The name Yabroud is said to have originated from an Aramaic word meaning "cold"; the city rests upon the Qalamoun Mountains slopes (Anti-Lebanon) at a height of 1,550 m.
The city is known for its ancient caves, most notably the Iskafta cave (where, in 1930, a thirty-year-old German traveller and self-taught archeologist Alfred Rust made many important pre-historical findings),[2] which dates back to a period known as Jabroudian culture, named after Yabroud;[3] and the Yabroud temple, which was once Jupiter Yabroudis's temple but later became "Konstantin and Helena Cathedral". Yabroud is home of the oldest church in Syria.[4] The Natufian archeological site Yabroud III is named for the town of Yabroud.
Yabroud was mentioned in the pottery tablets of Mesopotamia in the 1st century B.C., and Ptolemy's writings in the 2nd century A.D.[5]
^Renfrew, Colin; Bahn, Paul (2014). The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781107647756. "The transitional period between the Acheulian and Mousterian, named after the finds of Alfred Rust at the Yabrud I rock shelter".