Al-Sinnabra or Sinn en-Nabra, is the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

place name Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

for a historic site on the southern shore of the

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...

in modern-day

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. 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 Khirbet Kerak ( , "the ruin of the fortress") or Beth Yerah (, "House of the Moon (god)") (also Khirbat al-Karak) is a Tell (archaeology), tell (archaeological mound) located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee in modern-day Israel. The te ...

or Bet Yerah, one of the largest in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

, spanning an area of over 50 acres. Bet Yerah was the Hellenistic era twin city of Sennabris (), as al-Sinnabra was known in Classical antiquity, and its remains are located at the same tell. The city or village was inhabited in the Hellenistic, Roman-Byzantine, and early Islamic periods. An

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

palatial complex or '' qasr'' located there was also known as al-Sinnabra and served as a winter resort to

caliphs A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the enti ...

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

-era

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

(c. 650-704 AD).Whitcomb in Schuzman, 2009, p. 241. By the Crusader period, the ''qasr'' of al-Sinnabra was in ruins. Though the date of destruction for the village itself is unknown, by the Ayyubid period descriptions of the area mention only the "Crusader Bridge of Sennabris", constructed over the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

which at the time ran to the immediate north of the village. For decades, part of the palatial complex of al-Sinnabra was misidentified as a

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

era (c. 330-620 CE)

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

because of a column base engraved with a seven-branched candelabrum. This thesis was questioned by

Ronny Reich Ronny Reich (; born 1947) is an Israeli archaeologist, excavator and scholar of the ancient remains of Jerusalem. Education Reich studied archaeology and geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His MA thesis (supervised by Prof. Yigae ...

in 1993. Donald Whitcomb suggested the complex was the ''qasr'' of al-Sinnabra in 2002,Whitcomb in Schuzman, 2009, p. 246. and excavations carried out in 2010 showed his analysis to be correct. Constructed in the 7th century by

Mu'awiya Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashid ...

and one of his successors, Abdel Malik, who also commissioned the building of the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock () is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. It is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, the List_of_the_ol ...

in the

Old City of Jerusalem The Old City of Jerusalem (; ) is a walled area in Jerusalem. In a tradition that may have begun with an 1840s British map of the city, the Old City is divided into four uneven quarters: the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Arm ...

, it likely represents the earliest Umayyad complex of this type yet to be discovered.

Name

In Greek (

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

) sources the name is given as ''Sennabris'', while in the

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

used in

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

ic sources it is referred to as ''Sinnabri'', and is described as sitting alongside Bet Yerah. The

rendering of the name is ''al-Sinnabra'' or ''Sinn-en-Nabra''.

Location

Though described in the writings of early Arab historians, the precise location of al-Sinnabra had long been unknown.

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, the 1st-century Jewish historian, described Sennabris as the northernmost point of the Jordan valley, situating it some 30 stadia to the south of

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

. In '' Buldan'',

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

(1179–1229), the

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n geographer, situated al-Sinnabra opposite aqabat Afiq'' (meaning "the Afeq pass"), from

.Gil, 1997, p. 78, footnote #5. Sea of galilee map 1903closeup

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." A map of the area produced by the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

around this time depicted ''Khirbet Sinn en-Nabrah'' to the immediate northwest of ''Khirbet Kerak'', today's Kinneret village. Al-Sinnabra's location is now confirmed to have been off the main

Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...

- Beisan-

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

highway about south of Tabariyya (the Arabic name for

), a city that served as the capital of the el-Urdunn province under the Umayyad dynasty. It is situated on the tell of

(Arabic: Khirbet al-Karak, "the ruins of the castle") or Beth Yerah (, "House of the Moon (god)"), which lies where the

empties into the

and rises 15 meters above

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

level. The Jordan river runs to the south, although it previously (until the medieval period at the earliest) ran north and west of it.

History

Hellenistic period

In Hellenistic times, the city was known as ''Sennabris''. Parts of the city walls from this period have been identified, and it is estimated that the wall (on the south and west of the tel) was at least 1600 meters long. The wall was built of piles of basalt, with bricks at the top and was strengthened by alternating rectangular and rounded towers with spiral staircases. Similar towers from this period have been found at Tel Zeror. A portion of the town discovered in the southern part of the mound included a street along which houses were built, one of which had a paved court around which were eleven rooms. Some of the houses facing the lake have survived to the height of the window sills.

