Meiser ( ar, ميسر; he, מֵיסִר, also known as Shaykh Maysar or Khirbat Maysar) is an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

village in northern

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Located half a kilometre west of the

Green Line Green Line may refer to: Places Military and political * Green Line (France), the German occupation line in France during World War II * Green Line (Israel), the 1949 armistice line established between Israel and its neighbours ** City Line ( ...

, north of the city of

Baqa al-Gharbiyye Baqa al-Gharbiyye ( ar, باقة الغربية, he, באקה אל-גרביה, בָּקַה אל-עַ'רְבִּיָּה; lit. ''Baqa West'') is a predominantly Arab city in the "Triangle" region of Israel near the Green Line. In 2003, Baqa al-G ...

in the triangle area of

Wadi Ara Wadi Ara ( ar, وادي عارة, he, ואדי עארה) or Nahal 'Iron ( he, נחל עירון), is a valley and its surrounding area in Israel populated mainly by Arab Israelis. The area is also known as the "Northern Triangle". Wadi Ara is ...

, it is one of three

villages under the jurisdiction of

Menashe Regional Council The Menashe Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית מנשה, ''Mo'atza Azorit Menasheh'') is a regional council near the city of Hadera, on Israel's north-central coastal plain in the southern Haifa District. It is named after the tribe of ...

. In it had a population of .

History

Antiquity

Remains from the Early

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

era (end of the first century BCE–beginning of the first century CE) have been found here.Zertal, 2016, pp
292294
/ref> Three strata from the Roman-Byzantine periods was excavated in the centre of the village. A bathhouse, dating from the same time, has also been found. Ceramics and other remains from the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

era have been found here. An excavation revealed remains dating from the end of the Byzantine period (7th century CE), and above it were remains of a residential house from the

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

period (9th–10th centuries CE).

Ottoman era

In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) found at ''Sheikh Meisir'' "foundations near a modern Mukam" (Muslim tomb). In spite of this, Andrew Petersen, who inspected the

Maqam MAQAM is a US-based production company specializing in Arabic and Middle Eastern media. The company was established by a small group of Arabic music and culture lovers, later becoming a division of 3B Media Inc. "MAQAM" is an Arabic word meaning a ...

in 1994, suggested "that the building may be considerably older than the nineteenth century."

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Kherbet Maisir'' had a population of 49 Muslims. In the 1945 statistics Meiser was counted with

Qaffin Qaffin ( ar, قفّين) is a Palestinian town located northeast of Tulkarm in the Tulkarm Governorate in the northwestern West Bank. The town is an agricultural town. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, its population consi ...

and ''Kh. el Aqaba'', together they had a population of 1,570 Muslims,Department of Statistics, 1945, p
21
/ref> with a land area of 23,755

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,863 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 8,371 were used for cereals, while 40 dunams were built-up (urban) land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
177
/ref> File:Meisar 1942.jpg, Meiser 1942 1:20,000 File:Qaffin 1945.jpg, Meiser 1945 1:250,000 Meiser panorama from west 01

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Village website
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Menashe Regional Council Arab villages in Israel Wadi Ara Populated places in Haifa District