Bayt Jibrin

Bayt Jibrin stood on the historic main road connecting Cairo with Hebron through Gaza, at an average elevation of approximately 275 metres, or 902 feet, above sea level.[1] During the British Mandate, it functioned as a regional centre for nearby villages in the Hebron district, with an economy based on agriculture and local trade.[1] Its historical setting encompasses both the Arab village and the remains of earlier urban communities, particularly Bet Guvrin and neighboring Maresha.[1][4]

Maresha lay slightly south of the built-up area of Bayt Jibrin and preceded Bet Guvrin as the area’s principal urban centre.[1][4] The two ancient towns are distinct archaeological sites within the same national park, rather than interchangeable names for a single ancient city.[5] Their remains include quarries, burial caves, underground dwellings, workshops, water installations, and buildings associated with successive religious communities.[1][4]

The local landscape is particularly notable for the adaptation of underground spaces to changing purposes.[6] Soft chalk could be excavated for construction material, after which the resulting chambers were reused for storage, agriculture, domestic activity, burial, and worship.[6] These underground networks preserve evidence of activities extending over more than two thousand years, from the Iron Age through the Crusader period.[6]

The area’s earlier urban history included the Iron Age Jewish city of Maresha, followed by a Hellenistic city of the same name.[1] Tel Maresha is described as a First Temple-period community fortified by King Rehoboam.[7] After the destruction of the First Temple, Maresha became a significant settlement in southern Judea; Edomites settled in the region during the Persian period, and Sidonians and Greeks arrived by the late fourth century BCE, alongside smaller Egyptian and Jewish populations.[6]

During the Persian and Hellenistic periods, Maresha developed into a prominent centre in Idumea.[8] After Alexander the Great’s conquest, its inhabitants included Idumeans, Greek soldiers and civilians, and Sidonian immigrants.[8] This multiethnic city became an important economic centre, and its Lower City, containing numerous rock-cut caves, was built during the Hellenistic period.[6] During the Maccabean revolt, a Seleucid army set out from Maresha to attack Judah Maccabee’s forces.[8]

The Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus captured Maresha in the late second century BCE and forcibly converted its Idumean inhabitants to Judaism.[8] The city declined following the conquest and was subsequently only sparsely repopulated.[6][8] Maresha was destroyed in 40 BCE, after which neighboring Bet Guvrin rose to greater regional importance.[4][7] Survivors from Maresha relocated to nearby Beit Guvrin.[7]

Maresha’s archaeological remains illuminate the economic organization of this earlier urban centre.[6] Thousands of underground rooms were originally created as builders quarried bedrock for construction material.[9] The spaces were subsequently adapted as storerooms, stalls, alcoves, and mikva’ot, or Jewish ritual baths.[9] The expedition led by Ian Stern had identified approximately 170 individual underground complexes at the time of its account.[9]

Bet Guvrin was a prominent city in the southern Shephelah during the Second Temple period and gained regional importance after Maresha’s destruction.[4] Under Herod the Great, it served as an administrative centre for Idumea.[1] Following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135 CE, the town expanded substantially in the second half of the second century, acquiring public and administrative buildings.[4]

In 199/200 CE, Emperor Septimius Severus granted Bet Guvrin the privileges of a Roman city and the name Eleutheropolis, meaning “the city of freemen.”[4] By about 200 CE it was a prosperous Roman colony and one of the principal cities of Syria Palaestina, with a population that included Jews, Christians, and pagans.[1] The urban area covered approximately 160 acres, supplied with water through two aqueducts and an underground tunnel.[4]

Eleutheropolis administered a large regional territory encompassing Bethletepha, western Edom, and Hebron as far as En-Gedi.[4] This territory contained more than a hundred villages and was described as the largest single administrative region of its kind in Roman times.[4] The city maintained its own dating system and coinage.[4] Its public infrastructure included broad paved streets with colonnades, a large bathhouse, an amphitheater, and other public buildings.[5]

