Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University report that they have identified the palace of the Umayyad caliphs in Al-Zanabara - that is, the House of the Moon - on the shores of the Sea of Kinneret
The existence of the palace was known from the writings of ancient historians, but its exact location was not known. In the years 1950-1953, archaeologists Guy and Bar-Adon excavated a large-scale fortified structure near the Kinneret cemetery which they dated to the Roman or Byzantine period. In the center of the building was a hall with an apse (rounded wall) facing south, decorated with mosaic floors. One of the building stones - the base of a column made of chalk - bore an engraving of a menorah with seven reeds. Soon the entire building was declared a synagogue, and it was incorporated into the Beit Yerah National Park - a popular tourist destination at the beginning of the state, and now an abandoned site. Over the years, the identification of the building has been contested, but it was only in 2002 that a researcher from the University of Chicago, Donald Whitcomb, proposed to identify the "synagogue" as the palace of the Umayyad rulers, who used to spend the winter months near the provincial capital in Tiberias.
The excavations of the 50s were done in a hurry, and almost no finds were preserved. Therefore, the researchers had to carry out a careful re-examination of the remains of the building, only its foundations were preserved. A preliminary processing of the material and the coins found under its floors showed that the entire building was built no earlier than the middle of the seventh century AD, and that a magnificent bathhouse adjacent to it was built near the end of that century. Many remains of water canals and clay pipes testify to the existence of a developed water system which was fed by spring water that was brought to the site via an aqueduct.
According to the sources, various Umayyad rulers sat in this palace during the winter, including the first caliph, Mu'awiya, as well as the great ruler of the dynasty, Abd al-Malak, builder of the Dome of the Rock. The place was a focus of royal political activity; The fates of the princes of the dynasty were determined in it, and the claims of citizens were discussed in it. After the fall of the dynasty, al-Zanabra fell from its greatness, and the palace was completely dismantled. Despite this, the remains left in the area—thick foundations of walls reaching a depth of 2 m or more—make it possible to reconstruct the shape of the palace and the wall and towers that protected it in the first hundred years after the birth of Islam.
"This discovery is significant not only because of the historical importance of the Umayyad palace," notes Dr. Greenberg, "but because of its special location, next to a Byzantine church that preceded it and near the historic cemetery of the pioneers of the Second Aliyah. Together with the earlier remains on the site and with the beach itself, a special complex of heritage values and landscape was created that represent the Israeli existence in all its complexity."
The discovery will be presented at the International Congress for the Archeology of the Ancient East which will be held next month in London
* Yaakov Fichman's children's poem, "Fable", which opens with the lines "On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the palace of great glory", was written at the request of Hasia Feinsud Soknik, the wife of the first researcher of Tel Beit Yerah, Elazar Lipa Soknik, the father of Yigal Yedin.
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A whole article that in the end turns out to be an advertisement to attract tourists.