Object description

Beit She'arim , also , Kh. Sheikh Abreiḳ , is a Roman-era Jewish village that thrived from the 1st-century BCE until its demise in the early 20th century. The name of site is occasionally rendered as Bet She'arāyim . It is first mentioned by Josephus as Besara , a place then serving as the administrative center of the estates of Queen Berenice in the Jezreel Valley. The village seemed to have been of agricultural importance, as it was being used to store the harvested grain of the neighboring towns and villages. By the mid-2nd century, the village had become the seat of the rabbinic synod under Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi. The site is situated on the spur of a hill about half a kilometer long and 200 meters wide, and lies in the southern extremity of the Lower Galilee mountains, facing the western end of the Jezreel Valley, east of Daliat el-Carmel, south of Kiryat Tivon, and west of Ramat Yishai. It rises 138 metres above sea level at its highest point.