Talk:Beit She'arim (Roman-era Jewish village)

Seriously?
"Kh. Sheikh Abreiḳ (Arabic: شيخ ابريق‎), is a Roman-era Jewish village (now ruin) that thrived from the 1st-century BCE until its demise in the early 20th century."

This was an Arab/Muslim village for most of that time, still it is being called a Jewish village???

Also, why does this article exist, at all? Most of the facts in here are "borrowed" from the Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun, (facts that "some" of us spend quite some time "digging" up).

What is in this article, which isn't already covered by Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun and Beit She'arim National Park.

Frankly, to me this article looks like an excuse for writing some fake Jewish history, Huldra (talk) 22:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One more thing: this article makes it sound like this place was "discovered" in the 1930. Nothing could be more wrong: read SWP! Lots and lots of exploring/writing was done about this place in the 1800s and early 1900s, Huldra (talk) 20:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Davidbena Do you have any reply? Huldra (talk) 23:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , shalom. You are not new to the subject of historical geography. We have already ascertained that many of the sites called by medieval Arabic names had at one time Hebrew names, known and recognised thereby by indigenous Jewish populations at the time of the Second Temple: For example, Al-Eizariya was formerly known by Bethany (Hebrew variant: ), Silwan was formerly known as Shiloach, Al-Khalil was formerly known as Hebron , Nablus was formerly known as Shechem , and there are many, many other places with double-names: 1) The more modern Arabic name, and 2) the more ancient Hebrew name. It is the same here, where the majority of modern scholars and historical geographers having identified the Arab village Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun with the Second Temple Jewish village Beit Shearim. This article pertains strictly to the town by that name, whereas the article Beit She'arim National Park deals specifically with the necropolis, which is now a World Heritage site. The town's modern identification with the old site was actually brought to world renown in 1930, or thereabouts. BTW: It's good hearing from you again. What projects have you been working on lately?Davidbena (talk) 00:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One more thing: Who, better than you, knows that here, on Wikipedia, we often cater to two articles covering the same village or town, simply because the emphasis of one (i.e. the Arabic name) is different to the other's emphasis (i.e. the Hebrew name). One article speaks primarily about its late Arabic history, although not always excluding its Jewish/Greek/Roman history, while the Hebrew name of the same place puts a different emphasis on the article. A case in point: Yavne and Yibna. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 00:26, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Huldra, I noticed where you put up the template "This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints." Hmmm. Well, if you take this route, then we might as well add the same template to other articles. In my view, the template is not necessary here, since, as noted, the emphasis is primarily on the town's Jewish history during the Second Temple period and shortly thereafter, when the town was still known by that name. Can I please ask you to remove the template, unless you wish to add the town's more recent history under its new name? It you decide to go this route, i.e. seeking balance, it will require of us to do the same in all Wikipedia articles where there are double entries for the same place. It makes our task here much more difficult. Just saying.Davidbena (talk) 00:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll begin working on this article to bring more balance, by inclusion of its recent Arabic history.Davidbena (talk) 01:17, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * " it will require of us to do the same in all Wikipedia articles where there are double entries for the same place" Hmm, that sounds like a threat. That there are a lot of shitty articles around, is no excuse for this shitty article.
 * As I recall correctly, you tend to have an aversion towards anything which reeks of ancient Jewish history. Very sad. To be good editors here, on Wikipedia, it will require of us a sense of openness and broad-mindedness to ALL historical references, be what they might be.Davidbena (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please do not make any more WP:NPA: I have an aversion towards false history, certainly not Jewish history, Huldra (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Lets take this step-by-step, shall we?
 * A: This article is about a village, while (to quote you) "article Beit She'arim National Park deals specifically with the necropolis, which is now a World Heritage site." Then the whole "Necropolis" part here should really only be a link to Beit She'arim National Park.
 * The section "Necropolis" shows there that the main article is Beit She'arim National Park. Nothing to be changed there. The link directs our readers to that article. The section "Necropolis", by no means, represents the main thrust of this article. It is mentioned only as an aside.Davidbena (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That section is way too long; should only be a link, Huldra (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Huldra, at your behest, I have condensed the section entitled "Necropolis." I have not altogether deleted everything, but just enough to inform our readers about its existence, which they can later read about in the link.Davidbena (talk) 02:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * B: the sentence "It was not until Alexander Zaïd in 1936 discovered a "new" catacomb among the known burial caves in the hill directly below Sheikh Abreiḳ" is factually wrong, as anybody reading Conder & Kitchener will know.
 * The intent here is not to the discovery of the catacomb, but rather of what it contained. I'll make the distinction.Davidbena (talk) 15:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Again: what the catacombs contained was very well known. It was merely the connections with ancient Beit She'arim which was done in the 1930s. The article still says "It was not until Alexander Zaïd in 1936 discovered a "new" catacomb among the already known burial caves".  Please tell me which catacomb did he discover.....which wasn't already described by eg Conder and Kitchener? Huldra (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , The source (Nahman Avigad) does not tell us which tomb Mr. Zaïd investigated, but to allay your concerns, I have reworded the text to now read as follows: "...It was not until Alexander Zaïd in 1936 discovered what he thought was a "new" catacomb among the already known burial caves in the hill directly below Sheikh Abreiḳ that the necropolis came to the attention of British Mandate archaeologist Benjamin Mazar and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, at which time priority was given to the site, prompting seven seasons of systematic excavations at Sheikh Abreiḳ and its necropolis between the years 1936–1940, and 1956, under the direction of Prof. Benjamin Mazar on behalf of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society, and again in the years 1953–1958 under Nahman Avigad" (END QUOTE). There is now no reason to see any contradiction between Conder's and Kitchener's finds at the site, and those of Mr. Zaïd.Davidbena (talk) 01:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * C: the sentence: "Jewish village (now ruin) that thrived from the 1st-century BCE until its demise in the early 20th century" is a LIE. There is no other word for it.
 * Yes, Huldra, the wording here was incorrect. I have since corrected the sentence, which now reads: "Kh. Sheikh Abreiḳ (شيخ ابريق), is a Roman-era Jewish village (now ruin) that thrived from the 1st-century BCE, until its demise in the early 20th century under its new name and as a former Palestinian Arab village."Davidbena (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The sentence " I"s a Roman-era Jewish village (now ruin) that thrived from the 1st-century BCE, until its demise in the early 20th century under its new name and as a former Palestinian Arab village" still conveys the wrong and false impression that this was  Jewish village for most of its time; it was not, as you well know. Huldra (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Following your directives, I have changed the lede paragraph to now read as follows:
 * "Beit She'arim (בית שערים), also (בית שריי), Kh. Sheikh Abreiḳ (شيخ ابريق), is a Roman-era village (now ruin) whose demographics have changed over the years, thriving from the 1st-century BCE until the 3rd-century CE as a Jewish village and, at one time, the seat of the Sanhedrin, but which in the course of time was settled by Palestinian Arabs until its demise in the early 20th century."
 * Does it now sound right to you?Davidbena (talk) 00:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * D: to be discussed: this article could be about the Jewish village lasting until 3-4th century, (possible some Byzantine era, as the village seem to have had a mixed population then), and it's archaeological discovery. Then we cut out all after say the "early Muslim" era, and have that in Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun? (It seems a bit artificial; we are talking about long-gone villages, basically in the same place, AFAIK);
 * This article is, indeed, about the Jewish village lasting until 3-4th century, but as in most settled places in this country, its demographics had changed, therefore the need to mention this fact about its "early Muslim era." This has been common practice all throughout Wikipedia and the various articles touching on places where there was a shift in population. In most articles dealing with both an Arab and Jewish history, the chronological order of events is usually reversed, with Jewish history coming first, followed by its Arab history (e.g. Battir vs. Betar (fortress); Nablus vs. Shechem; Iraq al-Manshiyya vs. Kefar Shihlayim; Qila, Hebron vs. Keilah; al-Karmil vs. Carmel (biblical settlement); Bayt Jibrin vs. Eleutheropolis, Yibna vs. Yavne, etc., etc.).Davidbena (talk) 15:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you read the articles like Betar (fortress), Keilah and  Carmel (biblical settlement); they don't not pretend  to have existed much after the Roman period (as Jewish places, that it); this article does, Huldra (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * E: to be discussed: should we have a RfC about keeping both this article and Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun. Or should we merge them? Huldra (talk) 21:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, Beit Shearim during the Second Temple period and shortly thereafter was a Jewish village; there were no Arabs living there to speak about. The ancient records are plain. The Arab conquest of Palestine was much later. So why the animosity towards Jewish villages? I am opposed to any merger for the simple reason that Beit Shearim is known in early Jewish sources by that name, whereas Sheikh Bureik is not. It is also mentioned by Josephus! Today, in fact, the name Sheikh Bureik is obsolete, only appearing as such in the old maps, whereas now that old name has been superseded by Beit Shearim, appearing as such in all the modern maps, not to mention the World Heritage site of the ancient Jewish necropolis by the same name.Davidbena (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Folks, here we are again. Guessing and pushing agendas. When there is enough research done on the site to know. I have looked up Negev & Gibson, but there are other readily available sources out there. The hill stretches approx. SW-NE. What I do know is that the necropolis north and west of the ridge has been thoroughly excavated, as have been some public structures on the edges of the hill above, but not the larger part of the town, as it occupied the top of the ridge, where the descendants of Al. Zaid and another family have their homesteads and nobody went about digging in their garden and under their barns, so to say. Also, not much seems to have been excavated on the opposite side of the hill (the slope facing the Jezreel Valley), maybe they didn't find much during surveys, or there were property issues, or who knows what. That means that there are probably large lacunas in the archaeological exploration of the site in terms of area covered by digs. UPDATE: I see that since 2014, the U Haifa team has started excavating the top of the hill, looking for the remains of the town itself (see FB page listed in the References section). This needs now to be researched, they've found the/a city gate and several other things already. That said, this is what we have:


