A pleasant coolness greeted Yinon Shivtiel when he crawled into the cave at Mt. Berenice, as did a poisonous snake. Shivtiel, a doctoral candidate in Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University, who teaches at Safed College, is used to being surprised on his crawling expeditions into caves in the Galilee. He took the snake's presence in stride, preferring to save his excitement for the man-made "loft" dug out of the cave.

For several years now Shivtiel has been researching the "cliff dwellings and refuge caves throughout the Galilee," which, unlike the caves in the Judean foothills that are associated with the Bar-Kochba Revolt, have not been studied in depth. Shivtiel is attempting to understand the circumstances of their excavation and to date them, collecting what he calls the slips of the pen of the Jewish historian and leader Yosef Ben-Mattitiyahu (Josephus). "For example, in referring to Akbara [in the Safed region - E.A.] he writes,'rock-dwellers.' There is no such thing, unless you go to the hanging caves on the cliffs... When I read his theories I believe one must see as the model the Galilee caves, which were 'invented' not by the Bar-Kochba rebels, but before them."

According to Shivtiel, there were 11 Jewish communities in the Galilee during the Roman era (from 37 B.C.E. to 324 A.D.) that used the nearby high cliffs as hiding places. "What they had in common were caves on the tops of high cliffs. They used ropes to descend into the natural caves in the cliffs, which they enlarged and made fit for habitation in time of need, in contrast to the underground caves used as hiding places inside Jewish communities located in the Galilee," Shivtiel said.

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Shivtiel now seeks to focus on the cave system in Mt. Berenice, which rises above Tiberias and marks its western border. He says Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld and his excavations in Tiberias inspired him. Yesterday, Shivtiel imagined Hirschfeld's followers uncovering the rest of the ancient city and the caves above it, which together formed the fascinating way of life that existed in and around Tiberias nearly two millennia ago.

In 66 A.D., on the eve of the Great Revolt against the Romans, Tiberias was deeply split over the question of whether to join the revolt. Most of the city's elite, under Julius Capellus, decided to remain loyal to Rome. The laborers wanted to fight the Romans, while the group led by Justus of Tiberias, in an effort to keep the peace, was buffeted back and forth among the groups but eventually sided with the revolt.

In the end, the Great Revolt did not affect Tiberias. Yet, Shivtiel is eager to explore the caves for evidence of human habitation during this period. "Ben-Mattitiyahu was appointed chief of staff of the Galilee shortly before the revolt," Shivtiel explains. "He doesn't have enough time to prepare, and all he can do is to use the same techniques used 100 years earlier when the zealots went into the caves when King Herod came to conquer the Galilee. In my opinion, he adopted the technique of caves of refuge."

The Mt. Berenice caves were mapped as part of a 1989 survey carried out by the Cave Research Unit of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in which Shivtiel participated. In the center of the cave system in the belly of the mountain - the "cave village" - are about 80 small and large excavated chambers. Between them are 482 meters of passageways. "No Roman soldier could have crawled here," Shivtiel says with certainty, his tone of voice revealing his admiration for those who dug out the chambers. "In the short time available to Ben-Mattitiyahu on the eve of the revolt, turning the natural caves near Jewish communities into shelters was a good possibility. The model is similar for each of the 11 communities examined - a Jewish community close to a chalk cliff filled with caves, and signs of excavation in every cave."

Yesterday, after crossing a junkyard at the bottom of the abandoned quarry of Tiberias on his way to the caves, Shivtiel continued spinning his colorful tales of the life inside of them. The openings of some of the caves already bore graffiti and other signs of unwanted visitors. Shivtiel hopes that in the future, researchers, too, will be able to make their mark on the place.