Kedesh
Alternative name | Cydessa |
---|---|
Location | Northern District, Israel |
Region | Upper Galilee |
Coordinates | 33°06′42″N 35°31′46″E / 33.111638°N 35.529517°E |
Type | Settlement |
Site notes | |
Condition | In ruins |
Public access | yes |
Kedesh (alternate spellings: Qedesh, Cadesh, Cydessa) was an ancient Canaanite and later Israelite settlement in Upper Galilee, mentioned few times in the Hebrew Bible. Its remains are located in Tel Kedesh, 3 km northeast of the modern Kibbutz Malkiya in Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border.[1]
As Qadas (also Cadasa;
History
Kedesh Naphtali was first documented in the Book of Joshua as a Canaanite citadel conquered by the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua.[4][5] Ownership of Kedesh was turned over by lot to the Tribe of Naphtali and subsequently, at the command of God, Kedesh was set apart by Joshua as a Levitical city and one of the Cities of Refuge along with Shechem and Kiriath Arba (Hebron) (Joshua 20:7).
In the 8th century BCE, during the reign of Pekah, king of Northern Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III of the Neo-Assyrian Empire took Kedesh and deported its inhabitants to Assyria. (2 Kings 15:29)
Later, during the
In 259 BCE, Kedesh was mentioned by
Between 145 BCE and 143 BCE, Kedesh (Cades) was overthrown by
According to Josephus, after the Jerusalem riots of 66, the Jews attacked a series of gentile cities, including Cydessa (Kedesh), which was then controlled by Tyre, now in Roman Syria. During the First Jewish–Roman War, Titus established his camp there before he departed for battle with John of Gischala.[13]
From 1997 to 2012, Tel Kedesh was excavated by a team from the University of Michigan's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology in conjunction with the University of Minnesota,[14] focusing in 2010 and 2012 on the Persian and Hellenistic Administrative Building. Archaeological excavations conducted at Kedesh have shown that the town had prospered in the second and third centuries CE, and a large Roman temple complex was built there.[13]
According to Jewish tradition,
Kedesh of Naphtali
Identification of the biblical "Kedesh of Naphtali" (Judges 4:6, 10) has been the subject of archaeological and historical debate. While many hold the ancient site to be in Upper Galilee, near the Lebanese border, Israeli archaeologist, Yohanan Aharoni, held the view that it lay in Lower Galilee, near the Valley of Jezreel, at a site which bears the same name (now Khirbet Qadish).[17] Some prominent archaeological publications have, therefore, listed the site as being east of the "Jabneel valley" in "Lower Galilee."[18]
From 1997–2010, archaeological excavations were conducted at the Kedesh-Naphtali (Qadesh) site by Sharon Herbert and Andrea Berlin on behalf of the University of Michigan.[19][20]
Middle Ages
Under the rule of the
Ishtori Haparchi, visiting the holy sites in the early fourteenth-century wrote of Kedesh: "About half a day's distance southward of Paneas, known in Arabic as Banias, is Kedesh, in the mountain of Naphtali, and it is [now] called Qades."[25]
Ottoman era
In 1517, Qadas was incorporated into the
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and described the most important ruins there.[28]
In 1881, the
British Mandate era
Qadas was a part of the French-controlled Lebanon until 1923, when the British Mandate of Palestine's borders were delineated to include it.
Rainfall and the abundance of springs allowed the village to develop a prosperous agricultural economy based on grain, fruit, and olives.[31]
In the 1931 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Qadas had a population of 273; 1 Christian and 272 Muslims, in a total of 56 houses.[32]
In the 1945 statistics the village had a total of 5,709 dunums of land allotted to cereals, while 156 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.[31][33]
1948 war, and aftermath
Qadas was occupied by Israeli forces during Operation Yiftach on 28 May 1948. Defended by the Arab Liberation Army and the Lebanese army, its inhabitants fled under the influence of the fall of, or exodus from, neighbouring towns.[34]
In June, 1948,
The settlement of
Walid Khalidi described the remaining structures of the former village in 1992 as follows:
"Stones from the destroyed houses are strewn over the fenced-in site, and a few partially destroyed walls near the spring are visible. The flat portions of the surrounding lands are planted with apple trees; the spring provides drinking water for cattle.[36]
Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, has publicly recalled on occasion the fate of Qadas and the other Metawali villages in his references to the 1948 annexation of several Lebanese villages, the expulsion of their residents, the expropriation of their property and the destruction of their homes.[3]
As of 2023, an archaeological project was underway to investigate the recent history of Qadas before its destruction.[37] Team leader Raphael Greenberg noted that his project was unusual in its focus on Palestinian remains, contrary to the usual practice of digging around or through them to reach what is beneath.[37]
Other
In the
See also
- Al-Malkiyya
- Tel Kedesh
- Shia villages in Palestine
References
- ^ Negev & Gibson, eds. (2001), p. 278.