 * There was some settlement in IA II, but that's not of the essence.
 * The main stretch was approx. C1-C7, with a a Jewish "golden era" in C2-C3 and lingering into C4, with another period of prosperity under the Byzantines, in spite of some destruction during the Gallus Revolt (351–352) and the 363 Galilee earthquake. The necropolis continued to be used as such in the Byz. period - I presume by Jews, judging by the context and the fact that Negev & Gibson are mentioning it.
 * The Early Muslim presence: Negev & Gibson are mentioning 1.] the "recently revised" date of the huge glass slab from C9, so Abbasid; the glass factory was located inside an ancient cistern. And 2.] 75 Umayyad & Abbasid lamps in Catacomb 20, likely associated with the smashing of marble sarcophagi for lime production. No other settlement traces are mentioned. I don't know if the industry implies a settlement, or it functioned like an outside-of-town industrial zone.
 * Scarce findings from the Crusader period only suggest people passing through or temporary settlers. Jewish lore of the 12th c. misplaces Judah the Prince's tomb at Sepphoris, another indication that Beit Shearim had been thoroughly forgotten by then.
 * Negev doesn't say anything about the Ottoman or modern period. I have the tourist brochure, written by Israeli archaeologist Tsvika Tsuk, who has been working at the site and is or was the director of the Nat'l Parks Authority, and Revital Weiss, the park manager at least betw. 2011-2020 as I can see on Google. They write that the place was "eventually abandoned and forgotten. In the 19th c., a small Arab village, Sheikh Ibrek, was located here." The WP article states that "The village appears under the name Sheikh Bureik in 16th century Ottoman archives, during which time the village was inhabited by Arabic-speaking people.", but the entire Ottoman & Mandate period paragraph is fully UNSOURCED. Moshe Sharon suggests that it is possible that the "Sheikh Abreik/Ibrek/Bureik" legend might well have its roots at the beginning of the 10th century, and speculates that the old necropolis was being reused for burials (see Beit She'arim National Park). Maybe true, maybe not, but it offers a possible early date for the legend of the holy man, without a connection to a settlement.

What I get is this: a Jewish town in C1-C4 at least. During the Byzantine period it flourished again, not clear if as a fully Jewish town (see necropolis use), but no churches found so far. Industrial activity during the Early Muslim period, with a sophisticated poem in Arabic dated according to the Muslim calendar to 900 or 902 CE - so Muslim presence, plus see what Sharon speculates. Abandoned until sometime in the Ottoman period, with only scarce and passing presence by Europeans during the Crusader kingdom. When during the Ottoman period the site received a village near the maqam (shrine) is not clear (to me). David, I see it's your contribution - where does the 16th century date come from? Does the source mention a village, or a site (Sheikh... is the name of the maqam/wali/shrine)? If it's the usual tax register, then it should give households and cultivation details. ? You often have these details. Then we can date the resettlement.
 * The 16th-century source comes from . It mentions the village Sheikh Bureik (also known as Sheikh Abreik). I'll add the source as a reference in the article.Davidbena (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

In this case, we have: 1) an urban settlement with international relevance in the Jewish world at least during the 2nd-3rd centuries, with a possible Roman fort or its own city walls (gate discovered in 2017) and flourishing again in the Byzantine period. 2) An archaeologically far less poignant Early Muslim presence, represented by industrial activity accompanied by a possible religious and funerary tradition (see poem & Sharon's theory). We see a similar evolution everywhere in the Old World where a city collapses and its ruins are cannibalised by the remaining or new population, whichever is the case. 3) A small Ottoman-period Muslim village arises next to the alleged maqam of a "holy man" from the ancient past.

MY CONCLUSION Nothing like other sites, like Jerusalem, Neapolis/Nablus, Beth Shean, etc., etc., where we can see settlement continuity and important activity by the Muslim population between C7-C20 or 21. It's more like Amman, Jarash, or Caesarea, which were totally abandoned as settlement sites for many, many centuries and resettled in the 19th c. with a few Caucasian or Balkan Muslims by the Ottoman authorities. Here it was a local Palestinian village, not Bosniaks or Chechens, but otherwise I can see only little connection to the ancient town. The Zaid & Yaffe homesteads don't and can't claim to represent Beit Shearim either, even if they're sitting atop its ruins. The same goes for the different Israeli settlements around the hill, which are most certainly built on the lands of the ancient town and which one needs to cross to get to the necropolis. In this case I am in favour of having 3 separate articles, with good cross-references. Please don't copy too much between the now 2 and hopefully future 3 articles, as Beit She'arim National Park already covers most of what is to know about the ancient town. I don't know if any authorities are thinking of expanding the Park in order to include the new excavations (probably not), otherwise I would fully support merging the current two. I suggest that this one should have all of the material, and the Park art. just a minimum (tourist info and what areas of the ancient town are covered by the Park and maybe which not). For the Arab village article name, we can choose whichever spelling occurs most often, but I think to have read somewhere that Abreik/Ibrek is how local Palestinians pronounce it, Bureik being the more literary form or based on an alternative etymology, but I'm not sure about it. Arminden (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC) PS: damn, now i see: we have a Sheikh Bureik article already. With far too much history and archaeology. Things show up in 3 places, the worst of all outcomes. The only unifying element is Sharon's theory, of the ancient necropolis giving birth to a new Muslim tradition of the holy Sheikh Bureik, which gives the name to a village established after many centuries of abandonment (10th-16th c.? Over half a millennium.) Apart from that, which is a theory not yet supported by findings, it's apples and oranges. Arminden (talk) 00:21, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this, as always, excellent post. The difference with the examples of Amman, Jarash, or Caesarea is that those places were definitely uninhabited for a period. Here it is speculative and unproven. Until the area directly beneath Sheikh Bureik is fully excavated we cannot know. And it is wrong to call Sheikh Bureik an Ottoman village – we do not know when it was founded. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:54, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Compare with Pompei and Pompeii (keeping the proportions). Arminden (talk) 00:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The equivalent article to the Pompei of 1891 is the Beit She'arim of 1926. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Damn... An article on the moshav, with a name only differetiated from the historical town by one lousy apostrophe?! Besides, the She'arim spelling is quite common for the ancient site, as well. The mess thickens. Arminden (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

hi. I've said throughout: it's all based on concrete archaeological knowledge, only adding M. Sharon's theory as a speculation, no more. So no traces between C9 and C11-12 means something, and then no mention or findings until the Ottoman times, also. A posting on the 2014-21 dig mentions an area at the top covered in Ottoman-period refuse, with Roman period stuff directly underneath. Where there is nothing found, speculating doesn't help. So far it looks like there was nothing there, but it's not final. All over the region the population peaked in the Byzantine period and decreased after, it's nothing new or POW, just fact. The current dig is indeed something new and essential. 7 or 8 seasons also are a substantial effort, and I only checked the main headlines; we need to go through it all. I don't think it'll be me right now, sorry.

