Mukhmas () is a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the

Jerusalem Governorate The Quds Governorate (), also known as Jerusalem Governorate, is one of the 16 governorates of Palestine and located in the central part of the West Bank. The current governor, appointed by the Palestinian National Authority, is Adnan Ghaith s ...

, located northeast of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, in the center of the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...

, the town had a

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 1,363 in 2017. Mukhmas is identified with the biblical

Michmas Michmas (; ) was an Israelite and Jewish town located in the highlands north of Jerusalem. According to the Hebrew Bible, it belonged to the Tribe of Benjamin. It was the setting of the biblical Battle of Michmash, recounted in 1 Samuel 14. Mich ...

, and preserves its ancient name. It is described in historical texts as

Jonathan Apphus Jonathan Apphus (Hebrew: ''Yōnāṯān ʾApfūs''; Ancient Greek: Ἰωνάθαν Ἀπφοῦς, ''Iōnáthan Apphoûs'') was one of the sons of Mattathias and the leader of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea from 161 to 143 BCE. Name H J Wolf ...

' seat and for supplying fine flour to the

Jerusalem Temple The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accor ...

. Archaeological fieldwork revealed

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and

Second Temple Period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

remains, indicating a Jewish priestly presence until the

Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...

. Finds also include

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 remains. During the early Ottoman period, it was a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

village with a small population engaged in agriculture. It was then ruled by the British, the Jordanians and the Israelis. Following the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...

, Mukhmas' jurisdiction, now under the

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...

, is divided between Areas B and C.

Location

Mikhmas is located (horizontally) on the highlands north-east of

. It is bordered by

Deir Dibwan Deir Dibwan () is a Palestinian city in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank east of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics the town had a population of 4,169 inhabitants in 2017. There were 5 ...

to the north,

Burqa A burqa or burka (; ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by some Muslim women which fully covers the body and the face. Also known as a chadaree (; ) or chaadar (Dari: چادر) in Afghanistan, or a ''paranja'' (; ; ) in Central Asia, the Ara ...

to the west, and Jaba' to the south. The

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

Ma'ale Mikhmas Ma'ale Mikhmas () is an Israeli settlement in the Binyamin region of the northern West Bank. Located a few miles northeast of Jerusalem, it falls under the municipal jurisdiction of Mateh Binyamin Regional Council and according to Palestinians t ...

lies to the east.

History

Antiquity

Mukhmas is identified with the ancient town of

, and the modern Arabic name preserves the ancient

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

name.Palmer, 1881, p
323
/ref> Its ruins can be found at Khirbet el-Hara el-Fauqa, an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

at the northern edge of the village. Another archeological site, Khirbet ed-Dawwara, a small Iron Age I

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

ruin dating back to the 11th-10th century BCE, is situated 1.5 km southeast of the village. Michmas is also mentioned in classical period sources. It was the seat of

until 152 BC. According to the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

, Michmas was known for providing fine flour as a

gift offering A meal offering, grain offering, or gift offering (, ), is a type of Biblical sacrifice, specifically a sacrifice that did not include sacrificial animals. In older English it is sometimes called an oblation, from Latin. The Hebrew noun () is ...

to the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...

.Amit, D. (2014). Jewish Bread Stamps and Wine and Oil Seals from the Late Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods. ''See, I Will Bring a Scroll Recounting what Befell Me (Ps 40: 8): Epigraphy and Daily Life from the Bible to the Talmud'', pp. 159-174 Four clusters of tombs including as many as 70 burial caves dating from the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

were discovered in Mukhmas during the 1980s. On the entrance to one of the caves, a drawing of a seven-branched menorah was found, alongside an inscription written in the

Paleo-Hebrew script The Paleo-Hebrew script (), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms o ...

. Other findings from Mukhmas include an

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...

which bears the name ‘''Shimeon L vi'’ in the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

. These findings led archeologists to believe that Mukhmas was a Jewish priestly settlement which was populated up until

Bar-Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded in establishing an indep ...

in the early 2nd century CE.

Byzantine period

Ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

from the

era have been found in Mukhmas.

Clermont-Ganneau Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (19 February 1846 – 15 February 1923) was a noted French Orientalist and archaeologist. Biography Clermont-Ganneau was born in Paris, the son of Simon Ganneau, a sculptor and mystic who died in 1851 when Clerm ...

also found Byzantine remains here, speculating that they might be from the convent found by

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

Firminus, a disciple of St.

Sabas Sabas is a name derived from the Greek Savvas or Sabbas, and ultimately Aramaic in origin, meaning “old man” or “grandfather.” Sabas may refer to, chronologically: Given name * Abda and Sabas, two early Christian martyrs and saints * J ...

The SWP noted about Mikhmas: "In the village are remains of old masonry, apparendy a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

. A pillar-shaft is built into a wall in the north-west corner of the village. Two

lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented/structural item. In the case ...

stones are built over the door of another house, one with three crosses in circles, the second with a design apparently cut in half."

Ottoman era

Mukhmas was incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1517 with all of

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 ...

, and in 1596 it appeared in the tax registers as being in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' of Al-Quds in the '' liwa'' of

Al-Quds Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Jud ...

under the name of ''Mihmas''. It had a population of 24 household;Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 116 who were all

s. They paid a fixed

Ziamet Ziamet was a form of land tenure in the Ottoman Empire, consisting in grant of lands or revenues by the Ottoman Sultan to an individual in compensation for their services, especially military services. The ziamet system was introduced by Osman I, ...

tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 2,200

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. In 1838, it was noted as a Muslim village, ''Mukhmas'', located in the area immediately north of Jerusalem.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol. 3, 2nd appendix, p
122
/ref> In 1863,

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

observed a great number of sizeable antique stones in the modern houses. About thirty

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s and

silo A silo () is a structure for storing Bulk material handling, bulk materials. Silos are commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust. Three types of silos are in widespread use toda ...

s dug in the rock also dated back to antiquity. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that ''Muchmas'' had 36 houses and a population of 120, though the population count included only men.

visited Mukhmas in 1873 and documented the local funeral traditions. He also mentioned a local

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 ...

named ''Sultan Ibrahim'', alongside rock-cut tombs, irregularly shaped caves, and remnants of hewn stones and sculptures. In 1883 the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

'' (SWP) described ''Mukhmas'' as: "A small stone village on the slope of a ridge. The houses are poor and scattered. The water supply is from cisterns. It has a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

to the east, and some scattered figs to the west. On the north are rock-cut

tomb A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...

s; an ancient road leads past the place. There are foundations and remains of former buildings in the village; on the south a steep slope leads clown to the great valley, Wady Suweinit. This place is the ancient

Michmash Michmas (; ) was an Israelite and Jewish town located in the highlands north of Jerusalem. According to the Hebrew Bible, it belonged to the Tribe of Benjamin. It was the setting of the biblical Battle of Michmash, recounted in 1 Samuel 14. Mich ...

, which is placed by the

Onomasticon Onomasticon may refer to: *Onomasticon (Eusebius) *Onomasticon of Amenope *Onomasticon of Joan Coromines *Onomasticon of Julius Pollux Julius Pollux (, ''Ioulios Polydeukes''; fl. 2nd century) was a Greeks, Greek scholar and rhetorician from Naucr ...

9 Roman miles from Jerusalem. The distance is 7 1/2 English or 8 Roman miles in a line." In 1896 the population of Muchmas was estimated to be about 288 persons.

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, ''Mukhmas'' had a population of 361,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p
14
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 404 inhabitants, in 80 houses.Mills, 1932, p
41
/ref> In the 1945 statistics, Mukhmas had a population of 540 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
25
/ref> and a land area of 13,479

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.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
57
/ref> Of this, 569 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,274 for cereals, while 28 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 774 inhabitants.

Post 1967

After the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967, Mukhmas has been under

Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...

. After the 1995 accords, 6.4% of the village land was classified as Area B, the remaining 93.6% as

Area C Area C (; ) is the fully Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, defined as the whole area outside the Palestinian enclaves (Areas A and B). Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory, containing most Israeli settle ...

. The Israelis have confiscated land in Mukhmas for its military bases, roads, and

s, including Sha'ar Binyamin and

. Mikhmas village profile
ARIJ, pp. 16-17 According to the

, the town had a

of 1,878 in 2006. In 2010,

Israeli Settlers Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...

from

Ofra Ofra () is an Israeli settlement located in the northern Israeli occupied territories, Israeli-occupied West Bank. Located on the main road between Jerusalem and Nablus (Route 60), it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Binyamin Regional Counc ...

and Migron uprooted several hundred olive trees owned by the people of Mukhmas. The village is subject to settler attacks, invasion of fields and pastures, destruction of trees and violence against residents. The Israeli authorities do not intervene to prevent these attacks and security personnel were witnessed participating in such attacks. In 2011,

Israeli settler Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity, and hav ...

s from the nearby settlement of Ma'ale Mikhmas set fire to about a hundred olive trees belonging to the people of Mukhmas. in 2017 310 olive trees were uprooted.

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

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

External links

Mukhmas USA - A place to find families and events with Mukhmas people
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17:
IAAWikimedia commons

Mukhmas village (fact sheet)

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research projects in the fields of management of natural resources, water m ...

(ARIJ)
Mikhmas village profile
ARIJ
Mikhmas aerial photo
ARIJ
Locality Development Priorities and Needs in Mukhmas
ARIJ {{Jerusalem Governorate Villages in the West Bank Jerusalem Governorate Municipalities of Palestine