Journey to the Majestic Byzantine and Crusader Church of Bet Guvrin-Maresha Israel (St. Anne)

Information about the Byzantine and Crusader Church of Bet Guvrin-Maresha Israel itself will be provided after this announcement. Unfortunately, I have not been able to work as a tour guide because of the war.
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Your tour guide
Zahi Shaked

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Bet Guvrin-Maresha National Park is located in the heart of the Judean lowlands, a region of low hills, 250–350 m above sea level. The hills are covered with Mediterranean woodland mainly used for grazing, while the fertile soil that has collected in the valleys has been cultivated since
ancient times. Within the national park, which covers about 5,000 dunams (1,250 acres), is the biblical city of Maresha. During the Roman period Maresha was abandoned and the settlement
moved to nearby Bet Guvrin. At that time, Bet Guvrin straddled an important junction on the road from Lod and Ashkelon to Hebron and Jerusalem. The national park is famed for the numerous and fascinating caves dug by its ancient inhabitants. These caves served many purposes – as quarries, cisterns, storerooms, dovecotes, tombs, storage chambers for produce and shelters for farm animals.
Hewn caves are a common phenomenon in the lowlands because the rocks that make up the region are soft, lightcolored chalk that is easy to quarry. In many places the chalk is covered with a harder crust, known as nari, some 1.5–3.0 m thick.

Following the destruction of Maresha, Bet Guvrin became the region’s most important city. The name Bet Guvrin first appears in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus
Flavius, who reported that the Romans, led by Vespasian, conquered Bet Guvrin in 68 CE.
In 200 CE, Emperor Septimus Severus granted Bet Guvrin the status of a city and changed its name to Eleutheropolis (“city of the freedmen”). The city controlled the area between the coastal plain and the Dead Sea and between Bet Shemesh and the Be’er Sheva Valley. Bet Guvrin became an important junction; five roads, along which milestones have been found, led to the city. Besides
dwellings, the city boasted an amphitheater and other public structures. There are no springs at Bet Guvrin, but during the Roman period two aqueducts channeled flowing water to the city from springs in the Judean Mountains. Slowly but surely the city’s Jewish population was renewed. In the 3rd and 4th centuries CE the city is mentioned in the Talmud and the Midrash. Renowned sages lived there, including Rabbi Yonatan and Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Ya‘akov.
Additional evidence of the growing Jewish population in the region comes from the remains of a large Jewish cemetery and a synagogue inscription. During the Byzantine period Bet Guvrin became an important Christian center and churches were built there. The Early Arab period saw most of the Bell Caves hewn and during the Crusader period a small fortified city existed here. The Church of St. Anne was restored at that time, during which small farming villages surrounded the city.
The Arab village of Bet Jibrin stood here until Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. In June of that year, the Egyptian army took over the British police station built here at the beginning of World War II. The area was taken by the Israel Defense Forces on October 27, 1948. Kibbutz Bet Guvrin
was founded in May 1949.

St. Anne’s Church
The church is located on the path between parking lots C and D. This very large church (52 x 56 m) was built during the Byzantine period. In the Crusader period the church was restored on a smaller scale. The church was named after Anne, the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus. The Arab inhabitants of Bet Jibrin preserved the name as “Sandahanna.” In Arabic, Tel Maresha was named Tell Sandahanna, after the church.