The caves are now one of the main attraction of this area.
A cave in Beit Guvrin.
Some of the famouscaves at Beit Guvrinare.
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The Columbarium Cave
A columbarium is a place to raise doves.
The word comes from the Latin colomba, which means dove.
The walls of this cave feature over 2,000 niches.
The raising of doves was very common in the Judean lowlands during the Hellenistic period.
Doves were used intensively their meat and eggs as food and their droppings as fertilizer.
Doves were also sacrificed in rituals.
There are some 85 columbarium caves in Maresha with tens of thousands of niches.
The Oil Press Cave
This is one of 22 underground oil presses discovered in Hellenistic Maresha.
Olives are first placed in a rock basin and crushed from above with another rock.
The crushed olives were then put into woven baskets and squished under a broad beam.
The oil and water extracted were collected in rock hewn basins beneath the baskets.
The ground floor consist of rooms arranged around a small central courtyard.
The rainwater was collected from nearby alleyways, the roof and the courtyard through clay pipes.
The house is partially preserved by plastering the outer walls to protect the soft chalk rock from weathering.
Photo credit:Menashe Davidson
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Bell Caves of Beit Guvrin.
The entire archaeological site containing some 3,500 underground chambers islistedas a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