Jewish life continued in and around Bet Guvrin during the Roman period, as demonstrated by archaeological evidence and rabbinic references.[4] The tanna Judah ben Jacob and the amora Jonathan were among its residents, and Jewish farmers remained in the surrounding countryside in the fourth century.[4] The settlement appears in the Talmud and Midrashim in the third and fourth centuries, while excavations have uncovered a large Jewish cemetery, architectural remains, and a synagogue inscription.[6] A Byzantine-period inscription records the donation of a column to a local synagogue.[4]

The locality was noted for its fertility, and rabbinic interpretation associated it with Edom for the purposes of certain halakhic obligations.[4] In the Byzantine period, Beit Guvrin also became an important Christian centre with several churches.[6] It was an episcopal see by the fourth century or earlier, and excavations have revealed two church mosaic pavements.[4] Eleutheropolis appears on the mid-sixth-century Madaba mosaic map, reflecting its continued place in the region’s urban and religious geography.[4]

Following the Arab conquest of the Levant in the seventh century, the settlement took the Arabic name Bayt Jibrin.[1] Archaeological discoveries indicate that the city flourished in the Early Islamic period, while clusters of burial caves around it span the Late Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic eras.[4] Most of the distinctive bell caves were excavated during the Early Muslim period, continuing the area’s longstanding exploitation of its chalk deposits.[6]

A Crusader castle was apparently built around 1134, and King Fulk of Anjou granted it to the Hospitallers late in 1136.[4] A civilian settlement subsequently grew around the fortress, and the locality became known as Beit Gibelin.[1][4] Crusader-period remains indicate a small fortified city with a church at its centre dedicated in 1136.[6] The surrounding area included other Crusader villages, and the Church of St. Anne was restored around the same period.[6]

The castle was sacked in 1158 and eventually abandoned to Saladin in 1187.[4] After the subsequent Muslim conquest, the village was re-established under its Arabic name.[1] The medieval traveler Benjamin of Tudela included Beit Jibrin in his itinerary, placing it five parasangs from Hebron and recording a small Jewish presence there.[10] The later settlement continued into the Ottoman period and survived as an Arab village until the War of Independence.[5][11]

In the latter part of 1918, the Beit Jibrin region west of Hebron experienced a death rate of 68 per thousand.[12] Within Beit Jibrin village itself, one sixth of the population died over a three-month period.[12] Subsequent public-health measures included drainage work, the clearance of streams, and the distribution of quinine.[12] For the last ten months of 1921, the regional death rate had fallen to 15 per thousand, and Beit Jibrin recorded no deaths between July and September of that year.[12]

During the British Mandate, Bayt Jibrin remained an important town within the Hebron district and a service centre for neighboring villages.[1] By 1945 its total area was recorded as 56.1 square kilometres, of which 98 percent was Arab-owned.[1] Agricultural land supported grain, olives, and irrigated crops, while residents also participated in local trade.[1]

A villa near Beit Guvrin belonged to the al-Azzi family and became the residence of Sheikh Abdullah al-Azzi, also known as Sheikh Khalili.[13] In the 1940s, the family left Beit Guvrin and established a small compound that included the villa and a village doctor’s house.[13] Land opposite the villa was sold to the British for a police station, and the British undertook to supply the new houses with water and electricity.[13] The seven-room villa had electricity, piped water, and a bathtub.[13]

Photographic collections also preserve records of the village and its surroundings before their later transformation.[14][15] One photograph from hikes led by Haim Berger bears the caption “Village of Beit Jubrin.”[14] Berger immigrated to Israel in 1921, later studied the history of the Land of Israel at the Hebrew University, and worked as a tour guide.[14] Another photograph, created between 1898 and 1946, depicts the area’s painted tombs.[15]

Jewish forces took Bayt Jibrin during the 1948 War of Independence, and its Arab residents were displaced.[1] The nearby al-Azzi villa served as an Egyptian brigade headquarters during the war, and Captain Gamal Abdel Nasser served at that headquarters.[13] In late 1948, negotiations concerning the evacuation of approximately 3,000 Egyptian troops encircled in the Faluja pocket took place there.[13]

The military history of the surrounding area also involved the former British police station near the villa.[13] Egyptian forces subsequently transferred control of the area to the Arab Legion, and Israeli forces captured the police station on their second attempt.[13] The Beit Guvrin area then came under Israeli control.[13] Kibbutz Beit Guvrin was established in 1949 on land formerly belonging to Bayt Jibrin.[1]

