Kaukaba, Kaukabet El-Arab or Kaukaba Station is a village in the

Hasbaya District The Hasbaya District is a district in the Nabatiyeh Governorate of Lebanon. It lies in the southeast, bordering Syria. The capital of the district is Hasbaya Hasbeya or Hasbeiya ( ar, حاصبيا) is a town in Lebanon, situated at the foot of ...

in the Nabatiye Governorate in southern

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

Archaeology

By the village is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

archaeological site East of

Majdel Balhis Majdel Balhis (مجدل بلهيص) is a village and municipality located in Rashaya District, Beqaa Governorate, Lebanon. Majdel Balhis is 95 km away from Beirut. Its altitude is 1100 meters above sea level. The area of Majdel Balhis cover ...

near

Rashaya Rashaya, Rachaya, Rashaiya, Rashayya or Rachaiya ( ar, راشيا), also known as Rashaya al-Wadi or Rachaya el-Wadi (and variations), is a town of the Rashaya District in the west of the Jnoub Government of Lebanon. It is situated at around ab ...

in the Beqaa Valley,

. It was first found by P. Billaux in 1957 who alerted Jesuit Archaeologists, Fathers

Henri Fleisch Reverend Father Henri Fleisch (1 January 1904 – 10 February 1985) was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon. Fleisch spent years rec ...

and Tallon. Open air site excavations by L. and F. Skeels were also carried out in 1964. The rock shelter site lies amongst fields covered with

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

boulders from ancient

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

flows. It is in a low pass from the Karaoun Dam to Rashaya. This area is close to the 4 heads of the Jordan River and is drained by feeders such as the

Dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...

Banias Banias or Banyas ( ar, بانياس الحولة; he, בניאס, label=Modern Hebrew; Judeo-Aramaic, Medieval Hebrew: פמייס, etc.; grc, Πανεάς) is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek g ...

Hasbani The Hasbani River ( ar, الحاصباني / ALA-LC: ''al-Ḥāṣbānī''; he, חצבני ''Ḥatzbaní'') or Snir Stream ( he, נחל שניר / ''Nahal Sənir''), is the major tributary of the Jordan River. Local natives in the mid-19th cent ...

and Upper Jordan rivers, North of

Hasbaya Hasbeya or Hasbeiya ( ar, حاصبيا) is a town in Lebanon, situated at the foot of Mount Hermon, overlooking a deep amphitheatre from which a brook flows to the Hasbani. In 1911, the population was about 5000. Hasbaya is the capital of the Wa ...

. Artefacts found on the surface included

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

axe An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

s, obsidian,

vessels and

arrowheads An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as s ...

dated to the oldest

periods. Prominent artefacts found included a series of flint picks with heavily worn points due to extremely heavy usage. Fragments of agricultural tools such as basalt

hoes Hoe or HOE may refer to: * Hoe (food), a Korean dish of raw fish * Hoe (letter), a Georgian letter * Hoe (tool), a hand tool used in gardening and farming ** Hoe-farming, a term for primitive forms of agriculture * Backhoe, a piece of excavatin ...

have been found with very slight dating suggesting the 6th millennium or earlier. Flints were not knapped on site and the centre of the hoe production has not yet been found.

Modern era

In 1838, during the Ottoman era, Eli Smith noted the population of Kaukaba as Maronite and Druze, while in 1875,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

found the population to mostly be Maronite.Guérin, 1880, p
298
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Kaoukaba
Localiban {{Navbox prehistoric caves Populated places in Hasbaya District Maronite Christian communities in Lebanon Neolithic settlements Archaeological sites in Lebanon Rock shelters

Archaeology

Modern era

See also

References

Bibliography

External links