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Al-Mirr
| Al-Mirr | |
|---|---|
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250px Remains of Mill building | |
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| Name meaning | "The passage".[1] |
| Subdistrict | Jaffa |
| Coordinates |
32°06′43″N 34°54′57″E / 32.11194°N 34.91583°ECoordinates: 32°06′43″N 34°54′57″E / 32.11194°N 34.91583°E{{#coordinates:32|06|43|N|34|54|57|E|type:city_region:IL |primary |name= }} |
| Palestine grid | 142/168 |
| Population | 170[2] (1945) |
| Area | 51[2] dunams |
| Date of depopulation | February or March, 1948[3] |
| Cause(s) of depopulation | Fear of being caught up in the fighting |
Al-Mirr, also named Mahmudiyeh ("the property of Mahmud"),[1] was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jaffa Subdistrict, which was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on February 1, 1948.
Contents
Location
The village was located Script error: No such module "convert". northeast of Jaffa, on the southern bank of the al-'Awja river. A short, secondary track linked it to the railway line running between Ras al-Ayn and Petah Tikva.[4]
History
A mill and dam built at this site in late Roman/early Byzantine period were repaired in Crusader times and some of the remains of both can still be seen.[5]
Excavations of the mill have recovered several 14th-century coins, which indicate that it was in use in the Mamluk period.[6]
Ottoman era
The modern village was founded during the reign of the Mahmud II (1808–39), the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and was also known as "Al Mahmudiyya".[4]
In the late 19th century, al-Mirr was described as "a small mud village, with mill close to the river."[7]
British Mandate era
During the British Mandate for Palestine, the population was recorded as 75 Muslims in the 1922 census,[8] and the village was classified as a hamlet in the Palestine Index Gazetteer.[4] In the 1931 census Mahmudiya had 101 inhabitants, still all Muslims, in 25 houses.[9]
In 1945 the population numbered 170, and worked in agriculture and with transportation. Cultivated lands in the village in 1944-45 included 2 dunums planted with citrus and bananas, and 31 dunums planted with cereals.[4][10] 2 dunams were classified as built-up areas.[11]
1948, and aftermath
Before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, al-Mirr's inhabitants left on February 3, 1948 out of fear of Jewish attack.[12] According to Benny Morris, some of the inhabitants returned on February 15, but fled for the final time one month later.[12] However, according to Walid Khalidi, citing the New York Times, the villagers apparently returned yet again, as Jewish forces attacked the village in mid-May.[13] The 13 May attack would have occurred around the same time as an attack into the area by Irgun.[4]
The remains of a Turkish bridge lies where the village was.[4]
Andrew Petersen, an archaeologist specializing in Islamic architecture, visited the mill in 1991. He found that it had probably been built in several phases. Presently, it consists of a rectangular building, 60 m. NS x 10 m EW, on two levels.[14] At the lower level are at least 13 parallel water inlets. These inlets are of two different types, (indicating different construction date); a flat slab roof, and pointed vaulted roof. Between the two levels are holes in the floor, presumably this is where the millstones were connected to the turbines.[14]
See also
| Old mill of Al-Mirr, presently in Yarkon-Tel Afek Park | ||||||
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References
- ^ a b Palmer, 1881, p.216
- ^ a b Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 52
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. xviii, village #199. Also gives cause of depopulation
- ^ a b c d e f Khalidi, 1992, p.250.
- ^ Pringle, 1997, p. 72
- ^ Shkolnik, 1994, p32. Cited in Petersen, 2001, p. 222
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1882, II:252
- ^ Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jaffa, p. 20
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 14
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 96
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 146
- ^ a b Morris, 2004, p. 129.
- ^ Khalidi, 1992, p. 250, citing the New York Times, 13.05.1948 and 13.05.1948. The NYT statement is based on British Army statement, which, according to Khalidi, incorrectly refers to the village of Antipatris
- ^ a b Petersen, 2001, p. 222-223
Bibliography
| 40x40px | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Al-Mirr. |
- Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922 (PDF). Government of Palestine.
- Conder, Claude Reignier; Kitchener, H. H. (1882). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology 2. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Hadawi, Sami (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Khalidi, Walid (1992). All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies. ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
- Palmer, E. H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Petersen, Andrew (2001). A Gazetteer of Buildings in Muslim Palestine (British Academy Monographs in Archaeology) 1. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-727011-0.
- Pringle, Denys (1997). Secular buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: an archaeological Gazetter. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521 46010 7.
- Shkolnik, Y. (1994); Urban River, EGMI, 34, March-April, pp. 16–34, 71. Cited in Petersen, 2001.
External links
- Welcome To al-Mirr
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8: IAA, Wikimedia commons
- Al-Mirr, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
