 Tel Kedesh | |
  Shown within Israel Show map of Israel Kedesh (Northeast Israel) Show map of Northeast Israel | |
| Alternative name | Cydessa |
|---|---|
| Location | Northern District, Israel |
| Region | Upper Galilee |
| Coordinates | 33°06′42″N35°31′46″E / 33.111638°N 35.529517°E /33.111638; 35.529517 |
| Type | Settlement |
| Site notes | |
| Condition | In ruins |
| Public access | yes |
Kedesh (alternate spellings:Qedesh,Cadesh,Cydessa) was an ancientCanaanite and laterIsraelite settlement inUpper Galilee, mentioned several times in theHebrew Bible. Its remains are located inTel Kedesh, 3 km (1.9 mi) northeast of the modernKibbutz Malkiya inIsrael on the Israeli-Lebanese border.[1]
The settlement is first documented in theBook of Joshua as a Canaanite citadel conquered by the Israelites and designated as aLevitical city and City of Refuge. Jewish tradition holds thatDeborah,Barak andJael were buried near Kedesh.
In the 8th century BCE, it was captured byTiglath-Pileser III ofAssyria and its inhabitants deported. During the 5th century BCE, it possibly became the capital of theAchaemenid province of Upper Galilee. In theHellenistic period, Kedesh was the site of battles involvingJonathan Apphus andSeleucid kingDemetrius II. In theRoman period, Josephus records Jewish attacks on Kedesh during theFirst Jewish–Roman War, withTitus establishing a camp there. The site was later mentioned inEusebius. Excavations from 1997 to 2012 revealed significant Persian and Hellenistic administrative buildings and a largeRoman temple complex.
AsQadas (alsoCadasa;Arabic:قدس), it was aPalestinian village located 17 kilometers northeast ofSafad that wasdepopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war.[2][3] One of seven villages populated byShia Muslims, called theMetawalis, that fell within the boundaries ofBritish Mandate Palestine, Qadas is today known as thetell of the ancient biblical city ofKedesh.[4][3] The village of Qadas contained many natural springs which served as the village water supply and aRoman temple dating back to the2nd century.[2]
In EB II (c. 3050/3000–2900 BCE), Tel Qadesh (50 ha) was one of the largest sites in this part of the Levant with a complex fortification system.[5][6] It was a regional hub with pottery beloning to the South Levantine Metallic Ware (SLMW).
Kedesh Naphtali was first documented in theBook of Joshua as aCanaanite citadel conquered by theIsraelites under the leadership ofJoshua.[4][7] Ownership of Kedesh was turned over bylot to theTribe of Naphtali and subsequently, at the command ofGod, Kedesh was set apart by Joshua as aLevitical city and one of theCities of Refuge along withShechem and Kiriath Arba (Hebron) (Joshua 20:7).
According to Jewish tradition,Deborah the prophetess,Barak the son of Abinoam andJael, the wife ofHeber the Kenite, as also Heber, were buried near the spring beneath the town of Kedesh.[8]
In the 8th century BCE, during the reign ofPekah, king ofNorthern Israel,Tiglath-Pileser III of theNeo-Assyrian Empire took Kedesh and deported its inhabitants to Assyria. (2 Kings 15:29)
Later, during the5th century BCE, Kedesh may have become the capital for theAchaemenid-controlled andTyrian-administered province of theUpper Galilee.[9]
In 259 BCE, Kedesh was mentioned byZenon of Kaunos, a traveling merchant fromPtolemaic Egypt,[10] in theZenon Papyri.[10] According to1 Maccabees, a battle betweenJonathan Apphus and theSeleucid emperorDemetrius II Nicator took place in Kedesh.[11][12]
Between 145 BCE and 143 BCE, Kedesh (Cades) was overthrown byJonathan Maccabeus in his fight againstSeleucid kingDemetrius II Nicator.[12][11]
According toJosephus, after theJerusalem riots of 66, the Jews attacked a series of gentile cities, including Cydessa (Kedesh), then aTyrian village,[13] now inRoman Syria. During theFirst Jewish–Roman War,Titus established his camp there before he departed for battle withJohn of Gischala.[14]
From 1997 to 2012, Tel Kedesh was excavated by a team from theUniversity of Michigan'sKelsey Museum of Archaeology in conjunction with theUniversity of Minnesota,[15] focusing in 2010 and 2012 on the Persian and Hellenistic administrative building of enormous size and complexity. Its expensive decoration and the variety and quantity of artifacts have revealed a dominating administrative presence in the Kedesh valley and the Upper Galilee lasting nearly 350 years.[16] A largeRoman temple complex was built there.[14]
Eusebius, writing about the place in hisOnomasticon, says: "Kedesh. A priestly city in the inheritance of Naphtali. Previously it was a city of refuge 'in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali.' The 'king of the Assyrians' destroyed it(2 Kings 15:29). This is (now) Kydissos (Κυδισσός), twenty miles fromTyre nearPaneas."[17]
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 inUpper Galilee, near the Lebanese border, Israeli archaeologist,Yohanan Aharoni, held the view that it lay inLower Galilee, near the Valley of Jezreel, at a site which bears the same name (nowKhirbet Qadish).[18] Some prominent archaeological publications have, therefore, listed the site as being east of the "Jabneel valley" in "Lower Galilee".[19]
From 1997–2012, archaeological excavations were conducted at the Tel Kedesh site by Sharon Herbert andAndrea Berlin on behalf of theUniversity of Michigan.[20][21] The excavations revealed an enormous Persian-Hellenistic administrative building built in the later sixth century BC. Over the next 350 years, this complex provided a stage for interactions between imperial powers, provincial administrators and local elites – as control shifted from theAchaemenid Persians, to thePtolemies of Egypt, and then theSeleucids of Syria.
