Mt. Arbel fortress opening to visitors

RESTORATION: Majestic Mt. Arbel fortress to open following 1.5 years of conservation work. Workers carried 20 to 40 kilos of steel supporting elements up 300 meters along the cliff to the Ottoman-period fortress (Judith Sudilovsky, Jerusalem Post).

Besides the restored Ottoman-era fortress, the site had ancient (and Crusader-era) occupation:

In a secluded plateau on the south and west of the impressive cliff, are the archaeological remains of a Jewish village from the Hellenistic period in the 2nd and 3rd century BC, which was in continued use until the Roman period; inside the cliff is a series of hidden cave dwellings which may have been an extension of the village and which were used as a refuge by Jewish rebels supporters of the last Hasmonean king of Judea, Antigonus II, as they battled, and lost, against the Roman legions of King Herod in 40 BC. ...

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