Misplaced Pages

#358641

36-622: The Yarkon/Auja was the northern boundary of the territory of the Philistines . During the time of the Assyrian rule over the country, a fortress was built in a site known today as Tell Qudadi , on the northern bank of the river, next to its estuary . On 27 April 750, the Abbasid general Abd Allah ibn Ali , uncle of Caliph al-Saffah ( r.  750–754 ), marched to Antipatris ('Abu Futrus'). There, he summoned around eighty members of

72-424: A "royal city of the land Philistia that [Hezek]iah had taken away (and) fortified," but the city's name has not survived. The texts also mention that Ashkelon was also sacked due to its refusal to acknowledge Assyrian authority. Despite this Philistine sedition, Sennacherib records that he divided up the lands he had plundered from Judah amongst the kings of Ashdod, Gaza, and Ekron, even going as far as freeing Padi,

108-590: A capacity of 12 MW. It was named for Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading , Lord Chief Justice of England and Viceroy of India , who became chairman of the Palestine Electric Corporation in 1926. The architect of the building, Ed Rosenhak, designed a three-story central tower situated between two identical wings, with a large entrance facing the city. The power station is made up of a number of power producing units. Two units called 'Reading A' and two units called 'Reading B', built in

144-514: A detailed list of vegetation and wildlife that can be found in and around the river. Mammals include: Nutria (coypu); Swamp cat ; and Golden jackal . Although not mentioned by The Yarkon River Authority, mongoose has also been spotted by visitors and hikers. On July 14, 1997, the Maccabiah bridge collapse led to the death of four athletes, members of the Australian delegation to

180-534: A later engagement and he fled to Damascus . In 975, the army of the Egypt-based Fatimid caliph al-Aziz defeated and captured the Aleppo -based Hamdanid general Aftakin on the banks of Auja. The Yarkon/Auja served as a key administrative boundary. In the early Ottoman period (16th century), it marked the boundary between Nablus Sanjak and Gaza Sanjak . Later, in the 19th century, it formed

216-416: A plan to reduce the station's footprint, allowing for more public access to areas around the facility. The Tel Aviv municipality however strongly opposes this plan, demanding instead that the station be closed and relocated elsewhere in the country. The station features an impressive 1930s era architectural facade which has been restored to its original condition. A preservation project is under way to restore

252-588: A very substantial Philistine presence. This area is a part of the Negev desert. It also includes Nahal Gerar to the north that joins Nahal Besor before flowing into the Mediterranean Sea . This was a heavily populated area during the early Iron Age . It includes archaeological sites such as Tell Beit Mirsim , Tel Haror , Tel Sera ( Ziklag ) along Nahal Gerar, and Tell Jemmeh and Tell el-Far'ah (South) along Nahal Besor. All these sites and others in

288-515: Is closer to Jerusalem but located at a much lower altitude than the Yarkon River and in order to bring the water up to the peaks of Jerusalem a relatively complex technology would be needed to be used, therefore the British authorities decided to opt for the alternative Yarkon-Jerusalem water extraction pipeline. Using water pumps placed in the springs which flowed into the Yarkon River, water

324-544: Is in operation, with each unit capable of producing 214 megawatts. Environmental groups protested the contribution of the power station to air pollution in the Tel Aviv urban area and pollution of the Yarkon River . In early 2006, the station was partially shut down due to failure to comply with environmental regulations which required it to shift to natural gas instead of fuel oil as its main fuel source. Since then

360-498: Is noted by scholars. During Iron Age I , the Philistines seem to have had a presence far outside of what was traditionally considered Philistia, as 23 of the 26 Iron Age I sites in the Jezreel Valley , including Tel Megiddo , Tel Yokneam , Tel Qiri , Afula , Tel Qashish , Be'er Tiveon, Hurvat Hazin, Tel Risim, Tel Re'ala, Hurvat Tzror, Tel Sham, Midrakh Oz and Tel Zariq, yielded typical Philistine pottery dating from

396-698: The Kingdom of Judah at Ziklag to the east, and the Arish to the south. Philistia consisted of the five city-states of the Philistines, known as the Philistine pentapolis , described in the Book of Joshua ( Joshua 13:3 ) and the Books of Samuel ( 1 Samuel 6:17 ), comprising Ashkelon , Ashdod , Ekron , Gath , and Gaza , in the south-western Levant . Tell Qasile and Aphek (see Battle of Aphek ) likely marked

