Jezreel Valley

The Jezreel Valley (, LXX Koine ), or Marj ibn Amir () is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands of the Lower Galilee, to the south by the highlands of Samaria, to the west and northwest by the Mount Carmel range, and to the east by the Jordan Valley, with Mount Gilboa marking its southern extent. The largest settlement in the valley is the city of Afula, which lies near its center.

Name

thumb|Jezreel Valley and [[Mount Tabor]]

thumb|Jezreel Valley

thumb|Merj Ibn 'Amir in the [[PEF Survey of Palestine.]]

The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel (known in Hebrew as Yizre'el; ; known in Arabic as Zir'ēn, ) which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley. The word Jezreel comes from the Hebrew, and means "God sows" or "El sows".

The Arabic name of the valley is Marj Bani Amir (), which translates as the 'Meadow of the Banu Amir', an Arab tribe, parts of which took up abode in the valley after the 7th-century Muslim conquest. The name was increasingly used in Arabic texts to refer to the region as an administrative unit during the late Mamluk period (1260–1517). In earlier Arabic texts, the region was called after one of its well known sites, the Ayn Jalut spring. Marj Bani Amir became the official administrative name of the district which encompassed the valley from early Ottoman rule (1517–1917). A common variant of this name is (), . With the advent of British rule in 1917 and the gradual acquisition of the valley by Jewish land organizations, the Arabic name fell out of official use in favor of the biblical 'Jezreel Valley'. ()), the place being known as Armageddon, a toponym derived from the Hebrew Har Megiddo, 'Mount Megiddo'.

History

Archaeological excavations have indicated near continuous settlement from the Ghassulian culture of the Chalcolithic Age (c. 4500–3300 BCE) to the Ayyubid periods of the 11–13th centuries CE.

Bronze and Iron Ages

thumb|Mosaic pavement of a 6th-century synagogue at [[Beth Alpha|Beit Alpha. It was discovered in 1928. Signs of the zodiac surround the central chariot of the Sun (a Greek motif), while the corners depict the 4 "turning points" ("tekufot") of the year, solstices and equinoxes, each named for the month in which it occurs—tequfah of Tishrei, tequfah of Tevet, tequfah of Nisan, tequfah of Tamuz.]]

thumb|View from [[Mount Gilboa]]

Biblical cities in the Jezreel Valley include Jezreel, Megiddo, Beit She'an, Shimron and Afula.

Roman period

In the late Second Temple period, Josephus refers to both the Jezreel Valley and the Beit Netofa Valley as the "Great Plain".

Mamluk period

During the Mamluk period, the Jezreel Valley formed the southern part of Mamlakat Safad (the province of Safed). In the 14th century, it was inhabited by the Bani Haritha tribe of Yaman (southern Arab)-affiliated Bedouins, the progenitors of the Turabay dynasty.

Ottoman period

During the early Ottoman period, the Jezreel Valley was the core territory of the Turabay Emirate (1517–1683). The Valley's capital was initially at Lajjun, the center of an eponymous sanjak and one of Palestine's provincial capitals during the 16th century. Around 1600, the seat of the Turabays moved to Jenin.

In 1858, Josias Leslie Porter summarized the appearance of the valley in the following words: "Two things strike us forcibly when looking over the plain of Esdraelon. First, its wonderful richness, ..., second, its desolation. if we except its eastern branches there is not a single inhabited village on its whole surface, and not more than one-tenth of its soil is cultivated. It is home to the wandering Bedawy... It has always been insecure." Laurence Oliphant, who visited the Akko Sanjak valley area in 1887, then a subprovince of the Beirut vilayet, wrote that the Valley of Esdraelon (Jezreel) was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive." In the early 1900, the Ottomans constructed the Jezreel Valley railway which ran along the entire length of the valley.

thumb|The tower house of the "Castle of [[Zir'in" in the 1880s]]

In the 1870s, the Sursock family of Beirut (present-day Lebanon) purchased the land from the Ottoman government for approximately £20,000.

British Mandate

After the land was sold to the American Zion Commonwealth, some of the Arab farmers who lived in nearby villages and had been working for the absentee landowners were given financial compensation or were provided with land elsewhere. Despite the sale, some of the farmers refused to leave their land, as in Afula (El-Ful), however the new owners decided that it would be inappropriate for these farmers to remain as tenants on land intended for Jewish labor. This was a commonplace feeling among segments of the Jewish population, part of a socialist ideology of the Yishuv, which included their working the land rather than being absentee landowners. British police had to be used to expel some and the dispossessed made their way to the coast to search for new work with most ending up in shanty towns on the edges of Jaffa and Haifa.

thumb|Northern Jezreel Valley and Mount Carmel, seen from [[Haifa]]

Following the purchase of the land, the Jewish farmers created the first modern-day settlements, founded the modern day city of Afula and drained the swamps to enable further land development of areas that had been uninhabitable for centuries. The first moshav, Nahalal, was settled in this valley on 11 September 1921.

After the widespread Arab riots of 1929 in the then British Mandate of Palestine, the Hope Simpson Enquiry was appointed to seek causes and remedies for the instability. The commission's findings in regard to "Government responsibility towards Arab cultivators", was that the Jewish authorities "have nothing with which to reproach themselves" in the purchase of the valley, noting the high prices paid and land occupants receiving compensation not legally bound. The responsibility of the Mandate Government for "soreness felt (among both effendi and fellahin) owing to the sale of large areas by the absentee Sursock family" and the displacement of Arab tenants; noted that, "the duty of the Administration of Palestine to ensure that the rights and position of the Arabs are not prejudiced by Jewish immigration. It is doubtful whether, in the matter of the Sursock lands, this Article of the Mandate received sufficient consideration."

State of Israel

In 2006, the Israeli Transportation Ministry and Jezreel Valley Regional Council announced plans to build an international airport near Megiddo but the project was shelved due to environmental objections.

Archaeological excavations

Archaeological sites in the Jezreel Valley are currently excavated and coordinated by the Jezreel Valley Regional Project.

In 2021, archaeologist from Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) led by researchers Tzachi Lang and Kojan Haku found in the village of Et Taiyiba an engraved stone from the late 5th century from the frame of an entrance door of a church, with a Greek inscription. The inscription reads, "Christ born of Mary. This work of the most God-fearing and pious bishop [Theodo]sius and the miserable Th[omas] was built from the foundation. Whoever enters should pray for them." According to archaeologist Dr. Walid Atrash, Theodosius was one of the first Christian bishops and this church was the first evidence of the Byzantine church's existence in the village of Et Taiyiba.

References

External links

Jezreel Valley Regional Project
Geography of Israel: The Jezreel Valley on the Jewish Virtual Library
The Jezreel Valley Museum