Hurvat 'eres: A fourth-century BCE fortress west of Jerusalem

Hurvat 'Eres is a small fort located on a high ridge in the Judaean Hills, north of Kiryat Ye'arim. The paper includes a report on a small-scale excavation conducted by the authors at this site. The square fortress includes a large open space, rooms on the east and south and a protruding tower on the west. It was probably used for a short time in the fourth century BCE as part of a network of fortresses in the province of Yehud. The meagre finds from the excavations include mainly pottery sherds. An exceptional find is a rare bronze fibula of a Balkan/Italian type. The architecture, pottery, date and significance of this fortress for the research of the Persian period are discussed in this paper.