Towering majestically over Lake Kinneret, looking out over a breathtaking view of the upper and lower Galilee including Mt. Nitai, and further towards the Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon, the stark cliff of Mt. Arbel has been witness to plenty of history.

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.

The battle was described by Roman-Jewish historian Yosef Ben-Matitiyahu who himself was leader of a Jewish battle against the Romans at the same inaccessible location in 60 CE, later describing how the Romans lit large fires at the entrance of the caves--with many of the Jewish rebels leaping to their deaths--in his famed volume "The War of the Jews" written as Flavius Josephus.

Source: Jerusalem Post