JewishCliffSheltersandHidingComplexesintheRomanPeriodGalileeBy Y inon Sh iv t ie l

Josephus Flavius documented the history of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans in

real time (the first century AD), even as he was a participant, being the chief commander of

the Jews in Galilee. In his two books The Jewish War and The Life of Josephus, he noted that

when he arrived in the Galilee as its chief commander just prior to the outbreak of the Great

Revolt, he fortified 18 of its settlements while the 19th was fortified by Yohanan Ben Levi.

What do we know of these sites?

Map o f the Upper Ga l i lee . (h t tps ://www.b ib le -

h is tory .com/geography/maps/map_upper_ga l i lee .h tml)

Five of the settlements that he claims to have fortified have been surveyed or excavated by

archeologists. He mentioned Tiberias, Arbel, Caphareccho, (Kfar Ata), Acchabaron Rock

(Akhbari), and Mero. One site – Kfar Ata or Caphareccho – remains unidentified but it fits the

description of Huqok, a Jewish settlement recently excavated by Jodi Magness.

In his discussions of the five settlements Josephus describes the village fortifications as “very

rocky”, and mentions the “Arbel caves,” and the fortification of “Akhbara Rock” (the Talmudic

name and later the Arabic) with emphasis on the “rock”. He also notes that “he provided with

walls the caves in Lower Galilee in the neighborhood of the lake of Genesareth” (The War of

the Jews II, 572-574), and that “I fortified …the villages of the Cave of Arbela” (The Life of

Josephus, 187-188).

The common denominator of the five settlements is that they are next to, or near, steep

cliffs full of natural caves. I suggest that hundreds of these caves served as one of the

defense methods of the Galilean Jews during the Second Temple period. My assumption is

that these provided one of the defensive means that Josephus was referring to when he

came to “fortify the Galilee.” My ongoing research aims to demonstrate that these caves are

the very same that Josephus described.

It should be emphasized that Josephus, the person taking credit for the fortifications, lacked

military experience and had little time available from his arrival in the Galilee to the time he

was taken prisoner by the Romans – about seven months. Despite this, there is surprisingly

ample evidence for fortifications of the type he described.

My research combines history and archaeology with an additional element – speleology, the

study of caves.

Mount Arbe l , c l i f f she l ters . A l l photos courtesy Y inon Sh iv t ie l .

Mount Ev ia tar , c l i f f she l ters .

Naha l Amud , c l i f f she l ters .

During our research in Galilee, we examined natural caves, many of which were only

reachable by rope-descent, just as King Herod had found in the same area a hundred years

before the Great Revolt (Antiquities, XIV, 413-430; The War of the Jews, A, 304-313). The inner

chambers of these caves had been hewn and prepared for the Jews who lived close to the

Arbel settlement, and similar features were found in the other four settlements, Tiberias,

Caphareccho, Acchabaron, and Mero.

H id ing complex in Horvat Ruma .

H id ing complex in I lan iya w i th o l ive -press cave .

H id ing complex in Sh ikh in .

The term ‘cliff shelters’ is given to differentiate these spaces from ‘refuge caves’ that had

been excavated some time earlier in the Judean desert, far from Jewish settlements. The

preparations in the Galilean caves suggest that they functioned as shelters against the

Roman invasion to crush the Great Jewish Revolt, as Josephus described. In the Arbel cliff

shelters, for example, about 35 small plastered cisterns were found to collect water. Some

were fed from hewn gutters that drained rainwater from the peak of the cliff or from the

stalactites that dripped straight into small cisterns intentionally dug below them. In five of

the caves, mikva’ot (ritual baths) had also been hewn. In some places there were passages to

caves at different levels, through chimneys. On the entrance posts of several very steep

caves, tabs had been cut to enable ropes to be tied and used for rappelling and climbing.

Rappe l l ing in to a c l i f f she l ter a t Akhbera Rock .

Rappe l l ing in to a c l i f f she l ter a t Arbe l C l i f f .

Rappe l l ing to a c l i f f she l ter a t Arbe l .

About 90 of the caves had niches for oil lamps, and in a few dozen pits had been quarried for

storage. Vessels for stockpiling and storage had been brought to most of the cliff shelters,

along with cooking pots whose broken shards were found scattered in the caves. Alongside

16 cliff shelters facing spatial observation areas, open rock ledges had been quarried as

vantage points. Within those cliff shelters that were accessible only by rappelling, many

pottery shards from the early Roman period were found. In some of the caves at the foot of

the cliffs, dozens of Hasmoneancoins were found. One of the sites even revealed a rare “First

Jewish Revolt” coin.

Co ins o f the F i rs t Jewish Revo l t , year two , f rom Naha Amud .

The second Jewish defense method mentioned by Josephus, particularly when describing

settlements where there are no steep cliffs (especially in areas where Jews hid during the

siege of Jerusalem), consists of ‘hiding complexes.’ These are subterranean hewn cavities are

found mainly beneath or in close proximity to sites that were settled by Jews in the Roman

period. In many cases they contain intricate systems of rooms and tunnels.

This method of defense, digging tunnels and burrows for the inhabitants to hide in, has been

extensively excavated in Judea and the Galilee. In the Galilee, hiding complexes have been

discovered in dozens of well-known Jewish settlements from the Second Temple period, all

within the boundaries of the Lower and Upper Galilee as described by Josephus. One of the

key places where a hiding complex was discovered was in Yodfat (Jotapata), where, as is well

known, Josephus turned himself over the Romans.

Archaeological evidence from some of these complexes dates their use primarily to the

Roman period, especially to the first and second centuries CE at the time of the First Jewish

Revolt (The Great Revolt) and perhaps as a preparation for the Bar-Kokhba Revolt even if the

Galilee was not actively involved in it.

The archaeological finds in the hiding complexes resemble those found in the cliff shelters,

supporting the view that these were also intended for sheltering against the Roman army,

but this time, underground. In the preparation of these sites for hiding, the channels were

hewn very narrowly and all require crawling from room to room. The tunnels, with few

entrances and exits, were designed for underground concealment for a limited period and

offered the possibility of temporary escape. Seventy four of these have been found in the

Galilee. Hundreds more have been discovered in the Judean foothills, the Benjamin region

and South Samaria. Nearly all are in close proximity to ancient Jewish settlements.

The distinctly defensive use of these hiding complexes necessitated the camouflage of

entrances and exits, such as entry via cisterns. In many cases, the tunnels were hewn

through or into ancient underground facilities, like ritual baths, oil press, storage pits, or

cisterns, all part of the standard facilities of the Jewish population, whether in the Galilee or

in Judea.

The v iew f roma hewn window in a c l i f f she l ter .

Yinon Shivtiel is a senior lecturer at Zefat Academic College and a senior member of the

Israel Cave Research Center (ICRC) in the Galilee. He is the author of Cliff Shelters and

Hiding Complexes: Jewish Defense Methods in Galilee during the Roman Period.