PS: I just came across a paper about Jarash being used as seasonal agricultural land sometimes between abandonment and resettlement. There's always room for new discoveries, but in such cases they change little in the bigger picture: if a large and prosperous city is abandoned, be it Roman, ancient Egyptian, Umayyad, whatever, and a small group is settling there after a while, never fully taking off, often to depart or be chased away themselves by the next group and so on - that's not like the continuation of the old city. Think Petra and Umm Sayhoun if you prefer. Arminden (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

The Template for more balance
, I have corrected the issues that you raised in your previous comments, so what now is not satisfactory to you? Please be specific. If there are issues related to balance, I will gladly work on the article. You can also assist. If not, the template must go.Davidbena (talk) 22:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , seriously, if you remove this template one more time, before the issues are resolved, I will take you straight to AE. The implications of the article that this was a Jewish village the last ~ 1500 years are wrong, as you well know, Huldra (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , We have already corrected that issue. We have already mentioned that the village was ALSO an Arab village. So, what's the problem? If I have overlooked something, please point that out to me. The name "Beit Shearim," when used as such, was indeed a Jewish village. If you have nothing to add, then I take it that you agree that the issues have been resolved and the template can be removed. We're here to fix problems, rather than perpetuate problems.Davidbena (talk) 22:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You have not corrected the issue. The article still reads as if it was a Jewish village for most of the time, this, while as Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun shows, there was an Arab presence here from at least the Umayyad (7th–8th centuries) time, Huldra (talk) 23:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But are we not specifically talking about Beit Shearim, as it existed in the early and late Roman period - as its main emphasis, with less emphasis on its Arab history? Besides, we have the article Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun that emphasizes its more recent Arab history. Why discriminate against this article, when we have many other similar articles that do the same thing: Battir versus Betar (fortress), Nablus versus Shechem, and Yibna versus Yavne? If you'd like to add a little bit more of the Arab history concerning the site, please do so. Otherwise, it's all semantics. My suggestion to you would be to add what you might feel is lacking, to make the article more acceptable in your view, or else more reflective of the site's historical truths.Davidbena (talk) 23:20, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As I stated above, articles like Betar (fortress) does not pretend to be a Jewish village for the last two thousand years. We first need to agree what this article is about, then remove everything that it isn't about; say any reference to between ~5the century and 1930s. For that history, we only need a link to Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun, Huldra (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * First, this article is about Beit Shearim, a village that was later named Sheikh Bureik. The main emphasis is, without question, on its ancient Jewish history. Does this mean that we cannot mention, as an aside, that the village name changed over the years, or that the ancient site was also settled by Arabs in later years? Of course not. We can do both, just as we did in Yibna, where the emphasis there is on its more recent Arab history, although it mentions briefly its Roman, Grecian and Jewish histories.Davidbena (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ugh. I hadn't noticed that you had cluttered up the Yibna article, too. Well, fixed that, Huldra (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, the  Yibna, Yavne, Yavne-Yam articles are still a mess, and certainly nothing to  emulate, sigh, Huldra (talk) 23:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, my best guess would be to get the professional involvement of other Wikipedia editors here, who may give/add their advice on how this article may be improved to reflect upon its Jewish history, and yet mention its later appellation without having to delve too deeply into that because of the other article. Perhaps we can ask User:Onceinawhile and User:Zero0000 for their input.Davidbena (talk) 23:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, Debresser is currently blocked, and permanently topic-banned, so no use in asking him. I am looking forward to Onceinawhile and Zero's input.
 * The one thing I do not like, is to see exactly the same material in many articles. Huldra (talk) 23:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't know about Debresser's Topic ban. Maybe we can get the input of somebody else, let's say User:Arminden and User:Nishidani and User:Editor2020.Davidbena (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you are satisfied with keeping this article as an entry on the Jewish historical aspects of Beit Shearim, and if you feel that references to its more recent Arab history are superfluous and redundant owing to the existence of a separate article on that aspect, then please feel free to remove those edits reflecting on its Arab history. I can agree to that, if it will improve this article at all.Davidbena (talk) 00:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I have never liked splitting the history of the places in the region into separate articles for Jewish and Palestinian history. That seems to me the very essence of WP:POVFORK.

I strong disapprove of the language that says the place "was settled by Palestinian Arabs". Not only is it unsourced, but it implies a flawed understanding of the regional history, one in which the ancestors of Palestinians were all [Saudi] Arabians who came over one day from a foreign land. Scholars believe that most Muslim Palestinians were originally converts from Christianity, and most Christian Palestinians were converts from Judaism or Paganism. Please can we dispense with such language.

