Recent Excavations

View looking north over the recent excavations towards the “Cave of Pan.”

In the late 1st century CE, Agrippa II (the great-grandson of Herod the Great) transformed this area, in front of the grotto, into a Roman-style open-air dining/banquet complex. Water from the cave would have flowed through this area, creating a very tranquil environment. Statues and fountains probably adorned this area.

Agrippa II, raised in Rome, seems to have imported Roman-style models of garden/grotto-banqueting spaces (nymphaeum-triclinium types) into Banias. The layout (water, cave, statues, aqueduct) has close parallels with Roman grotto/dining complexes, e.g. Sperlonga in Italy.

Many believe that the temple built by Herod the Great was located at Omrit—myself included.