Явна: История и археология древнего города

the Israeli town

Yibna (يبنا; Jabneh or Jabneel in Biblical times; Jamnia in Roman times; Ibelin to the Crusaders), or Tel Yavne, is an archaeological site and depopulated Palestinian town. The ruins are located immediately southeast of the modern Israeli city of Yavne. The town had a population of 5,420 in 1948, located 15 kilometers southwest of Ramla. Yibna was taken by Israeli forces on 4 June 1948, and was depopulated during the military assault and expulsion. It is a significant site for post biblical Jewish history, as it was the location of the Council of Jamnia, considered the birthplace of modern Rabbinic Judaism. It is also significant in the history of the Crusades, as the location of the House of Ibelin.

In many English translations of the Bible, it is known as Yavne or Jabneh '/dʒ//æ//b//n//ə/. During Greco Roman times, it was known as Jamnia (Ἰαμνία Iamníā; Iamnia); to the Crusaders as Ibelin; and before 1948, as Yibna. (يبنا)

[[File:Old Yavne. jpg|thumb|left|The tell with the ruins of the Mamluk minaret built in 1337 Two excavation seasons in the 2000s led by Professor Dan Bahat revealed some Iron Age remains. Pottery sherds of the Iron Age and Persian period were discovered at the surface of the tell. After Salome's death, Iamnia came into the property of Livia, the future Roman empress, and then to her son Tiberius. During the First Jewish–Roman War, when the Roman army had quelled the insurrection in Galilee, the army then marched upon Iamnia and Azotus, taking both towns and stationing garrisons within them. According to rabbinic tradition, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples were permitted to settle in Iamnia during the outbreak of the war, after Zakkai, realizing that Jerusalem was about to fall, sneaked out of the city and asked Vespasian, the commander of the besieging Roman forces, for the right to settle in Yavne and teach his disciples. Upon the fall of Jerusalem, his school functioned as a re establishment of the Sanhedrin.

thumb|left|The Madaba Map, showing ) (Lit. "Jabneel, which is also Jamnia")
Byzantine period finds from excavations include an aqueduct east of the tell, and a kiln. The world's largest wine factory from the Byzantine period has been uncovered by Israeli archaeologists, after a two year excavation process; the importance of its wine was exemplified by its use by emperor Justin II in 566 at his table during his coronation feast.

The historian al Baladhuri (d. 892 CE) mentioned Yibna as one of ten towns in Jund Filastin conquered by the Muslim Arab army led by Amr ibn al As in the early 7th century. The 9th century historian Ya'qubi wrote that it was an ancient city built on a hill and inhabited by Samaritans. An additional kiln, and part of a commercial/industrial area were uncovered at the west of the tell in 2009. Ibelin was first sacked by Saladin before his army was comprehensively routed at the Battle of Montgisard in late 1177. In August 1187, it was retaken by Saladin and burned down, and ceased for some time to form part of the Crusaders' kingdom. The Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela (1130–1173) identified Jamnia (Jabneh) of classical writers with the Ibelin of the Crusades. He places the ancient city of Jamnia at three parasangs from Jaffa and two from Ashdod (Azotus). During the Mamluk period (13th–16th centuries), Yibna was a key site along the Cairo—Damascus road, which served as a center for rural religious and economic life. Ibelin's parish church was converted into a mosque, to which a minaret was added during the Mamluk period in 1337. The minaret survives until today, while the mosque (the former Crusader church) was blown up by the Israeli army in 1950. The Mausoleum of Abu Huraira, a maqam (religious shrine), in Yibna was described as "one of the finest domed mausoleums in Palestine". The site has been considered by Muslims as the tomb of Abu Huraira since the 12th century. After Israel's capture of Yibna in 1948, the shrine was taken over by Sephardic Jews who consider the tomb as the burial place of Rabbi Gamaliel of Yavne.

Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517. In the 1596 Ottoman tax registers, it fell under the nahiya (subdistrict) of Gaza, part of the liwa' (district) of Gaza, with a population of 129 households, an estimated 710 persons, all Muslims. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, summer crops, sesame seeds and fruits, as well as goats, beehives and vineyards; a total of 34,000 akçe. Three quarters of the revenues went to a waqf (religious endowment). In the French campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1799, it was noted on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled that year as 'Ebneh'. An American missionary, William Thomson, who visited Yibna in 1834, described it as a village on hill inhabited by 3,000 Muslims who worked in agriculture. He wrote that an inscription on the mosque indicated that it had been built in 1386, while Denys Pringle indicates 1337 as the construction year of the minaret. In 1838, Yibna was noted as a Muslim village in the Gaza district. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Yibna had a population of 1,042 living in 348 houses, though this number only counted adult males. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Yibna as a large village partly built of stone and situated on a hill. It had olive trees and corn to the north, and gardens nearby.

In 1921, an elementary school for boys was founded in Yibna. By 1941 42 it had 445 students. A school for girls was founded in 1943, and by 1948 it had 44 students. increasing in the 1931 census to 3,600, of whom all were Muslims except for seven Christians, two Jews and one Baha'i, living in a total of 794 houses. In 1941, the kibbutz of Yavne was established nearby by refugees from Germany, followed by a Youth Aliyah village, Givat Washington, in 1946. In addition there were 1,500 nomads living around the village. while 127 dunams were classified as built up areas.

Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour made Yibna the subject of one of his paintings. The work, named for the village, was one of a series of four on destroyed Palestinian villages that he produced in 1988 in order to resist the cancellation of Palestinian history; the others being Yalo, Imwas and Bayt Dajan.

The harbour of ancient Yavneh has been identified on the coast at Minet Rubin (Arabic) or Yavne Yam (Hebrew), where excavations have revealed fortification going back to the Bronze Age Hyksos. It has been in use from the Middle Bronze Age until the 12th century CE, when it was abandoned. For more see Yavne Yam.