Antipatris
This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain.
Antipatris, one of two places known as Tel Afek (Hebrew: תל אפק), was a city built by Herod the Great, and named in honour of his father, Antipater II of Judea. It lay between Caesarea Maritima and Lydda, two miles inland, on the great Roman road from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
Tel Afek had earlier served as a fortress and major strategic points in battles between the Egyptians, Israelites and Philistines in the Bronze and Iron Age, until it fell into ruin prior to Herod's rebuilding. The city was destroyed in 363 CE by an earthquake.
Tel Afek lies east of Petah Tikva and west of Kafr Qasim and Rosh HaAyin, near the source of the Yarkon River.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Ras al-Ayn
Ottoman records indicate that a Mamluk fortress may have stood on the site.[2] However, the present Ottoman fortress was built following the publication of a firman in 1573 A.D. (981 H.):
"You have sent a letter and have reported that four walls of the fortress Ras al-Ayn have been built, [..] I have commanded that when [this firman] arrives you shall [..have built] the above mentioned rooms and mosque with its minaret and have the guards remove the earth outside and clean and tidy [the place].[3]
The fortress was built to protect a vulnerable stretch of the Cairo-Damascus highway (the Via Maris), and was provided with 100 horsemen and 30 foot soldiers. The fortress was also supposed to supply soldiers to protect the hajj route.[4]
[edit] The Fortress
The fortress is a massive rectangular enclosure with four corner towers and a gate at the centre of the west side. The south-west tower is octagonal, while the three other towers have a square ground plan.[5]
[edit] The Village
There was a Palestinian village at the site which, however, became deserted in the 1920s.[6]
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Antipatris |
- Heyd, Uriel (1960): Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 1552-1615, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Cited in Petersen (2002)
- Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, ISBN 0-88728-224-5
- le Strange, Guy (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, http://www.archive.org/details/palestineundermo00lestuoft (p.472) Also Cited in Petersen (2002)
- Petersen, Andrew (2002): A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine: Volume I (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology) P. 255-57
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 32°06′18″N 34°55′49.5″E / 32.105°N 34.930417°E
