Excavations
The German rail-road engineer and surveyor Gottlieb Schumacher first surveyed Hippos in 1885, although he incorrectly identified the ruins as those of the town of Gamala.
The first excavations were carried out by Israeli archaeologists Emmanuel Anati, Claire Epstein, Michael Avi-Yona and others in 1951-1955. They unearthed some domestic buildings, the main city gate at the east and a large Byzantine church that had probably been the seat of Hippos' bishop. After the excavations, the Israel Defense Forces used Mount Sussita for the same purpose as the ancient Greeks: as a fortress. It was used as a border defense against Syria until the Golan Heights were captured by Israel in the Six Day War.
In 1964 Mt. Sussita was declared a National Park and in 2004 the area around it, including the site itself, were declared a National Reserve. Following an archaeological survey conducted in 1999, it was decided to embark on a large-scale scientific project of excavations and in July 2010 the eleventh season of excavation was conducted. The research undertaken at Hippos-Sussita is an international project. The first eleven seasons (2000–2010) were an Israeli-Polish-American collaboration, co-directed by Professor Arthur Segal and Dr. Michael Eisenberg from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa; Professor Jolanta Młynarczyk from the Research Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology, Polish Academy of Sciences; Dr. Mariusz Burdajewicz of the National Museum, Warsaw and Dr. Mark Schuler from Concordia University, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. In summer 2010 the team embarked on a new session of excavations. The main areas of excavation were the odeion, the basilica, the North-East Church and its surrounding insulae, domestic quarters, two baths, the defensive ditch and fortifications next to it and the necropoleis. The 2012 season, directed by Dr. M. Eisenebrg, is scheduled to run from July 1 to July 26, with the focus on the Roman basilica, the Roman-Byzantine southern bathhouse, the north-east insula and the living quarters.
The objective of the expedition is to uncover the entire ancient city, the street network, the main secular and religious public buildings, as well as the domestic quarters. It also hopes to survey and excavate the two necropoleis located to the south and the south-east of the city. The relationship between the city and the surrounding countryside will also be examined in future seasons, especially the area stretching between the city and the lake. Furthermore, it plans to conduct a detailed survey of the lake's shore to establish the exact location of Hippos' port.
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