Umm er Rus

Umm er Rus

أم الرؤوس חורבת אום א-רוס‎
Overturned stone covering at mouth of well
Shown within Israel
Alternative name	Khŭrbet Umm er Rûs (Arabic) / Horbat Bet Bad (Hebrew)
Location
Region	Judaean Mountains
Coordinates	31°41′20.9″N 35°01′16.76″E / 31.689139°N 35.0213222°E / 31.689139; 35.0213222
Area	c. 15 dunams
Height	443 m.
History
Founded	unknown
Abandoned	unknown
Periods	Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine
Site notes
Excavation dates	none
Archaeologists	surveyed by Dani Weiss, Boaz Zissu, and Gideon Solimany
Condition	Ruin
Public access	yes

In Arabic it is know as Umm er Rus (

He (Vespasian) came to the toparchy of

Bethletephon. He then destroyed that place, and the neighboring places, by fire, and fortified, at proper places, the strong holds all about Idumaea; and when he had seized upon two villages, which were in the very midst of Idumaea, Betaris and Caphartobas, he slew above ten thousand of the people, and carried into captivity above a thousand, and drove away the rest of the multitude, and placed no small part of his own forces in them, who overran and laid waste the whole mountainous country.^[4]

The site may have been resettled and destroyed a second time during the outbreak of hostilities under Hadrian, a time of great upheaval and unrest in Judea, as described by Cassius Dio's Roman History.

Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate .^[5]

In 1883 the

The current ruin sits at a mean elevation of 443 metres (1,453 ft) above sea-level, sprawling over an area of about 15

The southern site (31°41′00″N 35°01′16″E / 31.683454°N 35.021127°E / 31.683454; 35.021127 (Horbat Beit Bad)), also known by the name Umm er Rus, is distanced 2.5 kilometers southeast of

Wine presses are noticeable on the site, cisterns, underground storage facilities, as well as a rock-cut, plastered ritual bath (mikveh), hewn in a trapezoidal manner and measuring approximately 3.1–3.6 x 3.6–4.1 m (10.1–11.8 x 11.8–13.4 ft.), connected to a large underground water reservoir (approximately 9 x 8 m).^[13][14] The potsherds and fragments of a spindle-like bottle attest to a Jewish settlement in the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.^[14]

The site has a history of being plagued by antiquities robbers.^[15]

Further reading

• Vincent, H. (1898). "Une église à Oumm er Rous".
  JSTOR 44100398
  .