I realise you have worked hard on creating this article. Where do you envisage the lines being drawn between this article and Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun? There is still a lot of overlap. Onceinawhile (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What word would you prefer us to use rather than "Palestinian Arabs"? Settled by whom? Perhaps we can say, "an Arabic-speaking population." Is that good enough? As for the lines being drawn, we are working on it now. We have only briefly mentioned the site Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun, just as there it briefly mentions the site's older designation. If there is any overlap between the two articles, feel free to expunge the overlap that appears here, in this article, or else point them out to me, and I'll make the necessary changes. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 02:33, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅. The reference to its population is now more neutrally worded.Davidbena (talk) 02:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * On a point of language, abused in many articles. The local population, Christian, Jewish, pagan, Samaritan etc., was 'arabized' at that period, though Christians remained the majority until the turn of the first millennium. One should not be thinking in terms of ethnicity in any case. The population, whatever the ethnicities, gradually learnt to use Arabic as the lingua franca, replacing Greek and Aramaic, and was not an 'Arabic-speaking population' in the 6th-7th century.Nishidani (talk) 11:07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nishidani for your insights. I agree with you there. The indigenous peoples went from speaking Greek, or Aramaic, or whatever other language, into speaking Arabic only sometime after the Arab conquest of Palestine.Davidbena (talk) 01:46, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * the really problematic word is "settled". The vast majority of the people did not change, so "settled" is wrong. What happened is equivalent to the Occitan-speakers learning to speak Standard French. They were two related languages, just like Aramaic and Arabic, with Arabic becoming the Standardized form. Both the geographical and linguistic distance between Paris and Languedoc is similar to that between Jerusalem and Medina/Mecca.
 * On the overlap, I am happy to have a go at expunging the overlap. Reading Sheikh_Bureik,_Lajjun, the problem I can see is that there really is no drawable line, because there is no obvious moment - even the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus does not appear to have removed most of the population. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This, too, I have just now corrected. The word "settled" no longer appears in the article, and in the section entitled "Early history," we have changed the wording of the last sentence there to read as follows: "In any rate, the site shows signs of human occupancy in the Byzantine period, all throughout the 6th-century, and into the early Arab period, although dwindling in importance," instead of what was previously written as "resettled." Hope this is satisfactory to all. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 13:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the objections voiced here have merit: what I have read about, say the Byzantine and early Muslim rule in the area: there were little sign of violent upheaval. The earliest Arab script (we know of) is from 900-902 CE. Huldra (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "but which in the course of time was inhabited by a Greek-speaking people (and later Arabic-speaking population"
 * David, this is WP:OR . I guess you want to distinguish Hebrew-speakers (properly at that time Aramaic speakers), then Greek-speakers then Arabic speakers to get over the idea of the transition from a Jewish to a non-Jewish village, as if language suggested ethnicity. Greek was widely spoken in Palestine from late BCE times, spoken also by Jews. Take the Karteria/Zenobia epigram found there: she was probably a Palmyran Jewess but there is no trace of Jewishness in the text. To the contrary, 'It thus illustrates the historical fact that many upper-class Jews in Palestine and the neighbouring countries were greatly influenced by Hellenic culture, and adopted the language, mode of life and habits of the Greeks',(Schwabe and Lifshitz 1956 p.88). Those whose labour filled Berenice's granaries and their descendents for centuries in all likelihood persisted to speak a dialect of Aramaic throughout the Byzantine (Greek) period. Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Quite right. This was the case from the very beginning of Greek hegemony. One of the most insightful inscriptions is the Moschus Ioudaios Inscription (pictured right); dated to 250BCE it is the first known use of the word Ioudaios, which interestingly in this inscription referred to a Judean who was not Jewish by religion. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I actually reworded the original text because of your insistence that Greek was spoken by the native people, which, indeed, seemed to be the case in the 4th-century CE when many of the inscriptions found in the adjacent burial caves were inscribed in Greek. That the inhabitants spoke Arabic later goes without saying, and needs no further proof. What we do not know is whether or not they were the very same ethnic group that went from speaking Aramaic/Hebrew to Greek, or from Greek to speaking Arabic. The current wording does not assert any of this, although it can be implied.Davidbena (talk) 16:56, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think what happened David, is that I wrote:
 * "One should not be thinking in terms of ethnicity in any case. The population, whatever the ethnicities, gradually learnt to use Arabic as the lingua franca, replacing Greek and Aramaic, and was not an 'Arabic-speaking population' in the 6th-7th century"
 * which you have apparently asserted amounted to my 'insistence that Greek was spoken by the native people.' I can't see how you derive that from what I wrote.
 * I think you are confusing the language of the learned, and wealthy, and traders, with the language of the overwhelming body of people who worked in agriculture and trades. The former undoubtedly knew Aramaic, but used Greek as the language par excellence for high culture, as opposed to say, in the case of the small rabbinical class, for conserving the religious traditions of Jews, in Hebrew, probably no longer widely spoken, and Aramaic. What I implied was that the Hebrew (earliest authentic idiom of Palestinian life) → Greek (adopted via Hellenization and Byzantium) → Arabic sequence is a simplistic, flawed retroactive schema introduced in popular thinking in modern times that is undercut by a far more complex reality. For one, forms of Arabic, for example, are widely attested all around the southern area of Hebron and its environs from the 4th century BCE. onwards, and elsewhere Aramaic had the ascendancy over Hebrew. In short, I believe your edit presupposes some genealogical descent from pristine autochthonous origins in Hebrew to some successive waves of rather 'foreign' externally imposed languages. History doesn't support that. The highlighting of Hebrew itself as the original form probably conflicts with the fact that the Aramaic term (it is a distinct language) held primacy in all probability. Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, your insights are well-received and pertinent, so Nishidana, take the initiative and work to improve the edit in such a way that it reflects more of the reality of the changing times, including the possibility of a shift in demographics. I was not presupposing some genealogical descent from Hebrew origins, although they may have been. We simply do not know. What we do know is that people in this country have made use of many languages, regardless of their national origins and lineage. What we are trying to emphasize here is that Beit Shearim (later Sheikh Bureik) underwent a change in population from its earliest times to its present time, which is obvious to all.Davidbena (talk) 18:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Haven't got much time for editing. There is however a lot that is missing from sources consulted:
 * (a) The main industry of the town in the late Jewish period was in burial architecture. (b) In that period, Greek dominates in commemorating the Jewish dead; of the large epitaphic material, most of the inscriptions are in Greek. That may suggest the diasporic origins of many of the inhumed, but it certainly attests to the fact that these Jews' primary language was Greek (some of it sophisticated- the Zenobia inscription is full of Homeric/Ionic forms) ; (c) as was evidently their culture, witness the figures featured on so many tombs. So in writing:-
 * "as a Jewish village and, at one time, the seat of the Sanhedrin, but which in the course of time was inhabited by a Greek-speaking people"
 * the implication that this village had a classic 'Jewish' profile (in the Talmudic rabbinic ideals) only to be supplanted by a Greek culture is misleading. My point always has been that Jewish cultures have consistently been far more vibrantly variegated than the image created by Talmudic orthodoxies, and therefore, as here, one errs in making a contrast between 'Jewish' and 'Greek-speaking'. A large part of the Jewish diaspora in these centuries read or heard the Tanakh in Greek, not in Hebrew, and they don't appear to have had any sense of dissonance with living their Jewish identity in an alien idiom and under a notably distinct cultural style.
 * So you can resolve this slight dissonance, by simply replacing the second half of the sentence ('but which in the course of time was inhabited by a Greek-speaking people') with: 'in the course of time, the village suffered a decline in its fortunes, through the succeeding Byzantine and Islamic periods' (making administrative/cultural styles replace the ethno-linguistic issue).
 * By the way since the majority of Talmudic/Mishnah references are to Aramaic texts, the lead should add the Aramaic term 'Bet Sharei'. You might find it worthwhile to check out which of the two terms - in Hebrew or Aramaic- predominates in the Jerusalmi and Bavli predominates. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 12:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nishidani. The lede already contains the words Bet Sharei, but they are written in their original Hebrew form. We'll add the English transliteration. The Jerusalem Talmud is the Talmud that uses the wording Bet Sharei, whereas the Tosefta and Babylonian Talmud use the wording Beit Shearim. As for the main industry of the town in the late Jewish period being in burial architecture, this has already been alluded to in the article. We'll find a way to note the fact that Jewish cultures have consistently been far more vibrantly variegated with Greek culture in those early years.Davidbena (talk) 13:08, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks to your insistence, the lede paragraph now reads as follows:
 * Beit Shearim is a Roman-era village (now ruin) whose demographics have changed over the years, thriving from the 1st-century BCE until the 3rd-century CE as a Jewish village and, at one time, the seat of the Sanhedrin, but which in the course of time was inhabited by different peoples sharing a common Hellenistic culture (and later by an Arabic-speaking population) until its demise in the early 20th century.Davidbena (talk) 13:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks David. I've just adjusted the double hebrewing of the two names by distinguishing the Hebrew language form from the Aramaic form. Thanks too for enlightening me re the Jerusalmi/Tosefta differences. Regards Nishidani (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Beit She'arim National Park
Sigh: I see that Davidbena has copied a lot of stuff from Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun into the Beit She'arim National Park-article. Seriously, what does eg. the Abbasid-period glassmaking facility from the 9th century has to do with the necropolis?

Also: the necropolis and its discovery; presently a lot of sentences which does not make sense: "Although historical geographer Samuel Klein had argued as early as 1913 that Beth-Shearim and Besara were to be recognised as one and the same place, an opinion followed by C.R. Conder,[13] he was unable to pin-point its exact location." How does Conder (in 1879) follow Klein (in 1913)? Also, I cannot see it in the given source? (Conder, 1879, p 181)?
 * Here, the sense is simply that Conder's conclusions (though earlier in time) agreed with those of Samuel Klein. This is obvious, although perhaps we could have reworded this better. To clarify matters, the sentence has now been reworded to read: "Although historical geographer Samuel Klein had argued as early as 1913 that Beth-Shearim and Besara were to be recognised as one and the same place, an opinion agreed to earlier by C.R. Conder, etc." I'll recheck the source.Davidbena (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Having just now looked at the source in Conder's "Tent Work," he simply identifies Sha'arah with Beth Sharaim, which are the English equivalents of the same Hebrew words used by Samuel Klein, without having actually identified the site's location, since it was still unknown to them at the time where this site actually lay, although its name appearing in ancient Hebrew sources by those names (i.e. the Jerusalem Talmud; Babylonian Talmud, etc.). Klein, when he says "Besara," is referring to Josephus' spelling in his Vita, which English spelling (transliteration) is based on the Greek spelling, and which spelling is identical to the spelling and phonetic sound of this word in the Jerusalem Talmud.Davidbena (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

The way I see it, the main discovery was done long before the 1930s; what was done in the 1930s was "connecting the dots"
 * Exactly!Davidbena (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, see this: User_talk:Zero0000/pre2010: lot of non-Jewish graves, too.