SECTION 10

#1732782595359

432-468: The Maccabiah Games , three of whom died due to infections caused by exposure to the polluted river water. Philistia Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) Philistia ( Hebrew : פְּלֶשֶׁת , romanized :  Pəlešeṯ ; Biblical Greek : Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ , romanized:  Gê tôn Phylistieím ) was a confederation of five main cities or pentapolis in

468-655: The New Kingdom period record a group of the Sea Peoples called the pwrꜣsꜣtj , generally transliterated as either Peleset or Pulasti , as invading Egypt in the mid- 13th century BC . About a century later, pharaoh Ramesses III boasted of having defeated the Peleset , and allegedly relocated them to the southern abandoned coast of Canaan, recording this victory on a Medinet Habu temple inscription dated to c. 1150 BC. The pwrꜣsꜣtj are generally identified as

504-625: The Ottoman army. The mouth of the river was conquered already during the late-1917 Battle of Jaffa . In the Mandatory period, the British government granted a number of concessions , including to Pinhas Rutenberg 's Jaffa Electric Company exclusive rights to generate, distribute, and sell electricity in the District of Jaffa. These rights were delivered through the “Auja Concession”, which

540-608: The Reading Power Station which is situated near its mouth. When the river's headwaters were diverted to the Negev via the National Water Carrier for irrigation purposes, the state of the Yarkon declined. As sewage replaced the flow of fresh water, habitats were destroyed and flora and fauna disappeared. This was exacerbated by continuous discharges of industrial effluents and municipal sewage into

576-547: The Tel Aviv District in central Israel . It is in the northwestern part of the city at the mouth of the Yarkon River . The northern bank of the river was fortified by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE. The ruins, known as Tell Qudadi , were identified as an archaeological site in 1934. In 1937-1938, prior to the construction of the station, a salvage dig was conducted at the site. It

612-626: The Umayyad dynasty , whom the Abbasids had toppled earlier that year, with promises of fair surrender terms, only to have them massacred. On 5 April 885, at the banks of the river, Abu'l-Abbas ibn al-Muwaffaq fought against Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun in the Battle of Tawahin ('Battle of the Mills'). Ibn al-Muwaffaq defeated Khumarawayh, who fled to Egypt. However, Ibn al-Muwaffaq's army lost in

648-400: The 12th-to-10th century BC. However, given the minuscule quantity of said pottery finds, it is likely that even if the Philistines had by-and-large settled in the area, they remained a minority which had assimilated into the native Canaanite population by the 10th century BC. In its historical form, Philistia's northern boundary was the Yarkon River , with the Mediterranean Sea on the west,

684-413: The 1950s, are capable of producing 50 megawatts each. Additional units, called 'Reading C' and 'Reading D' (each consisting of two units) were added in the 1970s. 'Reading A' was shut down in 1967, and has since been converted into a public exhibition area. 'Reading B' was closed down in 2004. 'Reading C' was shut down in 1981, and today contains a memorial for Yitzhak Rabin . At present only 'Reading D'

720-601: The Canaanite coast from Arish in the Sinai (today's Egypt) to the Yarkon River (today's Tel Aviv), and as far inland as Ekron and Gath. Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Philistia in 604 BC, burned Ashkelon, and incorporated the territory in the Neo-Babylonian Empire ; Philistia and its native population the Philistines disappear from the historic record after that year. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic records from

756-434: The Philistines. The Great Harris Papyrus , a chronicle of Ramesses' reign written no later than 1149 BC, also records this Egyptian defeat of the Philistines. Despite Ramesses III's claim, archaeology has not been able to corroborate the existence of any such (re)settlement, and the lack of sense in granting an apparently barbarous invading people an expansive and richly fertile swath of land already under Egyptian control

SECTION 20

#1732782595359

792-598: The Southwest Levant, made up of principally Gaza , Ashkelon , Ashdod , Ekron , Gath , and for a time, Jaffa (part of present-day Tel Aviv ). Scholars believe the Philistines were made up of people of an Aegean background that from roughly 1200 BC onwards settled in the area and mixed with the local Canaanite population, and came to be known as Peleset , or Philistines. At its maximum territorial expansion, its territory may have stretched along

828-477: The area had Philistine settlements. When the Neo-Assyrian Empire first invaded this area, the Philistine cities were given considerable autonomy in exchange for tribute. But having responded to various revolts, this policy hardened. Reading Power Station Reading Power Station ( Hebrew : תחנת הכוח רדינג ) is a natural gas fueled thermal power station supplying electrical power to

