Hamat Gader

Hamat Gader lies in the Yarmuk River valley, approximately 7 km east of the Sea of Galilee. Its name is rendered as “hot springs of Gadara”; ancient Gadara is identified with Umm Qays, and Hamat Gader lies below it.[1][6] Alternate names include Hammat Gader, Emmatha, El Hamme, and Al-Hamma.[4][5]

The valley contains several mineral springs whose waters are associated with bathing and reputed healing. The springs’ longstanding attraction made Hamat Gader a destination for inhabitants and travelers from the surrounding region, and its successive bath installations served people across Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods.[1][4] The site’s importance is visible not only in its pools and waterworks but also in its inscriptions, which record donors, rulers, building work, and restoration.[1][6]

Hamat Gader’s archaeological remains include a bath complex of more than 500 square meters and a synagogue on a mound south of the baths. The synagogue’s orientation toward Jerusalem, architectural arrangement, mosaics, and dedicatory inscription attest to a Jewish community connected to the springs.[1] A railway station was established at the site in 1910.[5] Twentieth-century military and territorial arrangements reflected its borderland position.[4][5] The exposed archaeological structures were later restored and opened to visitors.[1]

The springs attracted settlers from early times, and the thermal waters were known for their reputed curative properties. In antiquity, Hamat Gader was within the territory of Gadara and was referred to in the Talmud as “Hammat of Gadara.” The town was described as heavily populated, with visitors coming to bathe from the south, the Golan, and Galilee.[4]

Among the Jewish visitors remembered in accounts of the site were Judah ha-Nasi and his pupils, as well as other sages mentioned in the Talmud. Romans also used the springs during the bathing season, and many Jewish visitors came during the Roman-Byzantine period.[4][1] The springs thus served both local inhabitants and travelers, and their reputation extended well beyond the immediate valley.

The fourth-century historian Eunapius visited the baths and praised their standing among ancient bathing places. He described Gadara as “a place which has warm baths in Syria, inferior only to those at Baia in Italy, with which no other baths can be compared.”[1] This account conveys the prominence attributed to the baths in antiquity and the reputation that helped draw visitors to the site.

Published descriptions give different figures for spring temperatures. One account says the mineral springs reach up to 50°C, while another gives 51°C for the hottest and most mineral-rich water.[1][4] A parks article reports a steady temperature of 42°C.[3] A 2025 report describes four springs at an average of 39°C, while another account distinguishes a spring supplying pools at about 40°C from a boiling spring measured at 52°C.[7][8] These figures may refer to different springs, locations, or measurement conditions, but the sources do not reconcile them.

Baths had been built at Hamat Gader by the second century CE. Their popularity increased in the Byzantine period, especially in the fifth and sixth centuries, when the complex included multiple halls, pools, and fountains.[1] The baths’ celebrated reputation is reflected in a marble inscription from Empress Eudocia’s reign, which praises the springs and bathing facilities and refers to 16 buildings, including halls, pools, and fountains.[1]

The Roman bath complex covered more than 500 square meters. A paved street 12 meters wide approached it from the north, and a long passageway with decorated arches supported by pillars led into the baths.[1] The buildings were constructed from local basalt or trimmed limestone, and the surviving walls are described as exceptionally well preserved, rising several meters in places.[1]

The baths were organized around pools of different shapes, sizes, and temperatures. Passageways connected the halls, allowing bathers to move from one pool to another and adjust gradually to hotter water, ultimately reaching the hottest pool near the spring.[1] Steps ran around the edges of pools, and paved walkways connected the bathing areas. Some halls included niches for individual bathtubs.[1]

Water reached the pools through a system combining broad pipes made from interlocking stone sections and lead pipes that carried water to and from the pools.[1] The design joined the spring’s natural supply to a carefully laid-out sequence of bathing spaces, paths, and halls. The range of pool temperatures and the connected routes through the complex indicate how bathers could use different parts of the facility in succession.[1]

One striking feature was an unroofed cool-water pool more than 50 meters long. Thirty-two rectangular marble fountains, each approximately 60 centimeters high, surrounded it.[1] Sculpted human and animal heads decorated the sides facing the pool, with water flowing from their mouths. The sculptures were found broken and defaced; the account describing them attributes this damage apparently to iconoclasts.[1]

The baths continued in use through the early Islamic period, though some buildings were damaged by a seventh-century earthquake. They were subsequently restored by the Umayyad caliph who ruled from Damascus, and the complex was eventually abandoned in the ninth century. Silt then covered the ruins.[1] Bathing at the site continued until the middle of the ninth century and resumed in the twentieth century.[5]

