The Shephelah () or Shfela (), or the Judaean Foothills (), is a transitional region of soft-sloping rolling hills in south-central

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 ...

stretching over between the Judaean Mountains and the Coastal Plain.Jewish National Fund (KKL), ''British Park – Scenic trails in Israel's Heartland''. Quote: "The Judean Plain is an intermediate region situated between the Coastal Plain to the west and the Judean Mountains to the east. The altitude of its hills varies from 150 to 450 meters above sea level, and geologically speaking, the plain is a syncline, i.e., a basin in which the layers of rock have folded downwards and sunk. [...] The plain consists of two distinct landscape units: the lower plain, to the west, where the hills are lower and separated by broad riverbeds; and the upper plain, where the valleys are deeper and the hills rise to a height of between 250 and 450 meters above sea level."
/ref> The different use of the term "Judean Plain", as either defining just the Coastal Plain segment stretching along the Judaean Mountains, or also including, or only referring to, the Shfela, often creates grave confusion. Today the Shfela is largely rural with many farms, but the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Rehovot, Beit Shemesh, and Kiryat Gat roughly surround it. The Bible assigned land in the Shfela to the tribes of Judah and Dan.

Biblical references

The Shfela is mentioned many times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' In the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

, its name tends to be translated as 'vale' or 'valley'. The Shfela was the site of many biblical battles. During 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 ...

, hollowed out hills were connected to form elaborate bunker systems for the combat with the Romans.

Geography

The Shfela is bordered to the northeast by the Samarian Hills and the north-south Afek Pass at Rosh HaAyin- Antipatris (near the east-west Ayalon Valley) and Rishon LeZion in the northwest, and in the south by the northern Negev (the area). The Shfela consists of fertile rolling hills. Topographically, it represents the transition from the higher and more rugged Jerusalem and Hebron Mountains, whose foothills it forms, and the Coastal Plain. About 60 km (35 miles) long in north–south direction and only 13 km (8 miles) wide, it is subdivided into two parts: the western "Low Shephelah", which starts at an altitude of ca. 150 metres above sea level and rises to no more than ca. 200 metres above the Coastal Plain, and the eastern "High Shephelah" rising to altitudes between 250 and 450 metres above sea level. In the upper part the valleys descending from the Judean Mountains are deeper, and they broaden once they reach the lower part where the riverbeds create larger spaces between the hills. Where they reach the Shfela, the rivers can flow over substantial distances along the border between the mountains and the hills, forming longitudinal valleys. Passage between the east–west and north–south valleys has dictated the communication routes throughout history. In geological terms, the Shfela is a syncline, i.e. it formed as a basin whose rock layers were folded downwards, but is part of the wider south Judean anticlinorium-a regional formation characterised by upward folding. Typical to the Shfela are the Senonian-

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

y formations. The soft Eocene chalk is known locally as ''kirton'', which tends to build a harder upper calcrete crust (''nari''), so that in the past people quarried the ''kirton'' while leaving the ''nari'' layer in place as a ceiling. Apart from using the extracted rock, they also utilised the generated underground hollows for different purposes (refuge, burial, storage etc.). One of the major characteristics is hills formed of marl-covered soft

, as opposed to the Judean Hills which are made of hard chalk and dolomite. The valleys and lower areas contain soil with a high sand content, as well as large tracts of fertile areas. Seasonal

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s can develop during the

rainy season The rainy season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Rainy Season may also refer to: * ''Rainy Season'' (short story), a 1989 short horror story by Stephen King * "Rainy Season", a 2018 song by Monni * '' ...

. The southern part is made up of

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

, while north of Ashkelon consists of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

. The Shfela has a temperate Mediterranean to

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

. A series of east–west valleys cuts the Shfelah into districts. From north to south, they are: the Valley of Ayalon, Sorek Valley, Valley of Elah, Guvrin Valley, Valley of Lachish, and Valley of Adorayim. The biblical towns established there guarded settlements of the interior and took advantage of trade passing along this route. Ayalon was the primary access corridor to

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 ...

along the ascent of Horon. Caves are a major feature of the southern part of the Shfela, many of them bell-shaped such as those in Beit Guvrin.

History and archaeology

Archaeological surveys in the Shephelah have found evidence of habitation during the Late Bronze period. During the early Iron Age, the population of what has been widely believed to be a Canaanite enclave between the rising centres of both coastal Philistia and the Israelite/Judahite highlands, went into decline, though a string of settlements survived on the eastern edge. In the Iron Age IIA–B, population growth resumed and by the 8th century BCE it was densely populated, not so much by natural growth but as a result of incoming settlers, beginning with the short-lived settlement at Khirbet Qeiyafa. The overall estimated numbers for inhabitants range from 50,000 to 100,000, over numerous sites such as Tel Lachish, Azekah, Tel Burna, Tel Zayit, Khirbet el-Qom, Tel Erani, Tel Harasim and Tel Nagila. This colonization, together with the inhabitants of the Canaanite enclave, identified with the highland Israelite/Judahite culture, and its expansion coincides with the decline of Philistia. In the 8th century BCE, the Shephelah was the most densely populated region in the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

, but most excavated sites in the region were destroyed during the Assyrian invasion of 701 BCE, leaving the area largely depopulated in the following century. During the decline and ultimate destruction of Judah by the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

in 587 BCE, the region was taken over gradually by the Edomites and it became the core of what was known in Greek as Idumea. The Shephela flourished during the Hellenistic period, was strongly affected by the First Jewish–Roman War (66–70) and was largely depopulated of Jews as a result of the

(132–136). It flourished again in the Byzantine period and was the scene of one of the major battles during the

Muslim conquest of the Levant The Muslim conquest of the Levant (; ), or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab–Byzantine wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and develope ...

of the 7th century.

Archaeological sites

* Azekah * Tel Batash *

Maresha Maresha was an Iron Age city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, whose remains have been excavated at Tell Sandahanna (Arabic name), an Tell (archaeology), archaeological mound or 'tell' renamed after its identification to Tel Maresha (). The ancient ...

Beit Jimal Beit Jimal (or Beit Jamal; ; ), Beit el Jemâl, meaning "The house of the camel"Palmer, 1881, p286/ref> is a Catholic monastery run by Salesians of Don Bosco, Salesian priests and brothers near Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Christian tradition identi ...

* Tell Beit Mirsim * Beit Shemesh * Tel Burna * Tel Eton * Gezer * Imwas and Emmaus Nicopolis * Tel Halif * Horvat 'Ethri * Jarmuth * Tell ej-Judeideh * Kharruba * Keilah * Tel Lachish * Lavnin * Khirbet Qeiyafa * Khirbet er-Ra'i * Sokho * * Tel Zayit * Zorah * Horvat Burgin

References

External links