Akhmadiyye; Aḥmadiyye; Amudiyye Complete

Description

Akhmadiyye is a deserted settlement situated on two modest rises beside a cluster of springs, roughly two kilometers northeast of Qasrin. The place may have been occupied by Turkmen in the early modern period. The earliest recorded examinations were carried out by G. Schumacher in 1884 and again in 1913. He documented ornamented architectural fragments that can be assigned to a Jewish communal edifice. Among these were a relief portraying a menorah with nine branches, accompanied by a shofar and a fire pan, and a window lintel carved with the more customary seven-branch lampstands. Schumacher also produced a sketch of a Jewish inscription in Greek, though he did not publish a decipherment. A team directed by S. Gutman visited the locality in 1968 and recovered a fragment of a Hebrew inscription. Two years afterward the area was measured, and pottery collected on the surface indicated occupation during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. The same expedition recorded additional basalt elements, including a lintel decorated with a garland tied in a Hercules’ knot, a pedestal for pillars, column segments, and Doric capitals. Such pieces are characteristic of synagogues of Late Antiquity in the Galilee and the Golan. A Greek boundary stone in secondary use was also noted within the village. Z. Maoz conducted a further survey in 1978, followed by other teams, but these later visits did not yield additional material. Image source: http://survey.antiquities.org.il/index_Eng.html#/MapSurvey/43/site/5746 Further reading: Urman, D. 1995. “Public Structures and Jewish Communities in The Golan Heights,” in Ancient Synagogues, ed. D. Urman and P. Flesher, Leiden, 455–461. https://synagogues.kinneret.ac.il/synagogues/akhmadiyye/