Meiser (; , also known as Shaykh Maysar or Khirbat Maysar) is 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 ...

village in northern

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 ...

. Located half a kilometre west of the Green Line, north of the city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye in the triangle area of

Wadi Ara Wadi Ara (, ) or Nahal 'Iron (), is a valley and its surrounding area in Israel populated mainly by Arab citizens of Israel, Arab Israelis. The area is also known as the "Triangle (Israel), Northern Triangle". Wadi Ara is located northwest of t ...

, it is one of three

villages under the jurisdiction of

Menashe Regional Council The Menashe Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Menasheh'') is a Regional council (Israel), regional council near the city of Hadera, on Israel's north-central Israeli Coastal Plain, coastal plain in the southern Haifa District. It is named after ...

. In it had a population of .

History

Antiquity

Remains from the Early

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

era (end of the first century BCE–beginning of the first century CE) have been found here.Zertal, 2016, pp
292294
/ref> Three strata from the Roman-Byzantine periods was excavated in the centre of the village. A bathhouse, dating from the same time, has also been found. Ceramics and other remains from the

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 have been found here. An excavation revealed remains dating from the end of the Byzantine period (7th century CE), and above it were remains of a residential house from the

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

period (9th–10th centuries CE).

Ottoman era

In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) found at ''Sheikh Meisir'' "foundations near a modern Mukam" (Muslim tomb). In spite of this, Andrew Petersen, who inspected the

Maqam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian clas ...

in 1994, suggested "that the building may be considerably older than the nineteenth century."

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Kherbet Maisir'' had a population of 49 Muslims. In the 1945 statistics Meiser was counted with Qaffin and ''Kh. el Aqaba'', together they had a population of 1,570 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
21
/ref> with a land area of 23,755

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,863 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 8,371 were used for cereals, while 40 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
177
/ref> File:Meisar 1942.jpg, Meiser 1942 1:20,000 File:Qaffin 1945.jpg, Meiser 1945 1:250,000 Meiser panorama from west 01

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Village website
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Menashe Regional Council Arab villages in Israel Wadi Ara Populated places in Haifa District