Абила: Древний город на землях Леванта

Ancient city in the Levant
the ruins in Jordan
The site was submitted to the list of tentative World Heritage sites under criteria I, III and IV on June 18, 2001, by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The name "Abila" is derived from the Semitic word Abel (in Hebrew, "meadow" and in Arabic, "green growth"). The largest site is located amidst verdant agricultural fields near the modern Ain Quweilbeh spring. Roman temples, Byzantine churches and early mosques lie amidst olive groves and wheat fields. The name of the south hill, Umm al Amad, means "Mother of the Columns", where large columns can be found.

Tell Umm al Amad is also termed Khirbet Umm al Amad, where khirbet is "ruined settlement." As the wadi is aligned north south at that location, Tell Umm al Amad is dubbed "the south tell." The unit of north and south tells create a defensible elevation similar to an acropolis surrounded on three sides by wadis. Tell in Arabic means only "hill", and the archaeological connotation of "hill of accumulated debris" in this case does not apply, as the city was built over two natural hills on the left bank of Wadi ("valley") Qweilibeh Its area is delineated by hills and escarpments. The presence of a city wall first constructed in the Iron Age and enhanced under the Macedonians and Romans defined the defensible part of the settlement. In shape the walled city at its peak was an elongated rectangle beginning on the stream facing slope of Tell Abila and slanting across the depression between the two hills to end at the summit of the south hill. The archaeology bears out that the settlement on the north hill was the original Abila. Most of the city was in the saddle shaped surface between the two hills. The slopes were overcome by terracing the saddle. However defensible, a city on a hill could not exist without native water and food supplies.

The site was in use from the Neolithic period until the Abbasid/Fatimid and Ayyubid/Mamluk periods, though its use in these later periods was limited. The ruins have been described in published literature as early as 1889 by Guy Le Strange. The site has been extensively excavated since 1980. While several of its ancient structures have been excavated including aqueducts, tombs, gates and public buildings, much of it remains unexcavated, yet visible at the surface.

Abila possibly appears in one of the 14th century BC Amarna letters as Ia bi li ma.

The first city wall was built during the Iron Age.

Polybius and Josephus mention the capture of the Ptolemaic city by the Seleucid king Antiochus III in 218 BCE. Rock cut tombs from the 2nd 3rd centuries discovered nearby partly display elaborate mural paintings. Destruction visited upon the city by either war (the conquest by Persian armies in 614) or the earthquake of 633 led to a period of abandonment. No longer a residential bishopric, Abila is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.