Isfiya

History

Isfiya was built on the ruins of an ancient settlement. A building, dating from the second–fourth centuries CE has been excavated, together with ceramics and coins dating from the period. A rock-cut burial cave containing pottery coffins, eight ossuaries, numerous oil lamps, as well as pottery, glass vessels, and several bronze objects was unearthed on HaHoresh Street. One of the ossuaries bears a Greek inscription indicating it belongs to Maia, the daughter or wife of a man named Saul. In 1930, remains of a 5th-century Jewish town, Husifah or Huseifa, were unearthed in Isfiya. Among the finds are a synagogue with a mosaic floor bearing Jewish symbols and the inscription "Peace upon Israel". A cache of 4,500 gold coins were found dating from the Roman period. Crusader remnants have been found in the village. The Druze came to the village in the early eighteenth century. The inhabitants made their living from olive oil, honey and grapes. In 1859, the English consul Rogers estimated the population to be 400, who cultivated 20 feddans of land. In 1863, H.B. Tristram visited the village, which he described as Druze and Christian, with a Christian sheikh. Tristam noted that the women's clothing in this village were much like those of al-Bassa, being either "plain, patched or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes". In 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin found that the village had six hundred inhabitants, almost all Druze, with the exception of sixty, who belonged to the "Schismatic Greeks". Gardens were grown all around the village. Some houses seemed very old and dated, Guérin surmised, from the Middle Ages or even earlier, from the time of the Crusades. In 1881 the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as standing…

Most-observed species

• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  8,524
• Common Myna

  Acridotheres tristis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  7,495
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  7,369
• Graceful Prinia

  Prinia gracilis (Lichtenstein, 1823) · Aves
  6,759
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  6,158
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  6,008
• White-spectacled Bulbul

  Pycnonotus xanthopygos (Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) · Aves
  5,991
• Barn Swallow

  Hirundo rustica Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,667

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2023-02-07
  Dead Sea region
• M 3.7 — 2022-01-23
  4 km ENE of Kafr Mi?r, Israel
• M 4.1 — 2022-01-22
  4 km E of Taiyiba, Israel
• M 4.5 — 2020-02-06
  26 km W of Atlit, Israel
• M 2.9 — 2018-07-27
  1 km ESE of Migdal, Israel
• M 2.9 — 2018-07-22
  9 km E of Tiberias, Israel