The ceasefire left Beit Guvrin in Israeli hands, and it remained on Israel’s side of the armistice line in the agreement signed on April 3, 1949.[16] In the same negotiations, Qalqilya and Tulkarem remained on the Transjordanian side.[16] An account of the negotiations recalls King Abdullah explaining that he could not permit it to be said throughout the Arab world that an Arab king had delivered those two towns into Jewish hands.[16] The thickness of the blue pencil used by British officer Lieut.-Col. Coade and Israeli representative Yadin to mark lines on a large map subsequently caused difficulties in interpreting those lines.[16]

Beit Jibrin also appeared in later diplomatic discussions about a possible corridor connecting Jordanian-held territory with the Mediterranean region.[17] A December 1949 diplomatic telegram described an Israeli proposal for a Jordanian corridor from Hebron to Gaza, subsequently amended to pass through Beit Jibrin.[17] Jordanian representatives instead discussed a corridor from Hebron to Majdal through Beit Jibrin and Faluja.[17] The Israeli representatives said that they lacked authority to offer that alternative; these were proposals under discussion, not an agreed or implemented corridor.[17]

The population associated with the site changed across successive periods: Roman Eleutheropolis included Jews, Christians, and pagans, while Bayt Jibrin was an Arab village during the British Mandate.[1] Jewish presence is documented through rabbinic references, synagogue remains, and the medieval itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela.[4][10] These records concern different historical communities rather than a single modern population count.[1][4]

The displacement of the village’s Arab population in 1948 gave rise to descendant communities elsewhere.[1][18] Bethlehem’s Aza neighborhood developed on a refugee camp established in 1950, and most of its reported 2,000 residents were descendants of Arabs who fled Beit Jibrin in 1948.[18] Displaced residents and their descendants also lived in refugee camps farther south, including al-Fawwar.[1]

The later kibbutz constitutes a separate modern community from the former Arab village.[1][2] Its population was recorded as 231 in 2002.[2] The kibbutz lies in the southern Judean foothills on the Ashkelon–Hebron road and was associated with Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uḥad.[2]

Agriculture and local trade sustained Bayt Jibrin during the Mandate, with grain, olives, and irrigated crops among its recorded land uses.[1] Earlier communities had also combined farming with production and storage in underground installations, including olive presses, cisterns, animal pens, and pigeon-raising facilities.[6][3] Archaeological remains additionally include weaving facilities, baths, and water-storage systems.[7]

The early economy of Kibbutz Bet Guvrin depended mainly on field crops, orchards, dairy cattle, and poultry.[2] Tourism later became another economic activity, connected with the caves and other visitor attractions.[2] The national park brings together archaeological sites whose underground networks served economic, social, funerary, and symbolic purposes from the Iron Age through the Crusades.[4]

Religious and cultural practices are visible in the varied uses of the underground landscape.[6] Ritual baths attest to Jewish practices, burial caves preserve funerary traditions, and some chambers were adapted as churches, with crosses carved into their walls.[9][3] Painted tombs and seal impressions also preserve aspects of the Hellenistic city’s imagery and cultural connections.[11][19]

Approximately 800 caves are estimated to exist in the wider Beit Guvrin area, many interconnected by underground passages.[1] About 80 bell caves lie within Beit Guvrin National Park.[11] Their characteristic shape resulted from quarrying: workers opened a shaft through the hard upper nari layer, reached the softer chalk below, and widened the excavation outward as they removed building stone.[11] Bell-cave quarrying took place during the Byzantine and early Muslim periods.[11]

Other chambers originated much earlier, with some limestone caves dating to Hellenistic times.[3] Over time, underground spaces served as cisterns, animal pens, burial places, dovecotes, oil-production facilities, stables, baths, places of worship, and hiding places.[6][3] Quarrying thus created a landscape that could be repeatedly adapted rather than serving only one purpose.[6]