Roman-Byzantine period

According to Josephus,

Vespasian Vespasian (; ; 17 November AD 9 – 23 June 79) was Roman emperor from 69 to 79. The last emperor to reign in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for 27 years. His fiscal reforms and consolida ...

encamped with three

Roman legions The Roman legion (, ) was the largest military unit of the Roman army, composed of Roman citizens serving as legionaries. During the Roman Republic the manipular legion comprised 4,200 infantry and 300 cavalry. After the Marian reforms in 1 ...

in Sennabris, in preparation for an assault on Tarichaea. He describes it as a "village," but given the size of the Roman force stationed there, this seems to be an understatement. A fort was constructed at this time, probably by the builders of the Sixth Legion,Chancey, 2005, p. 67. as well as a road connecting Tiberias to Sennabris, via

Bethsaida Bethsaida ( ; from ; from Aramaic and , , from the Hebrew root ; ), also known as Julias or Julia (), is a place mentioned in the New Testament. Julias lay in an administrative district known as Gaulonitis, in modern-day Golan Heights. Histor ...

and

Hippos A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water: * Hippopotamus * Pygmy hippopotamus Hippo or Hippos may also refer to: Toponymy * The ancient city of Hippo Regius (modern Annaba, Alg ...

. According to the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

(''Megillah'' 1:1 b, both Sennabris and Bet Yerah once produced ''kinarīm'', a word explained by Talmudic exegete Moses Margolies to mean "reeds", but by Jastrow to mean " Christ's thorn jujube." A large

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

era church was constructed in the village in 450 CE and underwent several renovations, the last of these dated to 529 CE. The church shows signs of renewed habitation in the early Islamic period, when it possibly served as a ''dar'', or manor house.

Early Islamic period

The village gained importance under the rule of the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...

. A ''qasr'' (Arab Islamic palatial complex) located in al-Sinnabra and known by the same name, served as a winter resort to

Mu'awiya I Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashid ...

( as governor of

, ) as caliph),

Marwan I Marwan ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As ibn Umayya (; 623 or 626April/May 685), commonly known as MarwanI, was the fourth Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad caliph, ruling for less than a year in 684–685. He founded the Marwanid ruling house of the Umayyad ...

(), and other

in Umayyad

(c. 650-704 AD). Mu'awiya I, the first Umayyad caliph, settled in al-Sinnabra, dividing his time in Palestine between his residence there and Jerusalem.Gil, 1997, p. 78. 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 ''Mihrab'' (, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "''qibla'' wall". ...

'' associated with the apsidal form.Whitcomb in Schuzman, 2009, p. 245. According to Whitcomb, the ''qasr'' is likely the earliest Umayyad complex of this type yet to be discovered. It differs from other ''qusur'' (pl. of ''qasr'') in that there are no ''buyūt'' ("houses") arranged around a central courtyard, suggesting either a more urban design, such as that found at Anjar, or a more palatial one, like that at Qasr ibn Wardan. It is similar to other ''qusur'' in that it exhibits characteristics associated with the pre-Islamic building techniques used by Arab chieftains of the Byzantine era. Later Umayyad caliphs also came to al-Sinnabra. Marwan I twice held council there: the first was in 684, while on his way from

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, 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

. Marwan may have remained there until his death later that year. Abd al-Malik (), who emulated many of Mu'awiya's practices, resided part of the year in Damascus and

Baalbek Baalbek (; ; ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In 1998, the city had a population of 82,608. Most of the population consists of S ...

, and would spend the winter season in al-Sinnabra and in al-Jabiya in the

Golan Golan (; ) is the name of a biblical town later known from the works of Josephus (first century CE) and Eusebius (''Onomasticon'', early 4th century CE). Archaeologists localize the biblical city of Golan at Sahm el-Jaulān, a Syrian village eas ...

, making it one of the four early capitals of the ruling Marwanid house of the Umayyad dynasty. He died in al-Sinnabra in 705. An Umayyad prince and former governor of

Khurasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West Asia, West and Central Asia that encompasses wes ...

until 698, Umayya ibn Abdallah ibn Khalid ibn Asid, retired and died in al-Sinnabra during the reign of Abd al-Malik. In 744, an army headed by

Sulayman ibn Hisham Sulaymān ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (; ) was an Arab general, the son of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (). He is known for his participation in the expeditions against the Byzantine Empire as well as his prominent role in the c ...

