Overview

Bibliography

Known as Maqam en-Nabi Yahya, this isolated mausoleum is the best preserved Roman building in Israel. The structure was first explored by C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener in 1872-1873 on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, but was not excavated until 1964 by Jacob Kaplan. Only an initial trial excavation was conducted in that year; the final excavation would have to wait until 1983, when it was completed on behalf of the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums.

The mausoleum consists of two rooms fronted by a portico. In the largest of the rooms (Room A) was buried a man and women in two sarcophagi. The man was probably an owner of a large agricultural estate or a government official in the fourth century. The smaller room, the "columbarium" room, was used for interring the cremated remains of slaves.

During the Ottoman period, a certain Nabi Yahya was interred in the building and the main room was converted to a mosque. A number of cisterns and tombs surround the mausoleum.