Horbat Omrit
The
excavations at Horbat Omrit, located in the
north of the country, next to Kfar Szold,
have been conducted since 1999 by an expedition
from Macalester College of St. Paul, Minnesota,
under the direction of Professor Overman,
head of the chair for Classical Studies,
his staff and students and the author of
this article, serving as an advisor to the
expedition on behalf of the Antiquities Authority.
Horbat
Omrit is on the western slopes of the Hermon,
a mere stone’s throw from Banias.
It is situated on a low hill that overlooked
the Hula
Lake, in the Roman
period. The site is located along side
the Roman Scythopolis - Damascus road, one
of the country’s main arteries. In
the Roman period nearby Banias was a crossroads
from which the road continued on to Damascus
and joining it was another road coming from
the west, from Tyre on
the Mediterranean coast.
North of the site one can clearly observe
the remains of the Roman road along side
of which was built a guard tower and a sacred
compound. The temple compound, located in
the center of the hill, was connected to
the road by way of a street that in the beginning
of the 2nd century CE was
adorned with a row of columns, as was customary
on the city streets in the eastern provinces
of the Roman Empire. The colonnaded street
continued to serve the site in the Byzantine
period also and the remains of shops
and installations, including a wine press,
were uncovered the length of it in the expedition’s
excavations.
Enclosed
by a stone wall in the center of the compound
(the temenos) were the remains of the temple
and the staircase that goes up to it from
the east. Large, elaborately decorated architectural
elements belonging to the structure were
found fallen on all sides of the compound.
These included bases, column drums, Corinthian
capitals belonging to columns and engaged
pillars, architraves, friezes and cornices
decorated with floral designs.
Two construction phases
were discerned in the temple: in the first
phase the temple was built atop a podium
(14 x 20 m) c. 2.5 m high, with a broad staircase
ascending to it. This is a long temple with
four columns in the front of it, a vestibule
and cella; in the floor is an underground
crypt whose walls are treated with colored
plaster. The temple’s bema is built
of ashlar stones and is decorated on top
and bottom with molded profiles. The first phase
of the temple dates to the end of the 1st
century BCE or
the beginning of the 1st century CE and it
almost certainly was one of the building
projects initiated by King
Herod. At the beginning of the 2nd century
CE the size of the temple was increased with
an addition that enlarged the podium on three
sides; the staircase on its northern side
was also made wider. The front of the temple
during this phase was adorned with six columns
and a row of Corinthian columns surrounded
the structure on all sides. Many of the large
capitals like those borne atop the columns,
as well as those atop engaged pillars in
the temple’s walls, were found fallen
and scattered around the building.
The temple was destroyed
by an earthquake that struck in 363 CE and
a small chapel built of stones in secondary
use was constructed in the compound at the
beginning of the Byzantine period. Even though
only part of the site has been excavated
so far, it seems that on all sides of it
there are enormously large amounts of collapse
containing most of its architectural elements
including the stones from its walls, and
because the site was so remote from any settlement,
its stones were not removed from
there for use in later construction. The
podium was preserved in its entirety, as
was the staircase leading up to it. Besides
the architectural parts of the temple, which
currently constitute the bulk of the major
finds, fragments of statuary and inscriptions
were also recovered in the excavation. One
of these may make reference to Aphrodite,
a marble statue of who was found years ago
in the fields at the foot of nearby Tel
Dan and can now be seen in the Bet Ussishkin
Museum. It is quite possible that the origin
of the statute should be sought in the temple
at Horbat Omrit. In the increasingly revealed
temple, one can clearly see its two phases,
the latter of which consisted of enlarging
its area and converting it into a peripteros
style temple, a trend that is also apparent
at other sites such as the theatre temples
in Bet
Shean (Scythopolis).
The work plan of the Macalester
College expedition includes completing the
excavation of the temple and its compound.
The excavators intend to make a concentrated
financial and engineering effort to preserve
and reconstruct the structure. Based on what
is visible today much of it can be restored
and for the first time the country will have
a complete Roman temple standing in situ,
constituting a rare archaeological gem in
this region where the pace of tourist development
has recently been on the increase.
The identities of the site
and the temple are still shrouded in mystery,
because until now no inscription aiding us
in this matter has been uncovered. At this
point in time it seems the temple lies within
the domain of nearby Banias and therefore
is connected with its history also. At the
end of the Hellenistic
period the region was part of the Ituraean
kingdom until the year 36 BCE when Panion
(Banias) was turned over to Cleopatra, who
leased it out to Zenodorus the Ituraean.
When Augustus bestowed the Golan,
Bashan and Trachonitis on Herod after the
battle of Actium, the city also passed into
the latter’s domain. This was probably
part of Augustus’ policy in maintaining
the eastern frontier against the Parthians,
who after vanquishing them and visiting Damascus
and Ituraea, he conducted a triumphal procession
(triumphus) in Rome having returned to it
the legions’ standards. According to Josephus,
Herod built a temple an Augusteum, in honor
of the emperor, one of three that he constructed
in Panias, Sebaste and Caesarea (Josephus
Wars of the Jews I, XXI, 3). Josephus, who
mentions that the temple was built entirely
of white stone, does not state that it was
built in Panias, rather in the territory
of Zenodorus, near the place called Paniun.
His son, Herod Philippus,
founded a city there that became the capital “Caesarea
Philippi” (Josephus Antiquities of
the Jews XVIII, II, 1). The Augusteum his
father built appears on the coins that were
minted in the city and is depicted as a temple
with a façade of four columns and
a staircase. Panias continued to exist as
an autonomous city during the reign of Agrippa
I (37-44 CE). Agrippa II rebuilt the city
in 61 CE and renamed it Neronias Caesarea
Sebaste” (Josephus Antiquities of the
Jews XX, IX, 4). It was reported that Vespasian
and Titus visited the city at the time of
the Great
Revolt. In the second century CE, during
the reign of Marcus Aurelius, coins were
struck in the city, which were minted with
the inscription “Caesarea Sebaste,
holy, city of asylum near [Hippo] Panyo”.
The New Testament, which mentions the visit
there by Jesus and his disciples, also uses
the same Greek terms as Josephus meaning …”near”, “in
the region of” Panias.
The temple’s plan
reflects the type of Augusteum for celebrating
the emperor’s cult that was common
in this period. Similar temples were found
at Pula, in Croatia,
and at Nimes, in the south of France;
however, there were other variations of the
model also. This can probably be considered
an attempt at exporting the cult of Augustus
and Rome throughout the Roman Empire and
by way of it to produce uniformity in the
traditional structure, a trend to which Herod
no doubt was a silent participant. Should
the temple at Horbat Omrit be considered
the Augusteum that Herod built in honor of
the emperor, on the main crossroads on the
way to Panias, even though at that time in
Panias itself there was no temple to the
god Pan or even temples to other gods? It
seems that the answer to this question, like
those to other questions, is hidden in the
remains of the temple that are being uncovered
at Horbat Omrit.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |