The site was inhabited during the
Middle Bronze Age,
Iron II,
Late Roman,
Early Islamic,
Mamluk, and
modern era. The ancient Jewish farming village of Katzrin was built around a spring, which still flowed until recently. Above-ground ruins already existed at the site, and archaeological excavations have increased the number of accessible ancient buildings. An ancient synagogue was discovered in 1967 and excavated between 1971 and 1984. Other parts of the village were excavated beginning in 1983. Some of the buildings have been reconstructed on their ancient foundations and furnished with replicas of household goods and tools. An ancient wine press and olive press have also been made functional with new ropes and beams. Costumed guides demonstrate and explain in Hebrew and English construction methods, agricultural and manufacturing processes.
Synagogue The Katzrin Synagogue was built in the 6th century CE atop a more modest, probably late-4th-century synagogue. It was built with an architectural style characteristic to southern Syria, but not used in Palestine during that period. Fragments of a mosaic floor have been found. The town and synagogue were destroyed by the catastrophic
749 earthquake, and Katzrin was abandoned. In the Mamluk period, part of the standing ruin was roofed and used as a
mosque. The synagogue had two rows of four columns each. The building was two stories tall with rows of windows at the top of the walls. The roof was built of wooden beams covered with ceramic tiles. In the southern wall, which faces Jerusalem, two massive stone steps lead to a raised stone platform (
bimah). It is thought that a wooden
Torah ark would have stood here. Under the bimah there is a long, stone-paved space thought to have served as a
geniza (storage space for sacred texts no longer in use). The walls were plastered and painted white, with the lower walls decorated with red geometric motifs. The walls were lined with stone benches in the form of a double step.
Mamluk village and Mosque In the thirteenth-fourteenth century CE it became a Mamluk village and had a mosque. The Mamluk period is not presented to visitors of the site.
Transhumance shaped settlement in the Golan for centuries because of its harsh
winters. The winters "forced tribespeople until the 19th century to live in hundreds of rudimentary 'winter villages' in their tribal territory. Starting in the second part of the 19th century, villages like Kisrin became "fixed and formed the nucleus of fully sedentary life in the 20th century Golan." The Mamluk period is not presented to visitors of the site.
Ottoman Syria, French Mandate for Syria and Independent Syria The settlement was the Syrian village of
Kisrin. In the 1880s, Kisrin was described as "a small
Bedawin winter village, with a group of beautiful oak trees and old ruins, south of el-Ahmediyeh". From the late 19th century to 1967, the village was inhabited by Bedouins and a settled population. The Syrian period is not presented to visitors of the site. ==Criticism of the museum==