Horbat Gelilot

Aviva Bouchenino

27/08/2019

Final Report

In January 2016, a well was documented in the Cinema City complex at Gelilot (map ref. 181903/672798; Fig. 1), prior to the construction of a shopping mall and a commercial center by BIG Shopping Centers Ltd. The inspection, undertaken on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was directed by V. Shustin and D. Golan (documentation and field photography), with the assistance of N. Zak (drafting), A. Dagot (GPS), E. Ayalon and L. Rauchberger (consultation), and the architect G. Gordon and R. Hedvati of the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel.

Horbat Gelilot—on the southern Sharon coast, southwest of Herzliyya and east of Tel Mikhal—is the remains of one of a chain of small villages in this region. These settlements were established in the Roman and Byzantine periods on the middle kurkar ridge, and they are associated with numerous agricultural installations, workshops, quarries and rock-hewn burial caves. The site lies near the main longitudinal Roman road connecting Jaffa with Caesarea and several transverse roads leading to the nearby port city of Apollonia/Arsuf. Until 1948, the village of el-Jelil lay on the hill where the ruins are located (Fig. 2). The village was probably founded in the nineteenth century CE by settlers from Egypt and western Samaria, and it was named after Sheikh Salah ‘Abd el-Jelil. During the British Mandate, the village was divided into two municipal units: el-Jelil el-Qibliya (southern) and el-Jelil esh-Shamaliya (northern), which belonged to the Jaffa subdistrict. The residents of both villages were Muslims. They worked in agriculture and fishing, and their houses were built of bricks or concrete. The village was abandoned on 3 April 1948 (Jacobson 2012).

Surveys and excavations at the site have uncovered architectural remains, tombs, burial caves, winepresses, a bathhouse, a series of pools, a miqveh (ritual bath), a well, potters’ kilns, an olive press, pits, rock-cuttings and part of a dam. The remains date from the Middle Bronze Age IIB and the Hellenistic, Late Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic and Ottoman periods (Ory 1950; 1957; Levy 1992; Tal 1995; Ayash 1999; Feldstein 1998; Gophna and Ayalon 1998: Sites 49, 51 and 74; Haddad and Velednizki 2003; Ayalon and Levy 2011).

The lower part of the well (diam. 3.5 m, depth 30 m; Figs. 3, 4) is hewn into the bedrock, and the upper part is built of four courses of dressed and finely smoothed kurkar stones. Steel beams set in the upper part of the well (c. 2 m below the well mouth, c. 0.75 m between the beams; Fig. 5) were fixed to the structure above the well with cast concrete. A map from the time of the British Mandate (Fig. 1) shows two small buildings with a citrus grove to their east; one of the buildings is probably the well house, and the other may be a small building that served the workers in the citrus grove.

The well was one of several in the village. Obviously, it was used during the Mandate period, but we do not know when it was built. Most wells of this kind had a pumping system consisting of an engine, a drive wheel, a gear, iron pump rods (stangas) and bearings, but in this well only the steel beams were preserved. The use of pump engines and steel beams began in the late nineteenth century CE, and in a small village like el-Jelil they were probably introduced when the citrus groves were enlarged during the British Mandate period.

Ayalon E. and Levy Y. 2011. Horbat Gelilot (el-Jelil): Excavations of the Fringes of a Roman–Byzantine Period Village in the Sharon Plain. ‘Atiqot 66:17*–61* (Hebrew; English summary, pp. 156–157).

Ayash E. 1999. Gelilot. ESI 19:105*.

Feldstein A. 1998. Horbat Gelilot. ESI 18:52–53.

Gophna R. and Ayalon E. 1998. Map of Herzliyya (69) (Archaeological Survey of Israel). Jerusalem.

Haddad E. and Velednizki N. 2003. Gelilot. HA-ESI 115:37*–38*.

Jacobson M. 2012. A Tour of al-Jelil/Cinema City at Gelilot Junction. Back Window: Archaeology and Ideology in a Local Disneyland (Hebrew).

Levy Y. 1992. Gelilot (Kh. Jalil). ESI 10:120–121.

Ori J. 1950. Jelil. Journal of the Israel Department of Antiquities 2:16 (Hebrew).

Ori J. 1957. A Vaulted Tomb at km 6 on the Tel Aviv–Netanya Road. Bulletin of the Department of Antiquities 5–6:36–37 (Hebrew).

Tal O. 1995. Roman-Byzantine Cemeteries and Tombs around Apollonia. Tel-Aviv 22:107–120.

1. Location map overlain on a 1935 British Mandatory map with 1958 amendments.

2. A 1924 map of el-Jelil (from Jacobson 2012).

3. Well, looking north.

4. Well, plan and section.

5. Steel beams inside the well, view from above looking southwest.