, an Umayyad prince and general sent by Caliph Yazid III to quell resistance to his rule, reached al-Sinnabra, where the tribes of Urdunn came to pledge their loyalty to the caliph before him.Gil, 1997, p. 86. 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 The Hamdanid dynasty () was a Shia Muslim Arab dynasty that ruled modern day Northern Mesopotamia and Syria (890–1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib tribe of Mesopotamia and Arabia. History Origin The Hamdanids hailed ...

, and Fadl, son of Salih, a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

who headed the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

forces took place there.Gil, 1997, p. 355.

Crusader period

During the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, the army of Baldwin I, one of the leaders of the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...

, was defeated there in the Battle of Al-Sannabra in 1113 by the armies of Mawdud, the

atabeg Atabeg, Atabek, or Atabey is a hereditary title of nobility of Turkic language, Turkic origin, indicating a governor of a nation or province who was subordinate to a monarch and charged with raising the crown prince. The first instance of the ti ...

Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...

who had formed an alliance with forces from Damascus. In the lead up to the Battle of Hittin in 1187,

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

and his forces passed through and set up camp near the village, before moving on to command the roads around Kafr Sabt. The Umayyad ''qasr'' was in ruins by this time. In the dried out river bed where the river used to flow at this time, the remains of the "Crusader bridge of Sennabris" were found. During the Crusader era al-Sinnabra was known as ''Senbra'', and it was a casale under the

Abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

of Tabor.

Ayyubid period

The exact date of the village's destruction is unknown, but it is thought that it did not survive beyond the period of Ayyubid rule (c. late 12th-early 13th centuries) as references to al-Sinnabra from this time mention only the bridge of the same name, without recalling the village.

Excavations and identification

In 1946, in the northern quadrant of the tell, a fortified compound consisting of a series of large structures, including a bathhouse adjoined to a large apsidal hall decorated with colorful

mosaics A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

, was discovered just above the granary (AKA the Circles Building), an Early Bronze Age structure uncovered in previous excavations. Between 1950 and 1953,P. Bar-Adon, Beth Yerah (News and Notes), IEJ, vol. 5, pp. 273, 1955 P.L.O. 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. The "synagogue" was incorporated into the Beth Yerah National Park which served as a popular tourist destination during the 1950s and 1960s, but has since been closed. Excavations by the

Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC), formerly known as the Oriental Institute, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern studies and archaeology museum. ...

in 1960 uncovered the Byzantine church (to the north of the compound). Questions were repeatedly raised about the identification of the structure to the south as a synagogue within a Roman era fort with attached bathhouse.

, a prominent Israeli archaeologist, disproved that thesis in 1993, without offering an alternate explanation as to its identity.

Correct identification

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 The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, after re-examining the plan and architectural features provided in the descriptions made by Israeli excavators. Noting the similarities between the features of the complex and those of Khirbat al-Mafjar, another Islamic era palace near

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

, he suggested the site was one of the so-called desert castles (sing. ''qasr''; pl. ''qusur'') of the early Islamic

. 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.

Dating

Whitcomb's thesis was confirmed following research conducted by Taufik De'adle of the

Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...

and excavations undertaken by Israeli archaeologists headed by Raphael Greenberg from

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

's Institute of Archaeology in 2010. 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. The foundations of the compound are made up of thick wall-stubs over two meters deep and provide an idea of the layout of the palace, the bathhouse and the wall and towers that surrounded them. The remains of water conduits and ceramic pipes from the bathhouse attest to the existence of a sophisticated water-distribution system, fed by an aqueduct. Greenberg said that al-Sinnabra and other sites that are in the process of being similarly re-dated indicate an architectural continuity between the Roman and early Arab empires.

References

Bibliography

* * * Eisenberg, Emanuel et al., Bet Yerah, the Early Bronze Age Mound: v. 1: Excavation Reports 1933-1986, Israel Antiquities Authority, 2006, * * * * *

External links

Tel Bet Yerah 2007, 2009 Preliminary Report
* Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Umayyad Desert Castles Umayyad palaces Umayyad architecture in Israel Archaeological sites in Israel Geography of Palestine (region) Ancient Jewish settlements of Galilee Sea of Galilee