Dozens of Greek inscriptions, as well as some Arabic inscriptions, were found on marble and stone plaques incorporated into the floors and walls of the bath buildings. They identify rulers and wealthy contributors involved in construction and renovation and include wishes for the contributors’ recovery.[1] Dedicatory inscriptions name Empress Eudocia, whose reign is dated to 421–460; Caesar Anastasius, dated to 491–518; and the Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya, dated to 661–680.[1]

The inscription associated with Eudocia was carved on a marble slab measuring 1.81 by 0.71 meters. It names the empress, praises the springs and baths, and lists 16 structures, among them halls, pools, and fountains.[1] Its record of the facilities offers a written complement to the remains of the bathing complex itself.

A nine-line Greek inscription records a thorough restoration of the bath during Muʿāwiya’s reign.[6] The inscription includes the caliph’s name and title and the name of the local governor. Its continued use of Greek and its formal style are discussed as connecting the new regime to earlier Byzantine and Roman public inscriptions and evoking imperial authority.[6] The study notes that no parallel Arabic version was considered necessary for this inscription, emphasizing the choice to use Greek in a public monumental context.[6]

The archaeological remains were first studied and partially excavated in 1932. More extensive excavations, exposing a large part of the baths, took place over several seasons beginning in 1979.[1] Excavation work at the bath complex was carried out by Y. Hirschfeld and G. Solar on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society, and the Israel Antiquities Authority.[9] The exposed structures were later restored and opened to visitors.[1]

A 1935 book by Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, cataloged by the National Library of Israel, is titled The Ancient Synagogue of El-Hammeh (Hammath-by Gadara) and is described as an account of excavations conducted on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[10] The publication forms part of the site’s early scholarly record, alongside the initial studies and later excavation seasons.

A synagogue was built near the baths for Jewish visitors to the springs. It was uncovered on a mound south of the bathing complex and dated to the fifth or sixth century; another account describes its construction in several stages between the fourth and sixth centuries.[1][11] The synagogue stood within a complex of paved rooms and courtyards, reflecting the presence of a Jewish community and visitors who came to Hamat Gader for extended stays.[1][11]

The nearly square synagogue hall measured 13.90 by 13 meters and faced south toward Jerusalem. Three rows of columns divided its interior into a central space and side aisles. A semicircular apse occupied the southern wall, with an elevated bema in front reached by steps.[1] A large adjoining room contained benches; these have been taken to suggest that it may have served for study or as a women’s court.[1]

The hall’s mosaics were primarily geometric. Three central carpet-like designs combined geometric and floral motifs, including rhombuses containing roses and pomegranates.[1] The most elaborate design, in front of the bema, depicted two cypress trees and two lions facing inward, with a wreath surrounding a dedicatory inscription.[1]

The synagogue’s dedicatory text ends with a blessing for donors. The inscription says that the donors’ “acts of charity are constant everywhere” and records that they gave five gold coins; it then asks, “May the King of the Universe bestow the blessing upon their work. Amen. Amen. Selah.”[1] The text connects the building’s physical decoration to communal giving and religious dedication.

A study of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee refers to a sixth-century synagogue inscription from Hamat Gader that mentions the “people of Arbel.” The study discusses that reference in relation to identifying Khirbet Hammam with ancient Arbel and notes that the inscription’s date does not fit a proposal that the site had been abandoned much earlier.[12] This is an identification question concerning Arbel and Khirbet Hammam; it does not establish that Hamat Gader and Arbel were the same place.

Hamat Gader became a railway junction in 1910, where the Jezreel Valley Railway connected with the Hejaz Railway. The Jezreel Valley line ran from Haifa through the Jordan Valley and along the Yarmuk toward Deraa, where it met the Hejaz line.[5] The first building erected at the site was the “House of the Railwaymen,” a residence for railway employees that may initially have served as the station itself.[5]

The railway station and its associated buildings later acquired a distinctive place in the site’s modern history. A separate account says Hamat Gader became a station on a narrow-gauge branch linking Haifa through a place rendered imperfectly in the source to the Hejaz Railway. It reports that traffic halted in 1946 after the “Palma?” blew up a bridge over the Yarmuk near the site; the available account does not provide a fuller rendering of the group’s name.[4]

The area’s political and military history is tied to its position in the Yarmuk gorge. One account describes the Mandate-era border as extending about 5 km east into the gorge, forming a narrow wedge between Transjordanian and Syrian territory that included Hamat Gader. It reports that Syrian forces occupied the site during the War of Independence and that the 1949 armistice arrangements returned the Hamat Gader tongue to Israeli sovereignty as a demilitarized zone, where only the previous inhabitants, described there as Arab, were permitted to return.[4]

