HERODIUM. - A characteristic artificial hill with a truncated cone shape, located 6 km from Bethlehem in a south-easterly direction. King Herod the Great erected a monument there called H., probably to commemorate the victory he won over the Jews who attacked him as he was travelling from Jerusalem to Masada (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XIV, 9, 4; Bell. Jud., I, 21, 10; IV, 9, 5). A riot broke out there at his behest (Antiq. Jud., XVII, 8, 3; Bell. Jud., I, 33, 9).
No excavations have ever been carried out there; however, at the top one can still make out an enclosing wall and circular chambers arranged at the four cardinal points, and at the bottom many remains of houses and a reservoir. The Arabs call it Gebel el-Furejdis (i.e. Mount of the Little Paradise).