Frankly; I don't see anything in this article which could not more naturally belong in the two other articles Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun and Beit She'arim National Park, Huldra (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I had not noticed the third article. It does seem like overkill. Even two articles is far more than we really need.
 * Actually, one article deals specifically with the necropolis (system of burial caves), which is located near, but not in Beit Shearim. The necropolis is a World Heritage site, not the village ruin itself. The other article specifically refers to the village Beit Shearim, which is different from the necropolis itself. The village is the place mentioned in historical records. As for the third article (which is NOT an overkill, as you thought), the article deals with a Moshav (modern agricultural village) by that name, viz. Beit She'arim, and which has NO CONNECTION to the ancient site and sits a great distance afar off. There is a disambiguation link in each article.Davidbena (talk) 02:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, perhaps this article could be focused on two things:
 * (1) the biblical story of Beit Shearim;
 * (2) the scholarly attempts at locating Beit Shearim.
 * Such an article structure has a number of precedents, for example Cana.
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 00:15, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , while I may have worked a little bit on that article, I did not create the article. Much of its content was already there before I added a little information about the necropolis. To the best of my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong), I did not add the matter of "Abbasid-period glassmaking facility from the 9th century," unless it was somehow connected to the necropolis and what archaeologists may have discovered in the tombs. For your information: Beit Shearim, as a site, does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The site must have first been settled sometime after Israel's return from the Babylonian Captivity, although traces of an earlier Canaanite settlement, if I'm not mistaken, was already there. There is, however, no recollection of what the name of the site may have been during that pre-Israelite period.Davidbena (talk) 01:36, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One more thing: While the identification of Cana is disputed, Beit Shearim is different, since all modern scholars have agreed to its location with the discovery of a broken marble slab, in Greek uncials, giving the name of the site as Besara (the shortened form of Beit Shearim, as it appears in variant spellings of the two Talmuds when referring to the same place).Davidbena (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Onceinawhile (talk) 00:15, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , while I may have worked a little bit on that article, I did not create the article. Much of its content was already there before I added a little information about the necropolis. To the best of my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong), I did not add the matter of "Abbasid-period glassmaking facility from the 9th century," unless it was somehow connected to the necropolis and what archaeologists may have discovered in the tombs. For your information: Beit Shearim, as a site, does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The site must have first been settled sometime after Israel's return from the Babylonian Captivity, although traces of an earlier Canaanite settlement, if I'm not mistaken, was already there. There is, however, no recollection of what the name of the site may have been during that pre-Israelite period.Davidbena (talk) 01:36, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One more thing: While the identification of Cana is disputed, Beit Shearim is different, since all modern scholars have agreed to its location with the discovery of a broken marble slab, in Greek uncials, giving the name of the site as Besara (the shortened form of Beit Shearim, as it appears in variant spellings of the two Talmuds when referring to the same place).Davidbena (talk) 03:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi David, I have put a map here to help us be clear on this. With respect to the current articles, I believe the situation as follows:
 * Historical area of Jeida
 * Ramat Yishai replaced the town of Jeida, and includes some of the history
 * Beit She'arim moshav built on the village lands of Jeida in 1926
 * Historical area of Sheikh Bureik
 * Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun the historical village and land area
 * Kiryat Tiv'on amalgamated modern day settlement in the area
 * Beit She'arim National Park national park in the area which includes the necropolis; first excavated and given the proposed name of "Beit She'arim" in 1936. Interestingly Mazar's work here was the first major archaeological excavation by a Jewish organisation.
 * Beit Shearim the necropolis
 * Do you agree with this summary of the current status? Perhaps we can discuss some changes to the titles to make this all very clear. Onceinawhile (talk) 10:31, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The error that I see here is that Beit Shearim is not the necropolis, but rather the inhabited village mentioned in many classical sources (e.g. Jerusalem Talmud Kila'im 9:3; JT Ketubbot 12:3 [65b]; JT Eruvin 1:1 [3a]; Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 31b; BT Sanhedrin 32b; Tosefta Terumah 7:14; Tosefta Sukkot 2:2; Tosefta Parah 5 (4): 6; Josephus Vita sect. 24, etc., etc.). The necropolis, because of its proximity to the village, is also known as the Beit Shearim necropolis. Today it is the Beit She'arim National Park.Davidbena (talk) 13:55, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks . I have looked at the website of the Bet Shearim National Park. It lists all the points of interest:
 * The synagogue
 * The basilica
 * The olive press
 * The statue of Alexander Zaid – the “Watchman”
 * Sheikh Abreik
 * The upper path – a hiking trail focusing on the summit of the Bet She’arim hilltop
 * The lower path – a hiking trail among the burial caves in the central part of the park
 * The Coffins Cave
 * The cave of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi
 * The Museum Cave
 * The Menorah Caves
 * It then goes on to provide detail on each of these, in particular: Shekh Abrek – the summit of Bet She’arim hilltop, which stands on the ruins of the town of Bet She’arim, called Shekh Abrek in Arabic. Near to the statue of Alexander Zaid is the tomb of Shekh Abrek, a two-domed structure, alongside which a tiny spring used to flow. The hilltop on which the statue and the tomb stand covers parts of the ruins of the town of Bet She’arim, and in the coming months an archaeological excavation will be carried out here.
 * So the official website of the National Park says treats the topic of "the inhabited village mentioned in many classical sources" together with the Palestinian village. Because it is the same topic, and the people did not suddenly change, they just evolved their language and identity over the years like every other people in every other place in the world. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Some archival stuff
Here are a lot of documents. There are examples of Antiquities Department interest in the 1920s. Zerotalk 22:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Double Articles on Wikipedia
I am adding this short chart in order to show only a few examples of where Wikipedia rightly divides some sites into two articles, viz., giving to articles, both, its Arabic title and the common Biblical or Mishnaic title, that is to say, two articles for the same site. The practice is widespread and it has its own merits, each article dealing primarily with a specific period of history and/or emphasis. I see nothing wrong with this.

There are many other sites, such as Jerusalem (known in Arabic as "Al-Quds"), and Hebron (known in Arabic as "al-Khalil"), and Sokho (known in Arabic as "Shuweikah"), and Shiloh (biblical city) (known in Arabic as "Seilun"), and Bethany (known in Arabic as "Al-Eizariya"), and Sepphoris (known in Arabic as "Saffuriya"), which mostly retain their well-known and accepted English names and appellations on Wikipedia, without alteration for local custom and without the need for a second article. This, too, is acceptable on the English Wikipedia (our online encyclopedia). At other times, we find that articles on Wikipedia retain purely their Arabic names, instead of their biblical names, such as Lifta (called "Nephtoah" in biblical times), and Shefa-'Amr (called "Shefar'am" in Mishnaic times), and Lajjun (called "Kefar ʿUthnai" in Mishnaic times).Davidbena (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for this. I think we all agree that treatment of these locations is often inconsistent. I think we could improve on your table above, specifically that the Biblical/Mishnaic articles you listed above are not covering the same things. I think we would learn more by looking at each of those examples to identify in which article(s) we cover the following topics:
 * The biblical / mishnaic place as described in the books
 * The modern Israeli town/village (if applicable)
 * The depopulated/destroyed Palestinian village (if applicable)
 * The archaeological site
 * The national park (if applicable)
 * We can also identify whether each of these five things are truly co-located. Often they are not precisely co-located; or were not historically co-located; or one is a clearly definable sub-segment of another. Onceinawhile (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Onceinawhile, to the best of my knowledge, there are no disputes regarding the identification of the biblical "Nephtoah" with Lifta and the Mishnaic "Shefar'am" with Shefa-'Amr. As for Lajjun (Legio) being the Mishnaic "Kefar 'Othnai" or "Kefar 'Uthnai," see pages 63–64 in . The archaeologist cites his sources there. At any rate, the more we delve into this matter the more we'll find. Digging up the past is never an easy undertaking and requires painstaking research.Davidbena (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Onceinawhile, to the best of my knowledge, there are no disputes regarding the identification of the biblical "Nephtoah" with Lifta and the Mishnaic "Shefar'am" with Shefa-'Amr. As for Lajjun (Legio) being the Mishnaic "Kefar 'Othnai" or "Kefar 'Uthnai," see pages 63–64 in . The archaeologist cites his sources there. At any rate, the more we delve into this matter the more we'll find. Digging up the past is never an easy undertaking and requires painstaking research.Davidbena (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I have had a go at making the picture of the precedents more clear. what do you think? Onceinawhile (talk) 18:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll take a deeper look at it. Just off the cuff, though, the very last entry should be further elaborated on. Yizre'el, a kibbutz, is slightly different to Tel Jezreel and which latter place means "the Ruin of Jezreel," a place corresponding to Zir'in. The kibbutz Usha, Israel is different from the ruin known by the same name and which ruin is covered in the article Usha (city). The ruin corresponds with the Arab village. The addition of these other places adds confusion to the picture. To this list you may wish to add Beit Ur al-Fauqa and Beit Ur al-Tahta, which two places correspond to the biblical Bethoron. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , note that I agree with your points here - see the words "not co-located" by which I am making the exact point you make above. I simply think it is helpful to note them as a "memo item" given the naming overlap. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have edited the table to bold the key articles (only linked / bolded once, and only done so in the column related to the primary topic of the particular article). I have also organized the columns in the order of "modern knowledge creation" -> i.e. first scholars knew of the stories in the books, then scholars connected these written names to the location of Palestinian villages, then the area around those villages was investigated by archaeologists, and then we have the modern locations. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * One more thing: Your chart is good, insofar that it also includes some of the modern names of these places, such as Or Yehuda (modern place) for Ono, and Canada Park (modern place) for the ancient site of Emmaus, and Beit Guvrin National Park where are located the ruins of the Arab village Bayt Jibrin = "Beit Gubrin". These designations are good and accurate.Davidbena (talk) 18:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , once we have a table that we are both happy with, perhaps we move it to a project page like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration, so that we can get other inputs. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a great idea.Davidbena (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This is great. Just one point: ancient places, like Emmaus, have often been placed many places. I would prefer that the discussion about that is kept in that one article; not spread all over. Eg; perhaps we should have an article about Gaba of the Horsemen (Geba) (or Gaba Hippeon); which according to recent scholarship is not Jaba', Haifa (even if that article has a whole section about it), (AFAIK, Davidbena: it seems as if this is a  discussion we have had a time or three... :-) ) Huldra (talk) 22:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Settlement periods

 * hi. The "Seriously" topic was drifting into a lot of different directions, so I'm opening now this new thread.

