Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam ( ar, الشبلي - أم الغنم, he, שִׁבְּלִי-אֻם אל-עַ'נַם) 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, ...

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

at the foot of

Mount Tabor Mount Tabor ( he, הר תבור) (Har Tavor) is located in Lower Galilee, Israel, at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, west of the Sea of Galilee. In the Hebrew Bible (Joshua, Judges), Mount Tabor is the site of the Battle of Mount Tabo ...

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 ...

's Northern District. In it had a population of .

History

Archaeological excavations east of the village have revealed flint from the

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...

culture, several

knapped Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing w ...

using the

Levallois technique The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and was ...

. Ceramics 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.

Ottoman era

In 1517, the village was included in the

Ottoman empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

with the rest of Palestine, and in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as ''Um al-Ganam'', located in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' of

Tabariyya Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Fou ...

, part of

Safad Sanjak Safed Sanjak ( ar, سنجق صفد; tr, Safed Sancağı) was a ''sanjak'' (district) of Damascus Eyalet ( Ottoman province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was ce ...

. The population was 8 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley and summer crops, in addition to occasional revenues, and goats and beehives; a total of 1,910 akçe. In 1875,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...

found here "several ancient cisterns, still unbroken, and ancient caves cut in rock, which now serve as refuge for shepherds." In 1881 the Palestine Exploration Fund's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' found at Kh. Umm el Ghanem: "Heaps of stones, a few of which are hewn, all of small size, one small cave and one cistern."

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Umm al Ghanam had a population of 52, all Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Nazareth, p
38
/ref> In the 1931 census the population of Umm al-Ghanam was counted with that of

Reineh Reineh (; ) is an Arab town in northern Israel. Located in the Galilee,Mokary, 2017Er-Reina/ref> between Nazareth and Qana of Galilee, it attained local council status in 1968. In it had a population of , the majority of whom are Muslims (85%), ...

, together they had 1015 inhabitants in a total of 243 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Umm al-Ghanam was counted with that of Mount Tabor, and their total land area was 8,409 dunams, according to an official land and population survey.Department of Statistics, 1945, p
8
/ref> Of this, 232 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 6,215 for cereals, while a total of 1,962 dunams were classified as non-cultivable land.

State of Israel

The town was formed in 1992 as a result of a municipal merger of the villages of Shibli and Umm al-Ghanam. Shibli High School is attended by 270 Arab students, Special educational programs introduced at the school have boosted the

Bagrut Te'udat Bagrut (, ''lit.'' "maturity certificate", Arabic: شهادة بجروت) is a certificate that attests that a student has successfully passed Israel's high school matriculation examination. Bagrut is a prerequisite for higher education ...

matriculation pass rate and percentage of graduates attending university.

Jordan Lead Codices

The so-called Jordan Lead Codices are considered by Israeli and Jordanian specialists to be fakes. Hassan Saida of Shibli–Umm Al-Ghanam owns a collection of small cast lead books featuring what is believed to be the first-ever portrait of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

. The books are thought to have been created by followers of Jesus in the first decades after his crucifixion. The books, containing cryptic messages in Hebrew and ancient Greek, have been in Saida's family since they were found by his great-grandfather.Lost for 2,000 years... Could this be the first portrait of Jesus?
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Official websiteWelcome To Umm al-Ghanam
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6
IAAWikimedia commons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam Arab localities in Israel Local councils in Northern District (Israel) Mount Tabor