Qadas قدس Kades, Kadas, Cadasa | |
|---|---|
Village | |
 Qadas 1939 | |
| Etymology: Kadesh[22] | |
.jpg) 1870s map.jpg) 1940s map.jpg) modern map.jpg) 1940s with modern overlay mapA series of historical maps of the area around Qadas (click the buttons) | |
| Palestine grid | 199/279 |
| Geopolitical entity | Mandatory Palestine |
| Subdistrict | Safad |
| Date of depopulation | 28 May 1948[23] |
| Area | |
• Total | 14,139dunams (14.139 km2; 5.459 sq mi) |
| Population (1945) | |
• Total | 390[24][25] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Influence of nearby town's fall |
| Current Localities | Yiftah,Malkia,Ramot Naftali |
Under the rule of theIslamicAbbasid Caliphate in the 10th century CE, Qadas was a town inJund al-Urrdun ("District of Jordan").[26] According toal-Muqaddasi in 985, "Qadas was a small town on the slope of the mountain. It is 'full of good things'.Jabal Amilah is the district which is in its neighborhood. The town possesses three springs from which the people drink, and they have a bath below the city. The mosque is in the market, and in its court is a palm tree. The climate of this place is very hot. Near Qadas is the (Hulah) Lake."[27][28]
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 asBanias, is Kedesh, in the mountain of Naphtali, and it is [now] called Qades."[29]
In 1517, Palestine was incorporated into theOttoman Empire and in the 1596tax records, the village appeared asQadas, under thenahiya ("subdistrict") ofTibnin, underSanjak Safad, with a population of 49 households and 9 bachelors, (an estimated population of 319 people), allMuslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on various agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, olives, cotton, orchards, beehives, and goats, as well as a press that processed either grapes or olives; a total of 10,472akçe.[30][31]
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted: "The village of this name, which has at most 300 inhabitants, occupies barely a third of a beautiful hill, formerly entirely covered with dwellings and surrounded by a wall built of dressed stones, of which only a few levelling are now visible. The houses of the village almost all contain ancient fragments from toppled buildings. In one, among others, I am shown, on acolumn, a sculpted head representing the figure of the sun with a crown of rays".[32]
In 1881, thePEF'sSurvey of Western Palestine (SWP), Qadas was described as a stone-built village, situated on a spur of a ridge. The population, which was estimated to be between 100 and 300, cultivatedfig andolive trees.[33] SWP also noted that the "Metawali" from Qadas went to nearbyAl-Nabi Yusha' to venerate the name ofJoshua.[34]
Qadas was a part of theFrench-controlledLebanon until 1923, when theBritish 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.[35]
In the1931 census of Palestine, conducted by theBritish Mandate authorities,Qadas had a population of 273; 1 Christian and 272 Muslims, in a total of 56 houses.[36]
In the1945 statistics the village had a total of 5,709 dunums of land allotted tocereals, while 156 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.[35][37]
Qadas was occupied byIsraeli forces duringOperation Yiftach on 28 May 1948. Defended by theArab Liberation Army and theLebanese army, its inhabitants fled under the influence of the fall of, or exodus from, neighbouring towns.[38]
In June, 1948,kibbutzManara requested land from the newlydepopulated village of Qadas, as it was "suitable for winter crops".[39]
The settlement ofYiftach was built in 1948 to the northeast of the village site on lands belonging to Qadas. The village land is also used by the settlements ofMalkiyya, founded in 1949, andRamot Naftali, established in 1945.[40]
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.[40]
Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general ofHezbollah, 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.[41] 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.[41]
In theBook of Judges, the great oak tree inZaanaim is stated to be near Kedesh, though this verse could be a reference to a second Tel Kedesh, located 3 km to the south ofMegiddo, within the territory of theIsraelite tribe ofIssachar. (Judges 4:11)
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. Retrieved2023-02-12.
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.
So Titus camped not close by the town but at some distance from it, at the Tyrian village of Kedasa (Qedesh) some six miles away to the northeast on the road to Tyre. Perhaps logistical or supply requirements influenced Titus's decision. He had to look after the welfare of his cavalrymen's mounts, and there may have been good grazing land around Kedasa. Given the fact that Kedasa was a Tyrian settlement, it is also possible that Titus might have assumed that Kedasa's inhabitants would be friendly, if not active allies against the Jews. Titus presumably knew that the Tyrians had taken part in the earlier attack upon Gischala.
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