As a reply to your latest remark there: Were're there again. "Until the area directly beneath Sheikh Bureik is fully excavated we cannot know." No, that's not how it works in archaeology. It simply isn't, and that's a universally accepted fact. I don't know of any village- or town-size site that was "fully excavated", and the more modern approach is of conscientiously not fully excavating anything, as it is a known constant fact that future generations will have better means of extracting more information out of an unexcavated square. Nobody in the profession ever waited for "full excavation" to set up quite a clear stratigraphic sequence, i.e. of settlement periods. If nothing is found in central areas of the site and there's no sign of historical removal of material (floods, quarries, looting, whatever, which do leave traces of their own), no findings means: gap in settlement, no people there in that period. Surprises can occur in later excavations, but seldom, that's why they're called surprises. There would be no progress in science if one did wait for "100% secured results", especially in empirical fields like archaeology. So no need for that. And 7-8 seasons (since 2014) of digging at the top is a lot. I've written this already. And I've also written that that new material needs to be read and processed by us. So it's work for us to be done, not a matter of "everything goes", not knowing or not allowing a conclusion until the hill has been flattened by the digger's spade. After a very cursory look through 2014+ articles, on top of what's thoroughly known about the northern and western flanks of the hill, what we have for now are:
 * settlement findings from the Roman and Byzantine period (C1-C4-C...? prob. 5-6 or early 7)
 * industrial findings from the Umayyad (it largely means: 650-750 CE; lamps in Catacomb 20) and Abbasid periods (lamps in Catacomb 20 and C9 glass slab)
 * scarce, not settlement-related findings from the Crusader period (C11-12)
 * none from the Mamluk period (C13-15)
 * and Ottoman-period documents and findings from C16-20.

So for now, a possible gap between the Late Byzantine and Umayyad periods; and a gap of over half a millennium from C9 or C10 till C16. If the latest digs prove the latter to have been shorter, we need to say that. But first of all, we need to process what's out there about the digs at the top from 2014-2020/21.

Also essential, we should try and see where the Arab village has stood. Maybe it wasn't there (at the top of the hill) at all, but down the southern slope. Or around the catacombs, and its traces have been largely removed. I don't know, do you? Maps and Mandate-time aerial photos can sort out much of that, even if they don't reach further back than C19. The rule in the Galilee is that it did, as the soil at the upper parts of hills (top + slope) are not good for agriculture. Arminden (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Arminden, thanks for this. With respect to our previous discussions, I do think this is quite different from Jerusalem and Hebron and other such places, because in those places excavations have been limited by factors such as existing buildings/populations and by religious and national sensitivities. So not just the sensitivities you point out above. Here there has been pretty much free rein. The modern village was on the top of the hill; see File:Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun in the Survey of Palestine, 16-23-Nahalal-1942 (cropped).jpg which also corresponds well to the 1870s PEF survey. Do the 2014+ findings you refer to above relate to excavations at the top of this same hill? Onceinawhile (talk) 23:03, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi . I don't know what sensitivities you mean. Here too it's buildings and private property plus a maqam. But I didn't even go there: since Gottlieb Schumacher's and even Yadin's time the mentality of archaeologists has changed, and the authorities only allow limited digs to institutions who are handing in an application and who present a good scientific reason for a specific, limited area, plus the proof that they can finance both the dig, and the after-dig processing and publication. No more pharaonic "slice the tell/dig it down to bedrock" projects. And I did invite everyone to take a look at the Erlich publications, as I won't be able to go in depth. Yes, they did obtain permission from the Zaid family and are digging (also) around the house at the top, plus in other areas on the ridge and slope, if I got it right. I've mentioned the Ottoman-period dump site they've come across, and the Roman period gate. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 00:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for giving us a link to the map. As to Arminden's question about the actual site, and having visited the site myself, besides the confirmation of the map where the village ruin (Ruin of Kh. esh-Sheikh Bureik) is shown in the center of the map, immediately touching and surrounding the red square, where was located the farmhouse of Zaid, it is clear that Alexander Zaid took-up residence in the village ruins themselves. The ruin is on upper-ground, as shown by the contoured map. The burial sites carved from rock are directly below the village ruin in a dale towards its north, where a road passes (also shown on topographical map).Davidbena (talk) 01:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way: The settlement of Jews on Sheikh Bureik was short-lived, as most of the new settlers (besides Zaid) moved away to Sde Ya'akov within 3 or 4 years after being there.Davidbena (talk) 01:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Huldra's initial question
Now, if I might address Huldra's question: "What is in this article, which isn't already covered by Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun and Beit She'arim National Park?"

