Horvat Hyrcania: Byzantine gold coins, an unpublished Hebrew inscription, and Herod the Great’s palace-fortress emerge from the third season of excavations.
In the northern Judean Desert, among the ruins of Horvat Hyrcania, history speaks again. The third season of archaeological excavations began at the start of last month at one of the most fascinating and stratified sites in ancient Israel, bringing to light exceptional finds spanning over a thousand years of history: from the Hasmonean and Herodian periods to the Byzantine and early Islamic periods.
The wide-ranging, long-term project combines rescue excavations, academic research, and conservation, and is directed by Oren Gutfeld and Michal Haber on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with the Official in Charge of Archaeology in Judea and Samaria. The goal is twofold: to protect the site from looters and to make it accessible to the public.
From the Hasmonean fortress to the palace of Herod the Great
The history of Hyrcania began between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1st century BC, when it was built as a Hasmonean fortress-palace, probably at the behest of the high priest John Hyrcanus or his son Alexander Jannaeus, with the strategic function of controlling the eastern accesses to the kingdom.
The main historical sources come from Flavius Josephus, who recounts how Hyrcania was one of the three fortresses where Queen Salome Alexandra kept her treasures, along with Alexandrion and Machaerus.
After its destruction by the Roman general Gabinius, the site was rebuilt and enlarged by Herod the Great, who transformed it into a high-level fortified residence. It was here that Herod imprisoned and eliminated many of his political enemies and, in 15 BC, hosted Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of Emperor Augustus. This event suggests lavish preparations in a context otherwise marked by tension and paranoia.
The tragic epilogue of the Second Temple period
In the last, gloomy years of his reign, Herod ordered the execution of his eldest son, Antipater, accused of treason, in Hyrcania. According to sources, the body was buried on the site “without ceremony,” symbolically sealing the end of the Second Temple period.
After Herod’s death (4 BC), Hyrcania gradually lost importance and was abandoned.
The Byzantine monastery of “Castellion”
About five centuries later, during the heyday of Byzantine monasticism in the Judean Desert, a monastery founded by Saint Saba, known as Castellion (“little castle” in Greek), arose among the ruins. The complex remained active even after the Islamic conquest, until it was finally abandoned around 800 AD, when the site was known as Khirbet el-Mird.
In the 1950s, the discovery of Byzantine, Aramaic, and Arabic papyri attracted the attention of scholars, including Roland de Vaux and Robert de Lange, although the interventions of the time cannot be considered systematic scientific excavations.
Mysterious tunnels and forced labor
In the 2000s, Gutfeld and Yakov Kalman excavated two tunnels carved into the rock, one of which is over 120 meters deep. Scholars speculate that they may have been built by prisoners condemned by Herod, adding another dark piece to the history of the site.
Discoveries from the third season of excavations
The current campaign, which began in 2023, represents the first systematic academic excavations ever conducted at Hyrcania. Among the most significant findings are:
- A very rare Hebrew inscription, the first ever found at the site: a fragment with the letters shin and lamed, discovered by a visiting child.
- A monumental stepped plaza leading to a wing of the Hasmonean palace-fortress, reorganized in the Herodian period, with polychrome frescoes and stucco decorations similar to those in the palaces of Jericho and the Upper City of Jerusalem.
- The remains of a Herodian bath complex, currently in the early stages of excavation.
Under the collapse of the western wing of the monastery, the following have also emerged:
- A fragment of a Byzantine Greek inscription, possibly an epitaph, with the text: “Christ… Pau[lus]… Servant of God.”
- Two gold coins of Emperor Heraclius, minted in Constantinople between 613 and 641 AD, symbolizing the fiscal stability of the Byzantine Empire.
- A women’s gold ring with a yellow stone, possibly citrine.
- The lid of a stone reliquary, probably related to the cult of Saint Saba.
A heritage yet to be discovered
The collection of artifacts found at Horvat Hyrcania paints an extraordinary picture of the historical and cultural continuity of the Judean Desert, from the Hasmonean period to the early Middle Ages. As Gutfeld and Haber point out, much of the site remains unexplored, promising new discoveries that could rewrite further chapters of the region’s ancient history.
At Horvat Hyrcania, in the mineral silence of the Judah Desert, time has never really stopped. It has remained stratified, waiting. Every stone removed, every inscription re-emerged, every object brought back to light mends a fracture in the memory of the place and reminds us that history does not disappear: it retreats, it hides, but it continues to exist. And when it reappears, it does so demanding to be heard.
