Khirbat al-Minya

History

Khirbat al-Minya was probably constructed under the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I, who ruled from 705 to 715 CE, since a stone inscription found at the site bears his name. The likely patron was his son, Umar ibn al-Walid, who governed Tiberias during his father’s rule but lost influence when his uncle Sulayman became caliph in 715. This makes the palace’s mosque one of the earliest built in Palestine. The site acted as a local administrative hub for a subregion of the Jund al-Urdunn, or District of Jordan, and served as a meeting point for Umar and local Arab tribes. It may also have been a caravanserai for merchants traveling along the Sea of Galilee or heading northeast from the lake shore to the coast, as well as a winter retreat for the governor of Tiberias or a summer retreat for the governor at Baysan.

The palace appears to have been used until at least the end of the Umayyad period in 750 CE. The 749 Galilee earthquake caused significant damage, creating a rift through the eastern wing that cut straight through the mosque’s mihrab, and the damage was never repaired. It is unclear if the palace was ever fully completed: fallen debris from the earthquake was found in the 20th century still lying on the floor tiles of the main entrance, and unused mosaic materials were discovered in the mosque’s antechamber. The site was abandoned at an unknown time and later resettled temporarily. Based on stratification in the western part of the site and Mamluk pottery uncovered in 1959, the palace was reoccupied during the late Mamluk period, in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was likely used as a khan at that time, given its location at a crossroads between the main Damascus-Cairo route, often called the Via Maris, and a secondary road to Safad via Khan Jubb Yusuf. A separate Khan al-Minya was built 300 meters north of the palace by Saif al-Din Tankiz, the Mamluk governor of Syria, during the reign of Al-Nasir Muhammad. Some parts of Khirbat al-Minya may have been reused as building material for this new khan, as baked bricks and a marble capital found there were thought to have come from the palace.

Architecture

The palace is contained within an irregular rectangular enclosure (66 by 73 meters) oriented north–south, facing the four cardinal points. Like other Umayyad palaces, it has round towers at its corners and semi-circular towers in the middle of each wall except the eastern wall, where a monumental entrance is located. The main gate in the middle of the eastern wall is formed by two projecting half-round towers separated by the arch of the gateway. The center of the structure is a colonnaded courtyard with twin staircases giving access to an upper floor. Rooms surrounding the courtyard differ in size and arrangement and include a mosque, numerous rooms with mosaics, and a throne room. The mosque is in the southeastern corner, divided into twelve bays supported on piers. Next to it is a triple-aisled basilica hall. Following the Umayyad model of a five-room bait (house) flanking the basilica hall, the building is constructed of finely dressed limestone blocks laid in regular courses with a lower course of black basalt stones. The mosque had simple decoration, but the domed gateway chamber and southern rooms were richly decorated. The top of the walls had large stepped merlons, and interiors were decorated with glass and stone mosaics. Marble panels covered the dadoes, and stone mosaics combined with glass cubes formed geometric carpet-like patterns on the floors of the five southern rooms. A well-preserved floor mosaic was discovered in the western part. Based on the gate house foundations, parts of the palace were at least 15 meters high.

Today

A sign at the site, placed by the Israel Nature and Park Authority, identifies it as a protected Early Islamic palace linked to either Al-Walid I or Al-Walid II. In 2012, the Institute for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Mainz, alongside the Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Lande, submitted a proposal to Israeli officials. With backing from the German Foreign Ministry, the university now collaborates with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Israel Antiquities Authority to safeguard the masonry from ongoing deterioration.