Subtara () is an archaeological site in the

Sdot Dan Regional Council Sdot Dan Regional Council () is a regional council in the Central Coastal Plain region of the Central District of Israel. Founded in 1952 as Lod Valley Regional Council, it borders Ben Gurion International Airport and Or Yehuda to the north, He ...

, near the

moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...

Yagel Yagel () is a religious moshav in the Central District of Israel. Located near Lod and Ben Gurion International Airport, it falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Dan Regional Council. In it had a population of . History Yagel was the site of th ...

in Israel's Central District.

History

The site has been inhabited since ancient times, and its name is of non- Semitic extraction. Archaeological excavations discovered the remains of a

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

settlement dating to the

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the Musical note, note thirteen scale degrees from the root (chord), root of a chord (music), chord and also the interval (music), interval between the root and the thirteenth. The thirteenth is m ...

and 14th centuries. Subtara 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 ...

. In 1552, Subtara was an inhabited village. Haseki Hürrem Sultan, the favorite wife of

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...

, endowed its tax revenues to her

Haseki Sultan Imaret Haseki Sultan Imaret was an Ottoman public soup kitchen established in Jerusalem to feed the poor during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The imaret was part of a massive Waqf complex built in 1552 by Haseki Hürrem Sultan, better known i ...

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 ...

. Administratively, the village belonged to the Sub-district of

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 ...

in the District of Gaza. In 1596 it appeared as a large village in the tax registers under the name of ''Sitan'', 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 ...

'' ("subdistrict") of

, which was under the administration of the '' liwa'' ("district") of Gaza. It had a population of 123 households who were all Muslims. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 155 They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, sesame, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 19,100

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 ...

. All of the revenue went to a

Waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

. Archaeological excavations found settlement remains from this period, including walls, floors, cooking ovens and a rich ceramic repertoire. In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around Jaffa attacked the villages of Subtara, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya,

Jindas Jindas (Arabic: جنداس; Hebrew: ג'ינדאס) is an archaeological site in modern-day Israel, 2 kilometers east of the city of Lod in Israel's Central District. History The site has been inhabited since at least the Roman period. Its name ...

Lydda Lod (, ), also known as Lydda () and Lidd (, or ), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The ci ...

and Yazur belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan. Under nomadic pressures, Subṭāra was abandoned and its residents moved to

Kafr 'Ana Kafr 'Ana (, also: Kofr Ana) was a Palestinian town located east of Jaffa, built on the ancient site of Ono. In 1945, the town had an estimated population of 2,800 Arabs and 220 Jews. The village was captured by the Haganah in April during th ...

, than a minor and insignificant hamlet. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the area around Subtara now belonged to the Nahiyeh (sub-district) of

Lod Lod (, ), also known as Lydda () and Lidd (, or ), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The ci ...

that encompassed the area of the present-day city of

Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut ( ''Mōdīʿīn-Makkabbīm-Rēʿūt'') is a city located in central Israel, about southeast of Tel Aviv and west of Jerusalem, and is connected to those two cities via Highway 443. In the population was . The populati ...

in the south to the present-day city of

El'ad El'ad () is a city in the Central District of Israel. In the 1990s, it was built for a Haredi population and to a lesser extent, it was also built for a Religious Zionist Jewish population. Located about east of Tel Aviv on Route 444 between R ...

in the north, and from the foothills in the east, through the Lod Valley to the outskirts of

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

in the west. This area was home to thousands of inhabitants in about 20 villages, who had at their disposal tens of thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land. The lands of Subtara were subsumed by the village of

al-Safiriyya Al-Safiriyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jaffa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during Operation Hametz in the 1948 Palestine War on May 20, 1948. It was located 11 km east of Jaffa, 1.5 km west of Ben Gurion Airport. Starti ...

.{{Cite journal , last=Marom , first=Roy , date=2022 , title=Lydda Sub-District: Lydda and its countryside during the Ottoman period , url=https://www.academia.edu/79946175 , journal=Diospolis - City of God: Journal of the History, Archaeology and Heritage of Lod , volume=8 , pages=103–136

References

Archaeological sites in Israel Central District (Israel)