Tur'an (, ) is an
Arab
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...
local council in the
Northern District of
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. It is located at the foot of Mount Tur'an and the
Tur'an Valley, near the
main road from
Haifa
Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...
to
Tiberias
Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...
, and about north of
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...
. In it had a population of , most of whom are
Israeli Arabs
The Arab citizens of Israel form the country's largest ethnic minority. Their community mainly consists of former Mandatory Palestine citizens (and their descendants) who continued to inhabit the territory that was acknowledged as Israeli by ...
.
History
Iron Age
Pottery and building remains from the
Iron Age I have been excavated in the northwestern part of the village. Apparently Tur'an was at that time (10–9th centuries BCE) surrounded by a city wall. Apparently it was of a considerable size in the late tenth to the mid-ninth centuries BCE. The massive wall, (width c. 2.4 m), probably enclosed an area of about 25 dunams, and has frm pottery remains been dated to Iron Age IIA (ninth century BCE).
The
PEF's
''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) found caves and rock-cut
cistern
A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster.
Cisterns are disti ...
s in the village, which they noted appeared to be an ancient site.
Classical Antiquity and Middle Ages
The village was known in the
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 Roman civilization
*Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
and
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
periods (
Mishna
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...
ic and
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
ic times, respectively) as ''Tir'an''. It was a
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
village.
Pottery from the early Islamic (7th century CE), and
Mamluk
Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
(14th century CE) have been excavated in the village centre, near the old mosque, together with building remains from the same period.
Ottoman era
In 1517, Tur'an was with the rest of Palestine incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
after it was captured from the
Mamluk
Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
s, and by 1596, it appeared in the Ottoman
tax registers as being in the ''
nahiya
A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, 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 divisi ...
'' of
Tabariyya, part of
Sanjak Safad. It had a population of 48 households, all
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, olive trees, fruit trees, goats and/or beehives; a total of 5,410
akçe
The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...
.
A map from
Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by
Pierre Jacotin
Pierre Jacotin (1765–1827) was the director of the Surveying, survey for the ''Carte de l'Égypte (Description de l'Égypte)'', the first triangulation-based map of Egypt, Syria and Palestine.
The maps were drafted in 1799–1800 during Napole ...
showed the place, though misplaced, named as ''Touran.''
In 1838, it was noted as a large Muslim, Catholic Christian and Greek Christian village in the Nazareth district.
In 1848,
William F. Lynch described Tur'an as "quite a fortification."
The French explorer
Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...
visited Tur'an in 1870, and estimated it had 350 Muslims and 200 "
Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
".
In 1881, the
PEF's
''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described it as "A stone village, partly built of basalt, containing about 300 inhabitants, half Christian, half Moslem.
. The village is situated al the foot of the hills, and is surrounded by groves of olives. There is a good spring to the north-west."
A population list from about 1887 showed that ''Tor'an'' had about 600 inhabitants; mixed Christians and Muslims.
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 divis ...
conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, Tur'an had a population of 768; 542
Muslims
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
and 226
Christians
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...
.
[Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Nazareth, p]
38
/ref> Of the Christians, 52 were Orthodox and 174 were Melkite
The term Melkite (), also written Melchite, refers to various Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite and their members originating in West Asia. The term comes from the common Central Semitic root ''m-l-k'', meaning "royal", referrin ...
. The population had increased in the 1931 census to 961; 693 Muslims and 268 Christians, in a total of 188 occupied houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
76
/ref>
In the 1945 statistics the population was 1,350; 1,010 Muslims and 340 Christians,[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p]
8
/ref> with 29,743 dunam
A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,153 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 11,909 for cereals, while 34 dunams were built-up land.
State of Israel
On 18 July 1948 the Israeli captured Tur'an during the second part of Operation Dekel. The houses of those villagers who fled were later used to house Arab refugees from neighbouring villages. The village remained under Martial Law
Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...
until 1966.[O'Ballance, 1956, p. 160]
See also
*Arab localities in Israel
Arab localities in Israel include all population centers with a 50% or higher Arab population in Israel. East Jerusalem and Golan Heights are not internationally recognized parts of Israel proper but have been included in this list.
According to ...
* F.C. Tzeirei Tur'an
References
Bibliography
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External links
Official website
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6
IAA
Wikimedia commons
{{Authority control
Arab localities in Israel
Arab Christian communities in Israel
Local councils in Northern District (Israel)
Ancient Jewish settlements of Galilee