Heritage sites, Archaeological discoveries, History of Archaeology

Ramat Rachel

Location

south of Jerusalem

Country

Israel

Year of Research

1926

Culture

The kibbutz was established in 1926 by committee of the Gdud HaAvoda labor brigade.
Their goal was to stay in Jerusalem and earn their source of revenue from manual labor, working in such trades as stonecutting, housing construction and haulage.After living in a temporary camp in Jerusalem, a group of ten pioneers settled on a stony plot of land on a 803-metre high hill south of the city.
It was destroyed by the Arabs in the riots of 1929
Hundreds of Arabs encouraged by the Mufti attacked the training farm and burned it to the ground.
In 1967 it was the target of concentrated artillery shelling from Jordanian positions. As the borders of Jerusalem were expanded southward, the kibbutz was included within the city\'s municipal borders.
Archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, who excavated the site in 1984, says the ancient name of the site may have been MMST, one of four mysterious words that appear on the handles.