three southernmost excavation squares revealed rooms and architectural remains. One room had several superimposed packed earth floors; the earliest surface, overlying Hellenistic pottery, dates to the Early Roman period, and the latest dates to the fourth century CE. The upper part of another room contained an early Byzantine podium made of small stones (Fig. 12:9). Several construction phases and walls were also discovered (Fig. 12:10), including a mid-Byzantine phase (fifth–sixth centuries CE).

Two squares were excavated to determine the extent of the settlement on the hill’s western slope. No architectural remains, and only mixed potsherds and other mixed finds were found. This area probably lay beyond the boundaries of the settlement.

Down the hill’s southeastern slope, no remains were discovered, apart from a remnant of a small wall that is probably recent.

our squares and half-squares were excavated, exposing a large gatehouse from the Roman period in the southwestern part of the area, and an early Byzantine pottery kiln in the northeastern part.

Gatehouse

Most of the pottery in the gatehouse dates to the fourth century CE. Although the probes dug beneath the flooring did not yield sufficient pottery to date it, it was probably built in the Roman period and functioned until the fourth century CE.

Pottery Kiln

The rubble in the kiln yielded a large quantity of potsherds dating from the second half of the fourth century CE, most of them bag-shaped jars fired in the kiln.

Four squares and half-squares were opened southeast of an oil press excavated in the past (Avigad 1954) in order to date the press and the structures in its vicinity. The area contained several rooms of a residential building that was built and used in the early Byzantine period and destroyed in a large collapse in the first half of the fifth century CE. A small excavation in the southern entrance of the oil press’s eastern room provided a similar date. The oil pressing installation and its dating are similar to the oil press excavated in Area B. The gatehouse excavated in the past west of the Area Y oil press (Avigad 1954) is similar in plan and size to the gatehouse discovered in Area X. Consequently, its dating, its stratigraphic relationship to the oil press and the question if it served as a gate, or as a passageway between the city and the cemetery on the slope to the north must be reconsidered.

A narrow strip of four squares was excavated between the Area Y oil press and the synagogue that was excavated in the past, c. 20 m from the modern houses adjacent to the synagogue. In the center of the area, a stepped miqveh coated with gray plaster, was exposed, partly roofed with a vault that had collapsed and partly underground and roofed with a gabled ceiling (Figs. 16, 17). Based on the plaster, the miqveh dates to the first or second century CE. The soil fill in the miqveh yielded fourth-century CE coins. Southwest of the miqveh, second–third-century CE potsherds were embedded in plaster and in a channel adjoining the bedrock. A large, plastered chamber to the north of the miqveh was probably initially used as a large pool adjoining the miqveh.

The main stratum uncovered in the area dates to the early Byzantine period.

... The Byzantine buildings collapsed in a devastating event that is evident throughout the area, which yielded a large quantity of shattered domestic pottery, glass vessels and coins. The pottery assemblage from the early Byzantine stratum (at least 2 m deep) is homogeneous, dating to the mid-fourth–first half of the fifth century CE.

Meager architectural remains and a few fifth–sixth-century CE potsherds were found above the collapsed remains of the main stratum. The area was not reoccupied after the Byzantine period.

B. Mazar, Beth She 'arim I (Report on the Excavations during 1936-1940), Jerusalem 1973

M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She'arim 2: Greek Inscriptions, New Brunswick 1974

N. Avigad, Beth She'arim 3: Catacombs 12-23 (Report on the Excavations during 1953-1958), Jerusalem 1976.

Y. & Y. Tepper, Beit She‘arim: The Village and Nearby Burials, Tel Aviv 2004 (Heb.).

Goodenough, Jewish Symbols1, 89-102, passim; 3, passim

N. Avigad, IEJ 4 (1954), 88-107; 5 (1955), 205-239; 7 (1957), 73-92, 239-255; 8 (1958), 276-277; 9 (1959), 205-220

id., Archaeology 8 (1955), 236-244; 10 (1957), 266-269

id., Antiquity and Survival2 (1957), 244-261

B. Mazar, JPOS 18 (1938), 41-49

id., IEJ 6 (1956), 261-262; I 0 (1960), 264

id., BTS 46 (1962), 6-19

id., M dB 29 (1983), 38-44

id., BAR 10/3 (1984), 62-65

id., The Early Biblical Period, Jerusalem 1986, 203-212

M. Pliner, Sefunim I (1966), 25-27

A. Ben-Eli, ibid. 3 (1969-1971), 89

M. Avi-Yonah, Scripta Hierosolymitana 24 (1972), 9-21

J. Kaplan, BA 40 (1977), 167-171

Archives of Ancient Jewish Art: Samples and Manual(eds. Y. Yadin and R. Jacoby), Jerusalem, 1984, 73-82

N. Feig, ESI 5 (1986), 17-18- id.,IEJ38 (1988), 78.

P. W. Van der Horst, BAR 18/5 (1992), 46–57

Z. Weiss, The Galilee in Late Antiquity (ed. L. I. Levine), New York 1992, 357–371; id., EI 25 (1996), 102*

F. Vitto, ‘Atiqot 28 (1996), 115–146

L. I. Levine, OEANE, 1, New York 1997, 309–311

R. Sivan, The Conservation of Archaeological Sites in the Mediterranean Region (ed. Marta de la Torre), Los Angeles 1997

M. L. Fischer, Marble Studies, Konstanz 1998

T. Rajak, The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, 1 (Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum 71; ed. P. Schäfer), Tübingen 1998, 349–366; id., The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 48), Leiden 2001

B. -Z. Rosenfeld, HUCA 69 (1998), 57; id., Cathedra 114 (2004), 177

Z. Safrai, The Missing Century: Palestine in the 5th Century—Growth and Decline (Palestine Antiqua N.S. 9), Leuven 1998, (index)

J. Elayi & H. Sayegh, Port, Paris 1998–2000

I. C. Freestone & Y. Gorin-Rosen, Journal of Glass Studies 41 (1999), 105–116; id. (et al.), La route du verre (Travaux de la Maison de l’Orient Mediterraneen 33; ed. M. -D. Nenna), Lyon 2000, 65–84

D. Lipkunsky, ESI 19 (1999), 20*

Y. Argaman, ESI 20 (2000), 27*

S. Fine, BR 16/5 (2000), 32–43

I. Jabur, ESI 112 (2000), 119

R. N. Longenecker, Text and Artifact, Waterloo, ONT 2000, 249–270

M. L. Satlow, World Congress of Jewish Studies, 12/B, Jerusalem 2000, 17–24

Z. Yavor, ESI 20 (2000), 26*–27*

M. Peilstöcker & Y. Lehrer, ibid 113 (2001), 28*–30*

Y. Gorin-Rosen, Michmanim 16 (2002), 7*–18*

H. Misgav, JSRS 11 (2002), xvi

M. Tilly, Antike Welt 34 (2003), 143–150

Artifax 20/2 (2005), 6.

Frey, Corpus 2, 177-212

M. Schwabe, IEJ 4 (1954), 249-261

M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She'arim 2 (Joe. cit.)

F. Vattioni, RB 80 (1973), 261-263

id., Istituto Orientale di Napoli, Annali 45 (1985), 399-403.