Wadi Khureitun (

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 ...

; also spelled Khareitoun, Khareitun, Haritoun) or Nahal Tekoa (

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 ...

) is a

wadi Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...

in a deep ravine in the

Judaean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert (, ) is a desert in the West Bank and Israel that stretches east of the ridge of the Judaean Mountains and in their rain shadow, so east of Jerusalem, and descends to the Dead Sea. Under the name El-Bariyah, ...

in 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 ...

, west of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

, rising near 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 ...

of Tekoa.

Name

The Hebrew name, Nahal Tekoa ("Tekoa Stream"), and the English name used in some Christian contexts, Tekoa Valley, is derived from the ancient Judahite town of Tekoa. The Arabic name, Wadi Khureitun, comes from the early Christian hermit,

Chariton Chariton of Aphrodisias () was the author of an ancient Greek novel probably titled ''Callirhoe (novel), Callirhoe'' (based on the subscription in the sole surviving manuscript). However, it is regularly referred to as ''Chaereas and Callirhoe'' ( ...

, who founded his third

lavra A lavra or laura (; Cyrillic: Ла́вра) is a type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center. Lavra monasteries operate within the Orthodox and other Eastern Chri ...

in this valley, whose ruins are now known in Arabic as Kirbet ('ruins of') Khureitun. The monastery, founded in about 345, was known at different times as Souka, the Old Laura, and as the monastery of Chariton, the latter name being preserved in the Arabic name of the wadi.

Description, history, archaeology

A hiking path on the west of the wadi passes a number of

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

caves on its way south to the Chariton Monastery ruins. The archaeological

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

(

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

and

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

) site of El Khiam is located in this area. Saint Chariton the Confessor (end of 3rd century-ca. 350) founded here the Lavra of Souka, later called the Old Lavra, and even later, apparently after the remains of Chariton were translated there from the laura of Pharan after the

Muslim conquest The Muslim conquests, Muslim invasions, Islamic conquests, including Arab conquests, Arab Islamic conquests, also Iranian Muslim conquests, Turkic Muslim conquests etc. *Early Muslim conquests **Ridda Wars **Muslim conquest of Persia ***Muslim conq ...

, it became known as the monastery of Chariton. Existing

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

ic caves from the

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 ...

of the wadi were expanded and used as hermit abodes by monks from the lavras of Saint Chariton and of a later desert monk and saint,

Euthymius the Great Euthymius the Great (377 – 20 January 473) was an abbot in Palestine. He is venerated in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Euthymius' '' vita'' was written by Cyril of Skythopolis, who describes him as the founder of several ...

. Modern Tekoa's former chief rabbi Menachem Froman's son, Tzuri, lived in a

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

in the desert canyon (wadi) behind the town. Two young Israeli boys from Tekoa, Koby Mandell and Yosef Ish Ran, were brutally murdered by terrorists in the wadi on May 8, 2001.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khureitun, Wadi Wadis of the West Bank Judaean Desert

Name

Description, history, archaeology

See also

References