Unearthing Sussita

By Arthur Segal and Michael Eisenberg
Archaeologists are unveiling a magnificent monumental city, with a view to match.
Peering up from the shore of Lake Kinneret, known to many as the Sea of Galilee, one can hardly detect any structures atop that imposing flat-topped mountain. But at its summit, twelve years of continuous archaeological excavations on the site of the ancient city of Antiochia Hippos, now known as Sussita, have unearthed a wealth of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad structures erected during a period of a thousand years – from the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE. Yet much excavation work still has to be done to reveal the city in all its former magnificence and glory.

Sussita Mountain, on which Hippos was built, is situated between the Kinneret Valley and the southwestern Golan mountain range, about 2km to the east of the lake and rising 350m above it. Its strategic location near the eastern bank of the lake, the natural protection provided by the mountain, and the fertile fields of the lakeside districts, were most probably the features that attracted the Seleucid rulers in the mid-2nd century BCE to found a Hellenistic city here on the mountain crest.

The diamond-shaped table top of Sussita Mountain is about 600m in length from east to west and 250m from north to south. The fairly flat surface of this mountain plateau slopes down gradually from east to west. The upper layers of the mountain are covered with basalt, under which there is a soft limestone layer. These were the raw materials utilized for most of the ancient construction work.

It is clear that the mountain's relative isolation played a salient role in the decision by the Seleucids to build here. A fairly steep slope on the western side and deep and impassable gorges along its northern and southern sides severed the mountain from the surrounding terrain, leaving only a narrow saddle ridge on the east to link it with the southwestern slopes of the Golan Heights. Along this ridge ran the main road to the city which was enclosed by a solid wall (about 1,350m long) with two gates. The main gate on the east faced the saddle ridge and the gate on the west led downwards along a winding, snake-like road to the shores of the lake and cultivated fields.

Today, Sussita Mountain is an officially declared national park under the supervision of the National Parks Authority (NPA) of Israel.
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2012/article/unearthing-sussita