Elusa

Incense Route - desert cities in the Negev
UNESCO world heritage
	Elusa
National territory:	Israel
Type:	Culture
Criteria :	iii, v
Surface:	6,655 ha
Reference No .:	1107
UNESCO region :	Europe and North America
	History of enrollment
Enrollment:	2005 (session 29)

Elusa was an ancient city in the Negev .

The city is mentioned for the first time by Claudius Ptolemy , appears in the Tabula Peutingeriana and in the letters of Libanios . Elusa was born around the 3rd century BC. Founded by the Nabataeans in BC, it developed into an important city on the caravan route from Petra to Gaza through the Negev.

During the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity , the city grew to become the urban center of the region and finally covers around 45 hectares. Climatically, the region was favored by a period of humidity from the 3rd to the 6th century, during which viticulture was established on a large scale. Bishops of Elusa attended the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon ; The titular bishopric Elusa of the Roman Catholic Church goes back to the diocese .

In Byzantine times and at the beginning of Islamic rule, Elusa was the capital of the central Negev. The city was abandoned in the 8th century.

In the 20th century, the Bedouin settlement al-Khalasa was founded on the ruins, which existed until 1948.

research

The city was identified by E. Robinson in 1838 and has been visited again and again by scholars since then. In 1914, CL Woolley and TE Lawrence draw and publish the first map of the city. It was not until 1973 that major excavations took place under A. Negev, which were carried out in several campaigns until 1990 and uncovered the city's theater and cathedral.

In the years 2015-2020 the Archaeological Institute of the University of Cologne carried out annual research campaigns in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Service. Were used geophysical investigations, aerial, surface surveys and targeted excavations. In this way, the road network and the urban structure of the city could be revealed. During the excavations, numerous inspection horizons were recorded, whereby a careful paving of the streets in the late antique stratum is regarded as evidence of the prosperity of the city at this time. Underneath the streets there was a very large sewage system that allows conclusions to be drawn about the amount of precipitation at the time.

literature

Avraham Negev : Elusa (El-Khalasa) Israel . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
University of Cologne: Elusa (Haluza)
Immanuel Benzinger : Elusa 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume V, 2, Stuttgart 1905, Col. 2457.
Christian Schöne, Michael Heinzelmann , Tali Erickson-Gini, Diana Wozniok: Elusa - Urban Development and Economy of a City in the Desert. In: Achim Lichtenberger, Tal Oren, Zeev Weiss (eds.): Judaea / Palaestina and Arabia: Cities and Hinterlands in Roman and Byzantine Times, Heidelberg 2019 , 141–154.

Web links

Commons : Elusa - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Christian Schöne, Michael Heinzelmann, Tali Erickson-Gini, Diana Wozniok: Elusa (Haluza) - Urban Development and Economy of a City in the Desert . In: Achim Lichtenberger, Tal Oren, Zeev Weiss (eds.): Judaea / Palaestina and Arabia: Cities and Hinterlands in Roman and Byzantine Times . Propyleum, Heidelberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-947450-77-0 , pp. 141-154 .
^ Khalidi, Walid .: All that remains: the Palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by Israel in 1948 . Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, DC 2006, ISBN 0-88728-306-3 , pp. 75 f .
↑ Lawrence, TE (Thomas Edward), 1888-1935., Palestine Exploration Fund .: The wilderness of Zin: [archaeological report] . Rev ed. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind. 2003, ISBN 1-57506-077-9 .
↑ Negev, Avrahim: Elusa . In: Stern, Ephraim (Ed.): The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land . 1st edition. tape 1 , 1993, ISBN 0-13-276296-X , pp. 379-383 .
↑ Elusa. In: Homepage of the Archaeological Institute, University of Cologne. Archaeological Institute, University of Cologne, accessed on May 8, 2020 .

31,097 34,652Coordinates: 31 ° 6 ' N , 34 ° 39' E

[1] Christian Schöne, Michael Heinzelmann, Tali Erickson-Gini, Diana Wozniok: Elusa (Haluza) - Urban Development and Economy of a City in the Desert . In: Achim Lichtenberger, Tal Oren, Zeev Weiss (eds.): Judaea / Palaestina and Arabia: Cities and Hinterlands in Roman and Byzantine Times . Propyleum, Heidelberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-947450-77-0 , pp. 141-154 .

[2] Khalidi, Walid .: All that remains: the Palestinian villages occupied and depopulated by Israel in 1948 . Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, DC 2006, ISBN 0-88728-306-3 , pp. 75 f .

[3] Lawrence, TE (Thomas Edward), 1888-1935., Palestine Exploration Fund .: The wilderness of Zin: [archaeological report] . Rev ed. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind. 2003, ISBN 1-57506-077-9 .

[4] Negev, Avrahim: Elusa . In: Stern, Ephraim (Ed.): The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land . 1st edition. tape 1 , 1993, ISBN 0-13-276296-X , pp. 379-383 .

[5] Elusa. In: Homepage of the Archaeological Institute, University of Cologne. Archaeological Institute, University of Cologne, accessed on May 8, 2020 .