Kiryat Yearim is the place where the Ark of the Covenant was left when the Philistines returned it before being taken up to the Temple Mount. It is also the site of an important Solomonic fortress, recently excavated, that guarded the way up from the coast to Jerusalem as Castel, the crusader castle opposite, did two thousand years later.

1 Samuel Chapter 7

Then the men of Beth-Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” 21 So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up to you.”

Chapter 7

1 And the men of Kiriath-Jearim came and took up the ark of the Lord, and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill; and they consecrated his son, Eleazar, to have charge of the ark of the Lord.  2 From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-Jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

The Revised Standard Version, (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.) 1973, 1977.