Herodium

(Latin) or Herodeion (Ancient Greek: Ἡρώδειον, Arabic: هيروديون‎, Hebrew: הרודיון‎), also known in Hebrew as Har Hordus ("Mount Herodes") and in Arabic as Jabal al-Fureidis (Arabic: جبل فريديس‎, lit. '"Mountain of the Little Paradise"') is a truncated-cone-shaped hill, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of Jerusalem and 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) southeast of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. It is located between the Palestinian villages of Za'atara and Jannatah, and north of the Israeli settlement of Sdeh Bar.

Herod the Great built a palace fortress and a small town at Herodium, between 23 and 15 BCE, and is believed to have been buried there.Herodium is 758 meters (2,487 ft) above sea level, the highest peak in the Judaean desert.[dubious – discuss] Prior to the publication of Biblical Researches in Palestine in 1841, the site was known variously as Frank Mountain, the Mountain of Little Paradise, or Bethulia; Edward Robinson's identification of the site as Herodium was based on the description found in Josephus.

Wikipedie