First,, you are to be commended for calling our attention to things that we would have otherwise overlooked. Yes, there may have been some things that were overlapping in these respective articles, but we have since worked to rectify this problem and have now expunged most of those paragraphs from the Beit She'arim National Park article which speak specifically about the village and have placed them here. Now we find that the "Beit She'arim National Park" article deals more categorically with the necropolis itself, rather than divulging in the history of the nearby village, except where needed to introduce our readers to the connection between the necropolis and the village. In this article here (Beit Shearim) we have concentrated most of the material found treating on the village from its historical Jewish perspective, which was wanting in the Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun article. Besides this, there is in this article (Beit Shearim) an entire section which treats on the archaeological finds found in the village, and which date back mostly to its Jewish heyday. These, too, were lacking in the "Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun" article. There is also in this article (Beit Shearim) an entire section on how scholars determined the true identify of this ancient site, a thing missing in the other article. The "Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun" article, on the other hand, does an EXCELLENT job in bringing down the village's more recent Islamic-era history, which is also important. In short, each article has its own emphasis, and we take for granted that in such articles that deal with the exact same place there are bound to be a few overlapping points.Davidbena (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , I have been thinking about this in the context of our discussion above around the table. To my mind the biggest issue we have at this article is the overlap vs the national park article, and specifically around the topic of archaeology. I do not think we should split the topic of archaeology across the two articles, one for the necropolis and one for the village, particularly because both sites are located in the national park. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The Beit She'arim National Park almost entirely mentions only the archaeological findings of the necropolis, but does not mention the archaeological finds in the village itself. The archaeological finds of the village are mentioned only in this article here. This is the natural division and has nothing to do with the necropolis itself, although both places are found in the National Park. Are you suggesting that we add another section in the "Beit She'arim National Park" article entitled "Archaeological finds in village"? This, in my view, would be unnecessary, since it is already mentioned here. The village article is also a part of the National park, but it is an entity of its own, and disconnected from the necropolis.Davidbena (talk) 23:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we can solicit some feedback from Greyshark09, and from Bolter21. The more advice we can get from a wider range of contributors, the better we will be here.Davidbena (talk) 23:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ...and we now have a section called "Islamic, Crusader, and modern history", which is just a copy of Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun; why not have a link to that article instead? Also, the lead still gives the impression that this was "a Jewish village"...."until its demise in the early 20th century." ugh: not acceptable. Huldra (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , perhaps you can work on that section and place there a link. That would be a good idea, although a brief mention of its Islamic history is worthy of this article without going into great detail.Davidbena (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, . Your suggestion is reasonable. I have just now corrected the lede paragraph which now reads as follows:
 * "... thriving from the 1st-century BCE until the 3rd-century CE as a Jewish village and, at one time, the seat of the Sanhedrin. In the course of time, the village suffered a decline in its fortunes, through the succeeding Byzantine and Islamic periods until its demise as an Arab village in the early 20th century."Davidbena (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Still not acceptable; if the "Arab village in the early 20th century" is mentioned, then we should note that it was known as Sheikh Bureik, and that it was this village which met "its demise as an Arab village in the early 20th century", Huldra (talk) 23:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. I can agree with that. We say in Hebrew that women are born with special insights, more than that given to man.Davidbena (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅. I have also linked the section "Islamic, Crusader, and modern history" to the article Sheikh Bureik, Lajjun.Davidbena (talk) 00:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , A better suggestion would be to do in the Beit She'arim National Park article what we have done in the Adullam-France Park article, where we have a section entitled "Main archaeological sites." In this way, we briefly mention the articles relating to the site (the National Park), and where readers can also find the relative facts about each place.Davidbena (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , that section at Adullum-France Park links to Khirbat Umm Burj, which is the equivalent of linking Beit She’arim National Park’s section on the archaeology of the village to the Sheikh Bureik article. That would also be consistent with how the National Park’s website does it (see separate section above). Onceinawhile (talk) 00:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Since here, though, we're talking about the same village (Beit Shearim = Sheikh Bureik), under different titles, all is well. Both names are now used, with the Sheikh Bureik eponym used primarily in the Old Maps and slowly becoming obsolete in Modern Hebrew; now being replaced in Modern Maps with the name "Beit Shearim," in recognition of its glorious past. Still, both places can accurately be used here. The reason we link Khirbat Umm Burj in that other Park is because there is no equivalent biblical name or English title for the same site. Wikipedia is not bound by any rules or formats used by the Beit Shearim National Park website, but rather by verifiable and reliable scholarly sources. Davidbena (talk) 01:00, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , am I right to imply from this that you would support the merger of this article with Sheikh Bureik, so long as the name of the combined was Beit She'arim? Onceinawhile (talk) 08:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , would you suggest that all the archaeological findings found in the necropolis be mentioned in the Sheikh Bureik article, since, after all, it too sits in the Beit She'arim National Park? I think that we can both see the relevance of having the sites broken down based on their notability. Arminden also suggested that he would be in favor of merging "Sheikh Bureik" with this article, with the name remaining as "Beit Shearim." I, personally, think that this is unnecessary because, as I said, there are merits to both names, each having its own relevant notability. Besides, merging would greatly expand this article and may, actually, distract from the core issues conveyed in the sources about this one site.Davidbena (talk) 14:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , archaeology is usually focused on in the "modern place" articles for Israeli places or parks, because archaeology is ultimately a modern aspect of the topic. So the archaeology should be primarily covered at the National Park article.
 * With respect to the "history of the village site", there is not enough content on that specific topic to justify splitting between two articles.
 * So that would leave the topic of "Beit Shearim as described in Biblical/Rabbinic literature" for this article, which would be consistent with the table above. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Archaeology is discussed in almost every ancient site in Israel. This is not new. Some articles are more drawn-out than others. And, yes, this article stresses its historical context from a Jewish perspective, as well as its "discovery" from an archaeological perspective. The article is notable, based purely on its classical sources, being one of the seats of the Jewish Sanhedrin. If you should have any doubts about the relevance of this article, you can submit a RfC. You have, so far, been trying to discredit the relevance of this article. I disagree with you, as I'm sure many others will too. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 00:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Your last three sentences are misrepresentative of my posts above. I have no objection to the existence of an article under this title; we simply have far too much overlap with other articles. Your proposed solutions to deal with the overlap, having part of archaeology here and part at the National park, and having part of history here and part at Sheikh Bureik, are halfway-houses and duplicative. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , please accept my apologies for misunderstanding your motives and intentions in this thread.Davidbena (talk) 21:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment - I think best to merge both classical Jewish town and moreover Sheikh Bureik into the Bet Shearim national park article, as we have with Caesarea Maritima (also including parts on classical Caesarea and modern Bosniak Qisariya).GreyShark (dibra) 08:26, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of the editors disagreed with that arrangement, since the Bet Shearim national park article was, originally, almost entirely about the necropolis, with nothing to say about the ancient Jewish village (later Arab village) that lies also within its boundary. Since our early discussions on that subject, the article Bet Shearim national park has been turned into Beit She'arim necropolis. If you'd like, you can recreate the Beit She'arim national park article, and give links there to the two existing articles on the sites that are to be seen in the national park, similar to what we did in Adullam-France Park. Be well. Davidbena (talk) 23:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Cleanup
Perhaps we "press pause" on the debate above, and just get on with fixing the things that are broken. I will try to do that now, with some clear edit comments. if you disagree with anything, please feel free to revert and we can discuss here. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have also proposed fixing the title for consistency here: Onceinawhile (talk) 23:59, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , your edits are good. One of the reasons we added the Islamic history in the first place, even though some things may have overlapped the Sheikh Bureik article, was because the tag penned at the top of the page asked for balance. Knowing Huldra, she would have wanted to see more on the site from its Islamic-era history. Still, your edit is good, if that is what you feel must be done. I have no objections. One thing, however, not everything deleted was an "overlap." For example, one of the edits in that section had placed an inline tag asking for a source, to which we responded in what follows below. Perhaps it is important and should be added to the Sheik Bureik article, or perhaps it is not so important. I'll leave that up to your discretion.
 * "[...]The Sursuk family, in turn, withdrew from the village in the mid-1920s after selling the lands to the Jewish National Fund (purchased in the name of the "Palestine Land Development Company"), with the exception of the Muslim shrine on the site, and which, at the time, fell to the administration of the Government of Palestine. The village continued to be called by its Arabic name Sheikh Abreik when resettled by immigrant Jews under the British mandate in 1927.", Quote: "[When a group from Hapoel HaMizrachi] had gone-up to settle the area of the four settlements, and their demand to be included in the settlement plans then underway was not granted them, 25 members who were scattered in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba decided to establish facts on the ground, and in the lunar month of Kislev in 1926 had immigrated on their own accord to the Warkani lands.[...] The establishment of the illegal outpost by the people of Mizrahi caused a great deal of noise. The Jewish National Fund was very angry. The settlement department of the agency proposed a compromise proposal, which was based on the fact that they were going to purchase the lands of Sheikh Abreik (Beit Shearim area), and they were promised that they would receive these lands. The members of the group agreed to evacuate, and in the meantime were waiting for a settlement in Kfar Saba, where the agency helped with the nuclear budgeting. In between, another nucleus began to form, of Kfar Vitkin. There were rumors that the Jewish National Fund wanted to educate the people of Mizrahi who came to settle without permission, and intended to give the people of the Kfar Vitkin the lands of Sheikh Abreik, which had been purchased in the meantime. The head of the settlement department at the agency, however, wanted to keep his word, and demanded that the lands be transferred to a group from Kfar Saba. After several months in which things did not progress, also due to a budget cut decided on by the Zionist Congress, the members of the group realized that they had to take action. On the first night of the Days of Penitence (Hebrew: slichot), 28 Elul 1927 [September 25, 1927] (1926) [sic], 11 men went up to Sheikh Abreik. Since there were no buildings in the place yet, they meanwhile sat in Zichron Avraham, one of the Hasidic settlements that were in the area. They set up their living quarters in front of Kfar Yehoshua, where there was a bridge that could be crossed over Wadi Musrara" (END QUOTE).  Davidbena (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * David, Arutz Sheva is certainly not a reliable source for anything historical.Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe all this information, and these sources, are now in the Sheikh Bureik article. I brought the Arutz Sheva article despite its non-RS status; Nishidani makes a good point. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, if the information was transported there, that's fine.Davidbena (talk) 19:50, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Sursock purchase
do you have any good sources on the Sursock purchase and sale – i.e. their 19th C acquisition of the land from the Ottoman govt and then the details of the deals made with the JNF on its sale? It impacts a lot of existing articles and I would like to write a specific article on it. I know it was by far the largest land sale in Palestinian-Israeli history. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Busy now (I mean, there's an ad break for the engaging film I'm watching) but for the initial purchase see Alexander Schölch, 'European Penetration and the Economic Development of Palestine, 1856-82,' in Roger Owen (ed.),Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,  Springer, 1982   ISBN 978-1-349-05700-9  pp.10-86 esp pp.21ff on land tenure. The Sursuq’s buy-in  comes into the picture on pp.24f.Nishidani (talk) 22:00, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Begun here: Sursock Purchase. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