At Maresha, a large columbarium contains more than 2,000 niches and was probably used to raise pigeons.[11] The birds could supply food or offerings, while their droppings could fertilize agricultural fields.[11] Another installation is a third- to second-century BCE olive press cut beneath a house.[11] Underground homes and water cisterns further illustrate the integration of the excavated spaces into domestic life.[11]

A third-century BCE Sidonian burial cave contains paintings of animals and mythological figures.[11] Tomb I at Maresha also preserves dated Greek inscriptions painted on its walls and over its Animal Frieze.[20] Photographs from the 1902 Peters and Thiersch expedition, published in 2007, have supported later reassessment of the relationship between these inscriptions and the murals.[20]

The archaeological interpretation places one inscription in 141 BCE and another on the southern wall of the Animal Frieze a few months earlier, establishing a latest possible date by which the paintings already existed.[20] A separate pair of inscriptions is interpreted as probably dating around the middle of the first century BCE, during a new era at Maresha associated with the Roman governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius.[20]

Historic photography provides an additional record of the painted tombs.[15] A photograph titled “Famous tombs at Beit Jibrin showing wall paintings,” created between 1898 and 1946, is catalogued under Bet Guvrin.[15] A related list of Matson Collection negative numbers incorrectly identified the location as Hebron.[15]

The Roman amphitheater at Beit Govrin was uncovered in the mid-1990s.[21] Built for Roman troops after the Bar Kokhba revolt, the elliptical structure measured 71 by 56 metres and could accommodate approximately 3,500 spectators.[21] Its construction included an earthen arena, underground galleries, and barrel-vaulted corridors supporting the seating.[21]

A room beneath the western tribune contained two votive incense altars, one bearing a Greek inscription, together with more than one hundred oil lamps.[21] These finds form part of the archaeological evidence for activity within the building beyond its central arena.[21] The amphitheater fell out of use after the earthquake of 363 CE.[21]

The structure belonged to the broader monumental landscape of Roman Eleutheropolis, which included aqueducts, paved colonnaded streets, a substantial bathhouse, and administrative buildings.[4][5] Together, these remains illustrate the scale of the city following its elevation to Roman municipal status.[4][5]

In 2018, excavators at Maresha discovered what appeared to be a private archive in an underground cave complex.[9] Its evidence consisted of bullae, clay sealings impressed with seals denoting authority or ownership, rather than surviving documents.[9] The original documents were probably written on papyrus or parchment and did not survive the humid underground conditions.[9]

The newly explored complex contained seven rooms.[19] The discovery was made during exploration and photography by archaeologist Ian Stern and his son Asaf; the sealings were photographed in place before being collected the following day for preservation and analysis.[19] Stern had directed the Maresha excavation since 2000, working with Hebrew Union College, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.[19]

More than a thousand sealings or fragments were identified, many with purely decorative designs.[9] Ian Stern and coin specialist Donald T. Ariel reported a collected assemblage of 1,027 sealings.[9] Because a document generally required only a few sealings, they inferred that several hundred documents had once been stored in the cave beneath a wealthy family’s house.[9] They characterized the find as a householder’s personal archive and “the largest private archive ever found in the Levant.”[9]

Preliminary examination placed most of the sealings in the second century BCE.[19] Their images included Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, erotic themes, masks, human figures, and cornucopias.[19] A few bore Greek letters and numerals; at the time of the initial report, no other written inscriptions had been identified.[19] On many examples, impressions of the string and papyrus used in sealing the documents remained visible.[19] Stern interpreted the discovery as evidence of Maresha’s cosmopolitan character and connections beyond its immediate region.[19]

Accounts differ over the circumstances of the Arab residents’ departure in 1948, describing displacement following Jewish capture, abandonment during the war, or Egyptian expulsion of residents from the al-Azzi villa and surrounding area.[1][13] These accounts concern partly different locations and episodes and do not establish one uniform sequence for every resident.[13][2]

Some earlier identifications also require distinction from the modern archaeological geography.[4][10] Benjamin of Tudela identified Beit Jibrin with Mareshah, whereas modern accounts distinguish neighboring Maresha and Bet Guvrin.[5][10] The identification of Josephus’s Betabris, mentioned in connection with Roman operations in 68 CE, with Bet Guvrin remains possible rather than certain.[4]