Overview

Bibliography

The castle of Yehiam, known as Judin in the historical records, was built by the Teutonic knights in 1208. It did not survive long, however. In 1265, Baybars conquered the castle along with its sister castle of Montfort, 10 kilometers to the north. The castle remained uninhabited until the eighteenth century when the sheik Mahd el-Hussein made it his stronghold. In 1738, the castle was taken over by Dahr el-Ommar, a Bedouin sheik who gained control over the Galilee. He rebuilt the castle, often on Crusader foundations, and much of the castle today is his work. The castle again fell into disuse until the modern period when it was utilized by the nearby Kibbutz Yehiam (from which the castle gets its modern name) in the Israeli war of independence. The structures of the castle, therefore, reflect Crusader, Ottoman, and Israeli construction and use. Around the castle evidence also can be found of earlier Byzantine and Roman occupation on the site.

The Yehiam castle has been neither surveyed nor excavated in detail, though some parts of the castle have been reconstructed and preserved for National Parks Authority.

The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:

	Ottoman Period
	Crusader Period
	Byzantine Period