"Depopulated" vs. "Displaced"
I am still of the humble opinion that, in the case of this Arab village, owned by a Lebanese land-owner and sold to the Jewish National Fund, the use of "depopulated" when it comes to eviction of tenant workers is not the appropriate term to use, because of its more harsh political connotation. In places where lands were duly owned by farmers but who were evicted from their lands due to war, we can say "depopulated." However, where lands are NOT owned by the tenant workers, but which are owned by another group of people, it is the people's prerogative to choose whom they want to settle on the land which they possess, and to select which type of share-croppers or tenant workers they wish to put to work in the fields. A change of ownership usually brings with it a change of managerial goals, aims and relegation of responsibility. My view is that, instead of writing, "It later became the village of Sheikh Bureik (شيخ ابريق); it was depopulated in the 1920s after the Sursuk family of Lebanon – who had bought the land from the Ottoman government in 1875 – sold the village to the Jewish National Fund," we can write with a more appealing tone, "It later became the village of Sheikh Bureik (شيخ ابريق); a village displaced of its inhabitants in the mid-1920s after the Sursuk family of Lebanon – who had bought the land from the Ottoman government in 1875 – sold the village to the Jewish National Fund. It is today part of the Beit She'arim National Park." The word "displaced" still carries with it the connotation that the people who were being evicted definitely suffered, just as the source implies.Davidbena (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Davidbena: AFAIK, you are still WP:TBAN from the IP area. As such, you should not even participate in "discussions or suggestions" relating to the IP area. "Depopulated" vs. "Displaced" is, I think we can all agree, way within the area you are topic-banned from. And whatever you think of me: I am so not looking for an excuse to have you banned from Wikipedia. Shall we all agree: lets pretend the above post never happend? Thanks, Huldra (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2021 (UTC) PS: Davidbena: you might use the  to strike  the above post.

, I will gladly desist from this discussion if this falls under my "Narrow Topic Ban" issued here on 18 August 2020, where I am permitted to discuss historical issues on pages that are still designated Arab–Israeli conflict-related pages, but not to discuss issues involving the Government of Israel, army or otherwise, where they relate to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Here, in this article, we are dealing specifically with British Mandatory Palestine (not Israel, per say) and where all citizens at the time were called "Palestinians" (both, Jews and Arabs), and in this particular instance there was no war or conflict involved; only the purchase of land by one party (lands sold by Arabs themselves), and the tenant workers being compelled to move elsewhere to find work. If I am wrong, I will stand corrected, but to allay all doubts in this matter, allow me to ask the professional opinion and advice of an administrator, say, User:El C and fellow contributors, User:Selfstudier and User:Sir Joseph. Note that I avoided any topics in the Palestinian-Israeli area of conflict, since this particular case involves the actions of Lebanese who sold their lands to Palestinians. Davidbena (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Just for David's private record, 'a village displaced of its inhabitants' is not English. Only people, not places, are defined as 'displaced', which would be in any case a contradiction in semantic terms.Nishidani (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * So we can reword it to represent the "displacement of people". I see no real problem here.Davidbena (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

My opinion is that we should definitely not start avoiding "depopulated", which arose as a hard-won compromise. I disagree that it has a "harsh political connotation". Depopulation of a place just means substantial reduction of population, which can be caused by basically anything. Aging, epidemic, voluntary emigration, forced emigration and massacre are just some of the options. "Depopulated" by itself is about as neutral a word as the English language provides. More specific words can be used with source support. This example could be rearranged to employ the specific word "evicted" that applies here. I apologise to David for responding to a thread he is not permitted to continue. Zerotalk 01:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't know your TB had been narrowed. I believe it does not automatically cover Zionist purchases before 1948, nor the displacement of tenant farmers before 1948. The fact that it involved Lebanese is irrelevant. Zerotalk 12:17, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If I am prohibited from editing in this particular field, I will plainly desist from editing in what concerns this matter. No bad feelings. The land purchased at Sheikh Bureik, if I might add, was purchased by the "Palestine Land Development Company, Ltd.," a Land Development organisation ran by ideological men whose ambitions were to allow fellow Palestinian Jews to work the land. This land purchased at Sheikh Bureik was classified by the Government of Palestine under "miri property," meaning, lands given out for conditional public use, while ultimate ownership lay with the Palestine Government; or what is tantamount to private usufruct State land. After the sale, the Arab tenants (who were not property owners) were left without work under their former employer, and naturally sought work elsewhere, although given some compensation for their eviction from the land. The Muslim shrine on the site was not sold and fell to the administration of the Government of Palestine. I hope this clarifies matters. As you can see, the whole matter of Sheikh Bureik is not your typical Israeli-Palestinian conflict area. It's purely administrative and within the official duties vested in the Government of Palestine.Davidbena (talk) 12:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Once more you have reintroduced garbled, meaningless English into the text, and indeed,-apart from considerations of whether your topic ban allows you to edit sensitive issues about Palestinian-Jewish issues ,you went ahead after I warned you of the flaw, with this 'village displaced of its inhabitants in the 11920s' That is absurd English, and, as noted, above, 'depopulated' is a consensual compromise, neutral and pprecise. No one wants to jump at the offered opportunity of all this to cause you problems, but you are doing your best to get into trouble.Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , please excuse my "garbled" English, if I have done that. I will take a pause (break) from editing this "sensitive" topic until I hear from the Administrator (User:El C) if what I am doing is right. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 13:35, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * To whom it may concern: I have just now received a reply from the admin. El C, which can be accessed here. Still, I assure all editors here that I will be careful not to over-step my bounds, and I will seek consensus in matters where disputes might arise. Thanks for your patience.Davidbena (talk) 14:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 8 February 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved  (t &#183; c)  buidhe  21:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Beit Shearim → Beit She'arim (Roman-era Jewish village) – Per recent disambiguation of Beit She'arim and suggestion here from User:Number 57. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:04, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, I think this sounds like a sensible suggestion. Huldra (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. A good disambiguation for this page.Davidbena (talk) 23:18, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * "Roman-era Jewish village" is a bit wordy for a disambiguator. Beit Shearim (archaeological site) is how we'd usually differentiate sites from contemporary settlements. There's also a possible natural disambiguation in Besara, which currently redirects to Beit She'arim National Park but should probably redirect here. Do we also need so many articles on the same place? As far as I can tell this article and Sheikh Bureik cover the same site in different periods, and Beit She'arim National Park duplicates the content of both. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have redirected Besara to Beit She'arim (the disambiguation page). I think there is broad agreement on the duplication issue; what is your current thinking here? Onceinawhile (talk) 11:45, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I am still in favor of having two separate articles for "Beit She'arim (Roman-era village)" and Sheikh Bureik. The name, in my view, can be shortened to either "Beit She'arim (Roman-era village)" or to "Beit She'arim (archaeological site)". Both are fine. And, yes, while they are the same village covering two different periods, this is often a common way of discussing sites (here, on Wikipedia), whenever there is a sharp historical contrast between eras described in the given town. I call 's attention to what we have previously discussed in the above section here. I'm very happy to see cordial collaborative editing on this article.Davidbena (talk) 13:25, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it's common anywhere outside the IP area. Regardless, that still leaves Beit She'arim National Park, which is about the same (UNESCO delineated) site, in the same period(s). –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The Beit She'arim National Park has in it two important sites: 1) the necropolis, and 2) the Roman-era village, later an Arab village. The articles reflect their specific areas of interest. Nothing amiss here, as it is just as we've seen in the Adullam-France Park. Perhaps, though, we might be willing to change the title of "Beit She'arim National Park" to "Beit She'arim necropolis," with an indicator that it is within the 'Beit She'arim National Park." This seems to be much more appropriate, since 95% of the article deals specifically with the necropolis, and the necropolis is the very reason why it was declared a World Heritage site.Davidbena (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , I would be comfortable with moving the NP article to necropolis, as it would create much cleared delineation. The issue I have always struggled with is that the village site is in the NP. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:34, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That presents no real problem, since in many of the National Parks we find other sites covered by individual articles. The Beit She'arim National Park has been recognised as such primarily because of its necropolis, and the necropolis is, without question, its primary attraction. We can make note in each of these articles (all three) that they are located in the "Beit She'arim National Park." The Park, as I said, has little significance without these historical places.Davidbena (talk) 16:46, 9 February 2021 (UTC)