[1] The ancient site lay on a spur from the hills that close the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, next to which towards its south being the tell, Khirbet Kerak or Bet Yerah,[2] one of the largest in the Levant, spanning an area of over 50 acres.

[3][4][5] Bet Yerah was the Hellenistic era twin city of Sennabris (Hebrew: צינבריי, סנבראי),[6][7] as al-Sinnabra was known in Classical antiquity, and its remains are located at the same tell[clarification needed].

[12][13][18] Constructed in the 7th century by Mu'awiya and one of his successors, Abdel Malik, who also commissioned the building of the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem, it likely represents the earliest Umayyad complex of this type yet to be discovered.

[22] Josef Schwarz, a rabbi who came to reside in Jerusalem in the 19th century, transliterated its name as it appears in the Talmud as Senabrai, and citing Josephus for its location, he noted that "Even at the present day there are found in this vicinity traces of ruins called by the Arabs Sinabri.

[27] Al-Sinnabra's location is now confirmed to have been off the main Ramla-Beisan-Damascus highway about 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) south of Tabariyya (the Arabic name for Tiberias), a city that served as the capital of the el-Urdunn province under the Umayyad dynasty.

[40][41] 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.

[40] Marwan I twice held council there: the first was in 684, while on his way from Damascus to Egypt, to address complaints from his loyalists; the second was on his return trip in 685 to designate his eldest son, Abd al-Malik, as his chosen successor and the governor of Palestine.

[43] Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), who emulated many of Mu'awiya's practices, resided part of the year in Damascus and Baalbek, and would spend the winter season in al-Sinnabra and in al-Jabiya in the Golan, making it one of the four early capitals of the ruling Marwanid house of the Umayyad dynasty.

[45] 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.

Guy and Pesach Bar-Adon, two Israeli archaeologists excavated the compound, falsely identifying a building there as a 5th-6th century Palestinian synagogue, because of the presence of a column base engraved with a seven-branched candelabrum.

[11][16][17] The compound, until 2002 identified as "Roman-Byzantine", was hypothesized to be the palace of al-Sinnabra by Donald S. Whitcomb of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, after re-examining the plan and architectural features provided in the descriptions made by Israeli excavators.

[11][13][19] Noting the similarities between the features of the complex and those of Khirbat al-Mafjar, another Islamic era palace near Jericho, he suggested the site was one of the so-called desert castles (sing.

[11][19] By comparing this information against the descriptions provided in historical geography texts, Whitcomb determined that the complex at Khirbet Kerak was indeed the Arab Islamic palace of al-Sinnabra.

[12][13][18] Coins found at the site and its foundations indicate that the central building was built no earlier than 650 CE and that the bathhouse attached to the outer wall dates to the end of the 7th century.