864-481: The city rather than conquered it. The term "Philistia" is not used in Assyrian records describing their campaigns, only the names of individual cities, which may indicate that at this stage the Philistines had become increasingly divided, and that the confederation of the pentapolis which constituted Philistia had fractured into separate city-states. Sennacherib further reported that he had sacked (and possibly burned)

900-623: The construction of modern sewage treatment plants in Hod Hasharon and Ramat Hasharon . The river was dredged to restore its original depth and natural flow. River banks were raised and reinforced, hiking and bicycling paths were built, and picnic and fishing areas were developed with the help of contributions from the Australian Jewish community via the Jewish National Fund . The Yarkon River Authority website has

936-540: The king of Ekron, from Judahite captivity and returning him to the throne. The Philistines disappear from written records following the conquest of the Levant by the Neo-Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar II during the 6th century BC, when Ashkelon and many other cities from the region were destroyed. The area east of Gaza, particularly around Nahal Besor that reaches into the hills as far as Beersheva , had

972-453: The nation's frontiers, as evidence from Tell Qasile especially indicates that non-Philistines constituted an otherwise unusually large portion of their respective populations. The identity of the aforementioned Ziklag , a city which according to the Bible marked the border between the Philistine and Israelite territory, remains uncertain. Philistia included Jaffa (in today's Tel Aviv), but it

1008-498: The neighbouring Israelites , Canaanites and Egyptians , being gradually absorbed into the Canaanite culture. Philistia was occupied by Tiglath-Pileser III of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC. Throughout the century, often at the incitement of neighboring Egypt, Philistia revolted against Assyrian rule, but each time they were defeated and forced to pay tribute. Gath disappears from history after Sargon II records its capture in 711 BC, which may indicate he destroyed

1044-603: The plan to generate electricity by hydroelectric means never materialized, and instead the company designed and built a powerhouse that produced electricity by means of diesel-fueled engines. In 1930s, the British authorities in Palestine searched for an additional major water resource for the evolving city of Jerusalem . Two options were examined at the time: the Jordan River and the Yarkon River . The Jordan River

1080-606: The rivers, which allowed algae to multiply. Subsequent and ongoing cleanup projects, some government-run, some benefitting from financial aid from Jewish donors from Australia, and some with regional character supported by the NGO FoEME , helped improve the quality of the water. In 1988, the Yarkon River Authority was established to revitalize the river and make sections of it suitable for sailing, fishing, swimming and other recreation. Water quality improved after

1116-526: The southern border of the vilayet of Beirut . The Arabic name of the river, al-Auja ("the meandering one"), is shared with Wadi Auja , another small stream that flows into the Jordan Valley north of Jericho . During World War I this coincidence led to the term of "the line of the two Aujas" referring to a strategic line connecting the two river valleys and taken by the expeditionary forces of General Allenby during his early 1918 advance against

Yarkon River - Misplaced Pages Continue

1152-422: The station has reopened, and is now powered exclusively by natural gas, which has significantly reduced the amount of pollution emanating from the power plant. In 2009, a national government energy committee recommended upgrading the station's output to 750MW by adding a combined cycle turbine to the two thermal generating units, thus greatly increasing the station's efficiency, while at the same time introducing

1188-484: Was financed by Pinhas Rutenberg , founder of the Palestine Electric Company . The dig uncovered the remains of two consecutive Neo-Assyrian fortresses, one of them dated to the late 8th century BCE. This was also the site of the night crossing of the river by the British expeditionary corps during the late-1917 Battle of Jaffa . The station, built in 1938, was the country's first turbine, with

1224-476: Was flowing up to Sha'ar HaGai and then through additional pumps into the city of Jerusalem. The Rosh HaAyin springs were, during the period of the British Mandate in Palestine, the main and most important water resource of Jerusalem. They provided 13,000 cubic meters of water every day to the city residents. The river became increasingly polluted after the 1950s, many blaming this on the construction of

1260-437: Was formally signed on September 12, 1921. The Concession had authorized the company to generate electricity by means of hydroelectric turbines that would exploit the water power of the Yarkon River to supply electricity to the administrative District of Jaffa. The district comprised Jaffa, the oldest and at the time still most important town in the area, the fast growing town of Tel Aviv north of it, and other smaller locations. Yet

1296-701: Was lost to the Hebrews during Solomon's time. Nonetheless, the Philistine king of Ashkelon conquered Jaffa again circa 730 BC. Following Sennacherib 's third campaign in the Levant, the Assyrians re-assigned Jaffa to the Phoenician city-state of Sidon , and Philistia never got it back. The Five Lords of the Philistines are described in the Hebrew Bible as being in constant struggle and interaction with

#358641