EHUD NETZER’S ARCHIVES

THE PUZZLING BUILDING at Banias was excavated in the late 1970s. One end of this long rectangular structure was carved out of the adjacent mountainside while the other end was built atop a monumental platform and entryway supported by walls and arches constructed in net-like patterns known as opus reticulatum. This construction technique was common to monumental buildings of the early Roman period and is found in a number of sites associated with Herod the Great, including Herod’s Third Palace at Jericho.