Hellenistic period In Hellenistic times, the city was known as
Sennabris. A portion of the town discovered in the southern part of the mound included a street along which houses were built, one of which had a paved court around which were eleven rooms. Some of the houses facing the lake have survived to the height of the window sills.
Roman-Byzantine period , as recorded in
The Historical Atlas (1923) by William R. Shepherd According to Josephus,
Vespasian encamped with three
Roman legions in Sennabris, in preparation for an assault on
Tarichaea. He describes it as a "village," but given the size of the Roman force stationed there, this seems to be an understatement. A fort was constructed at this time, probably by the builders of the
Sixth Legion, as well as a road connecting Tiberias to Sennabris, via
Bethsaida and
Hippos. According to the
Jerusalem Talmud (
Megillah 1:1 [2b]), both Sennabris and Bet Yerah once produced
kinarīm, a word explained by Talmudic exegete
Moses Margolies to mean "reeds", but by
Jastrow to mean "
Christ's thorn jujube." A large
Byzantine Empire era church was constructed in the village in 450 CE and underwent several renovations, the last of these dated to 529 CE. A
qasr (Arab Islamic palatial complex) located in al-Sinnabra and known by the same name, served as a winter resort to
Mu'awiya I ( as governor of
Syria, ) as caliph),
Marwan I (), and other
caliphs in Umayyad
Palestine (c. 650-704 AD). Innovations he introduced to the palace structure at al-Sinnabra include the
maqṣura, "a columned bay ... enclosed by a railing or screen" against which the caliph would lean to hear petitions from his subjects, and a
mihrab associated with the apsidal form. According to Whitcomb, the
qasr is likely the earliest Umayyad complex of this type yet to be discovered. Later Umayyad caliphs also came to al-Sinnabra. Marwan may have remained there until his death later that year. An Umayyad prince and former governor of
Khurasan until 698,
Umayya ibn Abdallah ibn Khalid ibn Asid, retired and died in al-Sinnabra during the reign of Abd al-Malik. The site was apparently still in use in the 10th century; in 979 a meeting between
Abu Taghlib (Fadlallah ibn al-Hasan) of the
Hamdanid dynasty, and Fadl, son of Salih, a
Jew who headed the
Fatimid forces took place there.
Crusader period During the
Crusades, the army of
Baldwin I, one of the leaders of the
First Crusade, was defeated there in the
Battle of Al-Sannabra in 1113 by the armies of
Mawdud, the
atabeg of
Mosul who had formed an alliance with forces from Damascus. In the lead up to the
Battle of Hittin in 1187,
Saladin and his forces passed through and set up camp near the village, before moving on to command the roads around
Kafr Sabt. The Umayyad
qasr was in ruins by this time. In the dried out river bed where the river used to flow at this time, the remains of the "Crusader bridge of Sennabris" were found.
Ayyubid period The exact date of the village's destruction is unknown, but it is thought that it did not survive beyond the period of
Ayyubid rule (c. late 12th-early 13th centuries) as references to al-Sinnabra from this time mention only the bridge of the same name, without recalling the village. ==Excavations and identification==