The Al-Hamma valley was included within Israel’s territory under the 1949 Israel-Syria armistice agreement but designated a demilitarized zone.[5] Syrian forces occupied Hamat Gader in 1951 and held it until 1967, using it as a rest center for officers and officials and building a mosque, hotel, bathhouses, and other installations.[4]

Hamat Gader returned to Israeli control during the Six-Day War in 1967.[4][5] Members of the Mevo Hama settlement nucleus arrived in January 1968, lived in railway-station buildings, prepared the land, and engaged in agriculture.[5] Encyclopedia.com’s account says the site was repeatedly shelled from Jordanian positions on the steep slope above it and that mines planted by terrorists caused losses among Israeli civilians. It adds that security conditions delayed plans to develop the area as a farming, tourism, and recreation center, and that the group preparing to settle there established Mevo Hamat, rendered incompletely in the source, about 3 miles northwest on the Golan plateau instead.[4]

The former railway workers’ building stood abandoned for decades and became a seasonal roost for insect-eating bats. A proposal to convert it into a restaurant was dropped after the Nature and Parks Authority raised concerns about rare bat populations.[5] Restoration completed shortly before a 2016 report repaired the roof and structural problems while retaining interior projections for the bats. The building was to remain closed to visitors, with cameras planned to let visitors observe the bats.[5]

The site combines restored ancient remains with modern bathing and recreation facilities. Hamat Gader Park covers 40 acres and includes Roman baths, thermal-mineral pools, lawns, restaurants, tropical parkland, and a crocodile farm with approximately 200 crocodiles of various species.[3]

In 2010, the approximately 150-dunam complex was managed by four Golan kibbutzim: Mevo Hama, Kfar Haruv, Afik, and Mitzar. Its facilities included hot baths, a hotel and spa center, a crocodile farm, animal areas, and restaurants.[13] The mineral-rich thermal water reached 42°C and was supplied mainly by a spring whose name the account renders as Ein Belasmon.[13]

Other accounts identify four thermal springs and give different names and temperatures. One describes Ein Balzam as supplying most of the water to the pools at about 40°C, two other springs as closed to visitors, and Ein al-Makla as a boiling spring at 52°C whose water flows into the Yarmuk.[8] In 2025, four springs were reported at an average temperature of 39°C, and the site was described as having operated for more than four decades.[7] The temperature figures and spring names vary across these accounts, and the available sources do not establish whether the differences reflect separate springs, measurement points, or changing conditions.

The modern bathing site is distinct from Ein Jones, a nearby concrete Turkish bath structure containing hot, mineral-rich water. It lies near an abandoned Syrian-era hotel, behind the regulated Hamat Gader bathing site and close to the Jordanian border along the Yarmuk.[14] Access and use may be restricted for security reasons, and Ein Jones should not be confused with the excavated Roman baths.[14]

A 2025 report locates Hamat Gader in the southern Golan Heights and says the area was known for healing properties as far back as the time of Herod.[7] Other material supports an ancient reputation for the springs’ curative qualities but does not independently confirm that specific association with Herod.[1]

Accounts of Hamat Gader differ in some details, particularly the temperatures attributed to its springs. Jewish Virtual Library reports waters reaching 50°C, while Encyclopedia.com gives 51°C for the hottest and most mineral-rich spring.[1][4] A parks article and a 2010 Globes report each give 42°C in different contexts.[3][13] Mako gives about 40°C for Ein Balzam and 52°C for Ein al-Makla, while a 2025 report gives a 39°C average for four springs.[8][7] Since the sources do not explain whether they are measuring different springs, outlets, or conditions, the figures are best understood as reports with differing stated scopes rather than a single settled temperature.

There are also discrepancies in a travel article’s chronology of the synagogue’s discovery: it gives 1932 for the exposure while also describing it as two years after the discovery of Beit Alpha, which the same page dates to 1928.[11] Other accounts place the first study and partial excavation of Hamat Gader’s remains in 1932.[1] The available material does not resolve the conflicting wording in that article.

The sixth-century reference to the “people of Arbel” is relevant to scholarly discussion of identifying Khirbet Hammam with ancient Arbel, but the cited study itself rejects that identification in part because of the chronological difficulty.[12] It is not evidence that Hamat Gader and Arbel were one place. Accounts of the site’s twentieth-century borders and military history also concern politically sensitive arrangements; the available sources describe those events in differing contexts and should be distinguished from the better-attested archaeological evidence for the baths and synagogue.[4][5]