- ^ a b "Welcome to Qadas". Palestine Remembered. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
- ^ a b c Danny Rubinstein (2006-08-06). "The Seven Lost Villages". Haaretz. Archived from the original on October 1, 2007.
- ^ a b "The Hebrew University Excavations at Tel Qedesh". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
A Shi'a village by the name of Qadas occupied part of the mound in the last centuries, and was abandoned in the aftermath of the 1948 War.
; "The Hebrew University Expedition to Qedesh in the Galilee". Archaeological Institute of America. 2021-11-21. Retrieved 2023-02-12.Tel Qedesh is one of the largest biblical mounds in northern Israel. First settled as early as the Chalcolithic period, the site reached its peak during the Early Bronze Age, when an enormous site (ca. 60 hectares), extending well beyond the main mound, emerged during this crucial phase of early Levantine urbanism. A Canaanite city continued to thrive on the mound during the second millennium BCE, to be followed by an important Israelite center during the Iron Age II, known as one of the Refuge and Levite Cities (Joshua 20:7; 21:32). Following its conquest by the Assyrian King Tiglath Pileser III in 732 BCE (2 Kings 15:29), it re-emerged as a Phoenician administrative center during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and later as an important pagan town on the boundary between Tyre and Jewish Galilee during the Second Temple period (BJ 3:35–40). A rural cultic center, housing two temples and numerous mausolea (elaborate burial monuments), developed here in the Late Roman period, and an important market town is attested during the Early Islamic period. In the more recent past, the mound was occupied by a small Shi'ite village by the name of Qadas… the Arab village of Qadas, which was occupying the upper mound during the last centuries.
- Al-Ya'qubi quoted in le Strange, 1890, p.467.
- ^ Berlin, Andrea and Herbert, Sharon (2005). "Life and Death on the Israel-Lebanon Border". Biblical Archaeology Review 31 (5), 34-43.
- ^ Papyrus Cairo Zenon I 59.004
- ^ Papyrus Cairo Zenon I 59.004
- The Wars of the Jews2.459, 4.104.
- 1 Maccabees 11:63–74 (text)
- 1 Maccabees 11:63-74 (text)
- The Wars of the Jews2.459, 4.104.
- ^ ISSN 0334-4355.
- ^ "Tel Kedesh, Israel". Archived from the original on July 20, 2012.
- ^ Burial Places of the Fathers, published by Yehuda Levi Nahum in צהר לחשיפת גנזי תימן, Tel-Aviv 1986, p. 248
- ISBN 0-391-04217-3
- ^ Meyers, E.M., Strange, J.F., and Groh, D.E., "The Meiron Excavation Project: Archaeological Survey in Galilee and Golan, 1976," in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (No. 230 - April 1978), p. 4, citing Aharoni, Y. (1976) "Upper Galilee," in vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (ed. M. Avi-Yonah), Israel Exploration Society: Jerusalem.
- ^ Negev & Gibson, eds. (2001), p. 278 (s.v. Kedesh-Naphtali).
- ^ Israel Antiquities Authority, Excavators and Excavations Permit for Year 2010, Survey Permit # G-36
- ^ The Story of a Site and a Project: Excavating Tel Kedesh, published in Archaeology (Volume 65 Number 3, May/June 2012): Archaeological Institute of America
- Al-Ya'qubi quoted in le Strange, 1890, p.39.
- ^ Muqaddasi, 1886, p. 28
- ^ Muqaddasi quoted in le Strange, 1890, p.468
- ^ Muqaddasi, 1886, p. [1]
- ^ Ishtori Haparchi, Sefer Kaftor Ve'ferah (vol. 2), ed. Avraham Yosef Havatzelet, Jerusalem 2007, (chapter 11) p. 53 (Hebrew). The editor (ibid.), note 8, makes note of the fact that the site is mentioned in Joshua 20:7, but that today it is called Tell Kedesh, located at grid reference 200 / 285.
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 181. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 484
- ^ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
- ^ Guérin, 1880, pp. 355-362; as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 229
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 202. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 484
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 228
- ^ a b Khalidi, 1992, p.484.
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 109
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 120
- ^ Morris, 2004, pp. 251, 303, 361, 402. Khalidi, 1992, pp. 484, 485
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. 363, note #130, p. 402
- ^ a b Khalidi, 1992, p.485.
- ^ a b Ariel David (September 13, 2023). "Digging Up the Nakba: Israeli Archaeologists Excavate Palestinian Village Abandoned in 1948". Haaretz.
Bibliography
- )
- Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. (SWP I, pp. 226-227)
- Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
- Guérin, V. (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 3: Galilee, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
- Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
- Mukaddasi (1886). Description of Syria, including Palestine. London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society. (p. 70)
- Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Rhode, H. (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University. Archived from the original on 2020-03-01. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
- Strange, le, G. (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
External links
- Photos of the ruins at Tel Kedesh from the Manar al-Athar photo archive
- Welcome the Qadas
- Qadas, Zochrot
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 4: IAA, SWP Wikimedia commons
- Qadas, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
- Villages of Palestine - Qadas, Dr. Khalil Rizk