the site is known as Siar el Ghanem, or the sheepfold, and is owned by the Franciscans. It was partially excavated around 1859, and again in 1951, revealing ruins of altars and inscriptions in mosaics, which validate the sanctity of the site, and relics of olive presses, wells, spaces for grain storage and grottos, which confirm that that the livelihoods of the inhabitants depended on agriculture, and indicate their constancy in the area most probably since the time of Herod.
