Fiq فيق | |
|---|---|
Town | |
 Ruins at Fiq | |
  Fiq Location of Fiq in Syria | |
| Coordinates:32°46′N35°42′E / 32.77°N 35.7°E /32.77; 35.7 | |
| Grid position | 215/241PAL |
| Country | Golan Heights,internationally recognised asSyrian territoryoccupied by Israel. SeeStatus of the Golan Heights. |
| Israeli District | Northern District |
| Israeli Subdistrict | Golan |
| Syrian Governorate | Quneitra Governorate |
| Syrian District | Fiq District |
| Population (1967) | 2,800[1] |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
Fiq (Arabic:فيق) was aSyriantown in theGolan Heights that administratively belonged toQuneitra Governorate.[2] It sat at an altitude of 349 meters (1,145 ft) and had a population of 2,800 in 1967. It was the administrative center of theFiq District,[2] the southern district of the Golan.[1] Fiq was evacuated during and after theSix-Day War in June 1967. TheIsraeli settlement ofAfik was built close by.[2]
Fiq was an ancient town covering about 100dunams on atell (archaeological mound).[3] The surveys and limited excavations undertaken at the site have produced a small number ofsherds from theMiddle Bronze Age II, Hellenistic, and Middle Roman periods, whereas most of the finds were dated to theByzantine,Umayyad,Abbasid andMamluk periods.[4]
Fiq was identified by the 4th-century writerEusebius with biblicalAphek.[5]
DuringLate Antiquity, Fiq had a mixed population ofChristians,Jews andpagans. Many inscriptions in Latin and Greek have been found at the site.[3] One of these inscriptions may allude to aPsalm passage, and another, engraved on basalt and thought to have been a part of a church or chapel dedication, mentions a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon.[6] Jewish presence at Aphek is attested byMishnaic andTalmudic sources.[5]
One notable discovery from Fiq is a column adorned with a seven-branchedmenorah and bearing the inscription, "I am Judah thecantor," inAramaic.[5][6] It is thought that this column once stood in a localsynagogue of theByzantine period. After being discovered for the first time in Fiq during the 19th century, it vanished for several decades before being rediscovered by Israeli soldiers in a Syrian cemetery close toQuneitra. Today, it is on display at theGolan Archeological Museum.[6]
9th-century historianAl-Baladhuri lists Aphek among the villages and forts captured during theArab conquest in 638 CE.[5] In the 11th century,Yaqut mentioned Aphek in his geography and lamented the fact that residents now called it "Fiq."[5]
Fiq was located on one of the few routes connecting theGalilee and the Golan Heights, all part of the vital network of roads betweenEgypt and Syria. The lower part of the road followed the "Ascent of Fiq" (Arabic: 'Aqabat Fiq).[7] Once it reached the plateau, the road passed through different villages, the branch going through Fiq leading eastwards to theHauran region rather than northeastwards toDamascus.[7]
An inscription found near Fiq dating to 692 credits theUmayyad caliphAbd al-Malik (r. 685–705) and his uncleYahya ibn al-Hakam for levelling the "aqaba" (presumably Aqabat Fiq) for the inauguration of a new road connecting the Umayyad capitalDamascus withJerusalem.[8] It is the oldest known Arabic inscription acknowledging the building of a road during the Islamic period.[8]
TheAyyubids built acaravanserai at Aqabat Fiq in the early 13th century called Khan al-'Aqabah, whose ruins are still visible.[7] Around 1225, during Ayyubid rule, the Syrian geographerYaqut al-Hamawi noted that the convent of Dayr Fiq was much venerated by Christians and still frequented by travellers.[9]
In 1596, Fiq appeared in theOttoman tax registers as part of thenahiya of Jawlan Garbi in theQada of Hauran. It had an entirelyMuslim population consisting of 16 households and nine bachelors. Taxes were paid onwheat,barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats or beehives.[10]
In 1806, the German explorerSeetzen found that Fiq had 100 houses made of basalt, four of them were inhabited by Christians and the rest by Muslims.[11] In 1875, the French explorerVictor Guérin found that Fiq was divided into four quarters, each administered by its sheik. Most of the homes contained remnants of ancient buildings. The village had abundant fresh water.[12] WhenGottlieb Schumacher surveyed the area in the 1880s, he provided an extensive account of Fiq, worth quoting here at length:
large village of southern Jaulân, which till recently belonged to the Kada Tubarîya, but as the natives felt themselves thereby injured and in great part deserted it and settled in the environs, it was added to El-Kuneitrah, for which it is adapted by its situation. Fik, however, is scarcely more flourishing since that time.
Of the 160 standing and tolerably well-built stone houses, only about 90 are inhabited, containing scarcely 400 persons, the others are quickly going to ruin [...]. The place is raised on both sides.
The environs of Fik are very fertile; the stoneless high plateau is excellently suited for corn cultivation, but still great tracts lie completely fallow in the immediate neighbourhood of the village. The inhabitants also carry on bee culture.
About 220 yards from the most southern house one comes upon a hill covered with ruins and olive trees, which is marked as a former site by its remains of old columns and building stones.
At the present day the inhabitants of Fik bury their dead there, and with the object of honoring a Moslem tomb, call the place Jâmat el-'Umeri; perhaps a mosque stood there at one time. In the neighbourhood there is a second tomb, that of the Sheikh Faiyâd Abd el-Ghani: to each of these saints is entrusted a heap of firewood.
An old graveyard, with a longish hill called El-Mujjenneh, borders these places eastward. The Kusr el-'Ulliyeh lies in the south of the village, on the rising ground commanding the whole neighbourhood. It is a Moslem building, formerly destined for the reception of strangers, and, judging from theenceinte walls, was also fortified. At the time that Fik, according to the testimony of the natives, formed the central point of the land, Kusr was the seat of Government, the Serai.[13]
At the time of its depopulation in 1967, the town had a population of approximately 2,800.[1] After Israel occupied the area in theSix-Day War, they began destroying Syrian villages in the Golan Heights.[14] Fiq was destroyed in 1967.[15]
The nameAphek refers to one or several locations mentioned by theHebrew Bible as the scenes of several battles between theIsraelites and theArameans. Most famously, a town near which one or more rulers ofDamascus namedBen-hadad, were defeated by the Israelites and in which the Damascene king and his surviving soldiers found a safe place of retreat (1 Kings 20:26–30;2 Kings 13:17, 24-25).
Since the turn of the 20th century, the predominant opinion is that the location of all these battles is the same and that the town lies east of theJordan. Initially, it was thought that the name is preserved in the now depopulated village of Fiq near Kibbutz Afik, three miles east of theSea of Galilee, where an ancient mound,Tel Soreg, had been identified. Excavations byMoshe Kochavi andPirhiya Beck in 1987-88 have indeed discovered a fortified 9th- and 8th-century BCE settlement, probably Aramean, but Kochavi considered it to be too small to serve the role ascribed to Aphek in the Bible.[16][17]
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