Jewish Cliff Shelters and Hiding Complexes in the Roman Period Galilee by Yinon Shivtiel
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Jewish Cliff Shelters and Hiding Complexes in the Roman Period Galilee By Yinon Shivtiel 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 of the Upper Galilee. (https://www.bible- history.com/geography/maps/map_upper_galilee.html) 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 Arbel, cliff shelters. All photos courtesy Yinon Shivtiel. Mount Eviatar, cliff shelters. Nahal Amud, cliff shelters. 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. Hiding complex in Horvat Ruma. Hiding complex in Ilaniya with olive-press cave. Hiding complex in Shikhin. 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. Rappelling into a cliff shelter at Akhbera Rock. Rappelling into a cliff shelter at Arbel Cliff. Rappelling to a cliff shelter at Arbel. 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. Coins of the First Jewish Revolt, year two, from 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 view from a hewn window in a cliff shelter. 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. .