The first known written description of the castle comes down to us from Josephus , a first-century Jewish-Roman historian :. He also erected a strong castle, and built it entirely of white stone to the very roof, and had animals of a prodigious magnitude engraved upon it.
He also drew round it a great and deep canal of water. He also made caves of many furlongs in length, by hollowing a rock that was over against him; and then he made large rooms in it, some for feasting, and some for sleeping and living in.
He introduced also a vast quantity of waters which ran along it, and which were very delightful and ornamental in the court. But still he made the entrances at the mouth of the caves so narrow, that no more than one person could enter by them at once. And the reason why he built them after that manner was a good one; it was for his own preservation, lest he should be besieged by his brethren, and run the hazard of being caught by them.
Moreover, he built courts of greater magnitude than ordinary, which he adorned with vastly large gardens. And when he had brought the place to this state, he named it Tyre. This place is between Arabia and Judea , beyond Jordan , not far from the country of Heshbon.
The association of the site with the Tobiads is based on a cave inscription found nearby. In another of these caves there is a carving of a lioness sheltering a cub at the palace [ clarification needed ]. According to Josephus, Hyrcanus left Jerusalem after losing a power struggle, and established his residence east of the Jordan, apparently on the ancestral lands of the Tobiad dynasty. The area was then a border zone between Judea and Arabia and Josephus mentions that Hyrcanus was in constant skirmishes with Arabians, killing and capturing many.
