Mosque Name: Har Oded - Open-Air Mosques
Country: Negev
City: Rural, Negev Highlands
Year of construction (AD): 700-799
GPS: 30.508363 34.755601
Gibson Classification: Unknown
Rebuilt facing Mecca: never
Description:
This site is 2.5 km east of the Nahal Oded site (Rosen and Avni 1989; Rosen and Avni in press). The nomadic settlement consists of 15 circular and oval dwellings with entrances facing southeast. Several large sheep pens were found nearby. On a hilltop overlooking the settlement is an open-type rectangular mosque designated by a double row of medium-sized fieldstones sunken into the ground (figures. 2, 7). The structure faces southsoutheast, and in its southern wall is a gap in the line of stones where the mihrab niche usually appears. Gideon Avne suggests that either the niche was destroyed, or a single stone may have stood there similar to that in the Nahal Oded mosque. But perhaps this mosque pre-dates the invention of the mihrab niche. In which case a flat wall was sufficient.
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Six mosques, Negev Highlands
Chart showing mihrab directions in the Negev
Information taken from:
Early Mosques in the Negev Highlands: New Archaeological Evidence on Islamic Penetration of Southern Palestine Author: Gideon Avni Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 294 (May, 1994), pp. 83-100
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