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Courtesy Pella Excavation Project

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. Following the destruction of Pella by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus in 83 B.C., there is no evidence of habitation on the main mound until the late third century A.D. The neighboring hill of Tell el-Husn, however, has remains of a formidable wall of finely dressed Hellenistic masonry (see wall detail) and a fortress dating to the early first century A.D. The fortress may have resembled the nearby Jebel Hammeh fortress from the same period. Tell el-Husn may have housed some kind of settled presence during this period when Pella was otherwise abandoned.