page_title: Battir
section_title: Archaeology
hierarchical_section_title: Battir / Archaeology
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a sketch of a Roman Inscription made by a French Archaeologist, C. Clermont-Ganneau, and printed in "Archaeological Researches in Palestine during the Years 1873-74," London 1899, pp. 263-270.
context_page_description: Battir is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, 6.4 km west of Bethlehem, and southwest of Jerusalem. It was inhabited during the Byzantine and Islamic periods, and in the Ottoman and British Mandate censuses its population was recorded as primarily Muslim. In former times, the city lay along the route from Jerusalem to Bayt Jibrin. Battir is situated just above the modern route of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway, which served as the armistice line between Israel and Jordan from 1949 until the Six-Day War, when it was occupied by Israel. In 2007, Battir had a population of about 4,000.
  In 2014, Battir was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, as Land of Olives and Vines — Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir.
context_section_description: An old Roman bath fed by a spring is located in the middle of the village. Archaeologist D. Ussishkin dates the village to the Iron Age, and states that at the time of the Revolt it was a village of between one and two thousand people chosen by Bar Kochba for its spring, defensible hilltop location, and proximity to the main Jerusalem-Gaza road. A Roman inscription was also discovered near one of the city's natural springs on which are inscribed the names of the Fifth Macedonian Legion and the Eleventh Claudian Legion, which said legions presumably took part in the siege of the city during Emperor Hadrian's reign.
  There isn't any evidence of habitation in the period immediately after the Revolt.
caption: Roman Inscription found near Battir mentioning the 5th and 11th Roman Legions
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