Bayt Jibrin
Bayt Jibrin
بيت جبرين | |
|---|---|
 Historic Bayt Jibrin mansion | |
.jpg) 1870s map .jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map .jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Bayt Jibrin (click the buttons) | |
  Bayt Jibrin Location within Mandatory Palestine | |
| Coordinates: 31°36′19″N 34°53′54″E / 31.60528°N 34.89833°E | |
| Palestine grid | 140/112 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Hebron |
| Date of depopulation | 29 October 1948[1] |
| Area | |
• Total | 56.2 km2 (21.7 sq mi) |
| Population (1945) | |
• Total | 2,430[2][3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Military assault by Yishuv forces |
| Current Localities | Beit Guvrin (kibbutz)[4] |
Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibrin (Arabic: بيت جبرين lit. 'House of the Powerful') was an Arab village in the Hebron Subdistrict of British Mandatory Palestine, in what is today the State of Israel, which was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was preceded by the Iron Age Judahite city of Maresha, the later Hellenistic Marissa, located slightly south of Beit Jibrin's built-up area; and the Roman and Byzantine city of Beth Gabra, known from the Talmud as Beit Guvrin (also Gubrin or Govrin, Hebrew: בית גוברין, romanized: Beit Gubrin), renamed Eleutheropolis (Greek, Ἐλευθερόπολις, "Free City") after 200 CE. After the 7th-century Arab conquest of the Levant, the Arabic name of Beit Jibrin was used for the first time, followed by the Crusaders' Bethgibelin, given to a Frankish colony established around a Hospitaller castle. After the Muslim reconquest the Arab village of Beit Jibrin was reestablished.
During the days of Herod the Great, Bet Gabra was the administrative center for the district of Idumea.[5][clarification needed] In 200 CE, after the turmoil of the First Jewish–Roman War (64–70) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135), the town became a thriving Roman colony, a major administrative centre and one of the most important cities in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina under the name of Eleutheropolis. The city was then inhabited by Jews, Christians and pagans.[6] Under the British Mandate of Palestine, Bayt Jibrin again served as a district centre for surrounding villages. It was captured by Jewish forces during the 1948 war, causing its Arab inhabitants to flee eastward. Today, many of the Palestinian refugees of Bayt Jibrin and their descendants live in the camps of Bayt Jibrin (ʽAzza) and Fawwar in the southern West Bank.
The kibbutz of Beit Guvrin was established to the north of Bayt Jibrin, on the villages' lands, in 1949. The archaeological sites of Maresha and Beit Guvrin are today an Israeli national park known as the Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park, including their burial caves and underground dwellings, workshops and quarries, which are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[7] Eleutheropolis remains a titular see in the Roman Catholic Church.[8]
Location
 |
The entire site is located in the Lakhish region of central Israel, between the coastal plain to the west and the Hebron Hills to the east, near the 1949 ceasefire line.
Ancient Maresha was identified at Tell Sandahanna, renamed Tel Maresha. The Hellenised city of Marissa included a lower city of 320 dunams during its heydays, which surrounded the tell (mound). It covers the southern part of the Beit Guvrin-Maresha archaeological park.
Bet Gabra or Betogabris grew around a hill c. 1.5 km north of Tel Maresha, after the demise of Marissa in 40 BCE.
The Crusader colony of Bethgibelin stood at what had been the northern margin of the classical city, with its castle built over the remains of the Roman amphitheatre. Its ruins now stand adjacent to and north of the regional road.
The built-up area of the modern Arab village of Beit Jibrin was largely south of the Crusader castle, adjacent to and mainly south of the regional road.
Kibbutz Beit Guvrin was built north of the Bethgibelin Castle and former Beit Jibrin.
Geography
Historically, the site was located on the main road between Cairo and Hebron via Gaza,[9] in an area of plains and soft hills known as the Shfela (Shephelah) in Hebrew.[10] Beit Jibrin's average elevation was of 275 meters (902 ft) above sea level.[10]
The region contains a large number of caverns, both natural formations and caves dug in the soft chalk by inhabitants of the region over the centuries for use as quarries, burial grounds, animal shelters, workshops and spaces for raising doves and pigeons. There is estimated to be 800 such caverns,[11] many linked by an underground maze of passageways. Eighty of them, known as the Bell Caves, are located on the grounds of the Beit Guvrin National Park.[12]
Name
.jpg)
The settlement was renamed over the centuries. The Aramaic name Beth Gabra, attested from at least the Early Roman period, was preserved by the geographer Ptolemy in the Greek variation of Βαιτογάβρα, Baitogabra, translates as the "house of the [strong] man" or "house of the mighty one".[13] The antecedent might be seen in the name of an Edomite king: Ḳaus-gabri or Kauš-Gabr, found on an inscription of Tiglathpileser III.[14][15]
According to historical geographer A. Schlatter, the name Betaris mentioned by Josephus should either be identified with Bittir, or else the 't'[clarification needed] amended to gamma, so as to read Begabrin.[16][17]
In the year 200 CE, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus gave it the status of a city under a new Greek name, Eleutheropolis (Ἐλευθερόπολις), meaning 'City of the Free', and its inhabitants were given the rank of Roman citizens under the laws of ius italicum.[18][19][20][21] In the Peutinger Table in 393 CE, Bayt Jibrin was called Beitogabri. In the Talmud, compiled between the 3rd and 4th centuries, it was known as Beit Gubrin or Guvrin.[13] To the Crusaders, it was known as Bethgibelin or Gibelin.[22][23] Another name in medieval times may have been Beit Jibril, meaning "house of Gabriel".[23] In Arabic, Bayt Jibrin or Jubrin (بيت جبرين) means "house of the powerful",[24] reflecting its original Aramaic name,[13] and the town was probably called Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibril throughout its rule by various Muslim dynasties.
History
Iron Age Maresha
The excavations have revealed no remains older than the Iron Age, a time when the Judahite town of Maresha rose on the tell to the south of Bay Jibrin known in Arabic as Tell Sandahanna and in Hebrew as Tel Maresha.[25] This corresponds to several