to the 3rd and 4th centuries, noting the site was later reoccupied between 750 and 1399. In the 12th century, Benjamin de Tudela, a Navarrese rabbi, visited Meron and described a cave of tombs located there believed to hold the remains of Hillel, Shammai, and "twenty of their disciples and other Rabbis". On his visit to Meron in 1210, Samuel ben Samson, a French rabbi, located the tombs of Shimon Bar Yochai and his son Eleazar b. Simeon there. A contemporary of the second Jewish revolt against Rome (132–135 CE), Bar Yochai is venerated by Jews from all walks of life. From the 13th century onward, Meron became the most frequented site of pilgrimage for Jews in Palestine. In the early 14th century, Arab geographer al-Dimashqi mentioned Meron as falling under the administration of Safad. He reported that it was located near a "well-known cave" where Jews and possibly non-Jewish locals travelled to celebrate a festival, which involved witnessing the sudden and miraculous rise of water from basins and sarcophagi in the cave. Ottoman period Palestine was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and by 1596, Meron was a large village of 715 located in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jira, part of Sanjak Safad. The village paid taxes on goats, beehives, and a press that processed either grapes or olives. All the villagers were Muslim. Meron suffered relatively minor damage in the Galilee earthquake of 1837. It was reported that during the earthquake the walls of the tombs of Rabbi Eleazer and Rabbi Shimon were dislodged, but did not collapse. A number of European travellers came to Meron over the course of the 19th century and their observations from the time are documented in travel journals. Edward Robinson, who visited Meron during his travels in Palestine and Syria in the mid-19th century, describes it as "a very old looking village situated on a ledge of bristling rocks near the foot of the mountain. The ascent is by a very steep and ancient road [...] It is small, and inhabited only by Muhammedans." The tombs of Shimon bar Yochai, his son rabbi Eleazar and those of Hillel and Shammai are located by Robinson as lying within a khan-like courtyard underneath low-domed structures that were usually kept closed with the keys held in Safad. Robinson indicates that this place was the focal point of Jewish pilgrimage activities by his time; the