Overview

Bibliography

Beth Guvrin is a large area in the Judean Shephelah encompassing several sites that were inhabited from the Iron Age through the Crusader period. Tell Mareshah was built, according to the biblical tradition, in the time of King Rehoboam. It flourished until it was finally destroyed in 40 BCE. Little visible remains of Mareshah can be seen today. Beth Guvrin was a village first mentioned by Josephus, and it became the capital of the district when Mareshah was destroyed. Beth Guvrin flourished during the Roman and Byzantine period, perhaps expanding to 110 acres. It was established as a polis by Septimus Severus around 200 CE. He named it Eleutheropolis. It was settled during the Umayyad period and it was built as a fortress for the Knights Hospitaller around 1136 CE.

The earliest visible remains at Beth Guvrin are Hellenistic. Because the bedrock is a soft chalk, the Hellenistic inhabitants frequently built underground, carving out the chalk. This includes cisterns and columbaria – dovecotes used to raise pigeons and doves for their meat and dropping. Some inhabitants carved out extensive caverns beneath their houses, which sometimes also included oil presses. Elaborate tombs, capable of interring dozens of individuals in loculi, are also carved into the bedrock.

Little remains of the Roman polis. A notable exception is a well preserved amphitheater, one of only two preserved in Israel (one has been excavated at Beth Shean; another at Caesarea is visible from aerial images, but has not been excavated and is not noticeable on the ground). A rare Roman Imperial Bath was built just east of the amphitheater. Unfortunately, this is the site on which the Crusaders built their inner fortress. Remains of the bath are visible inside the fortress, but it has been obscured by later construction. The Crusader fortress was built by King Fulk of Anjou and includes an inner fortress, an inner wall, an external wall, and a moat. While the moat is beneath the modern road, some part of each of these fortifications remains visible. To the south and attached to the inner fortress, the Crusaders constructed a triple-apse, Romanesque-style church. Much of the decoration of the church was salvaged from earlier Roman and Byzantine buildings. Coins of King Amalricus (1162–1174) were found beneath the paving of the church, indicating the terminus a quo for the construction of the church.