Bet Yerah

10km/6mi south of Hammat on the lakeside road is the archeological site of Bet Yerah ("House of the Moon"): a name which suggests that the original inhabitants worshipped the moon. To judge from the size of the tell Bet Yerah must have been an important Canaanite town, although it is not mentioned either in the Bible or in Egyptian records. Evidence of settlement was found here ranging from the Bronze Age to the period of Arab rule.

There are excellently preserved remains of baths of the fourth or fifth century A.D. In the center of the frigidarium (cold bath), which had a domed roof, was a pool 2m/6.5ft wide of which only the foundations survive. The excavations also revealed the remains of a Roman fort of the third century A.D. Within this complex, which was abandoned in the fourth century, the Jewish community built a three-aisled synagogue oriented towards Jerusalem in the fifth or sixth century. There are remains of a mosaic depicting plants, animals and a man with a horse.

In the northern part of the tell the excavators found the foundations of a fifth century Byzantine church which was much altered in the sixth and seventh centuries.