Mosque Name: Ramat Barnea
Country: Negev
City: Rural, Negev Highlands
Year of construction (AD): 700-799
GPS: 30.681938 34.497799
Gibson Classification: Unknown
Rebuilt facing Mecca: never
Description:
The mosque in Ramat Barnea is in the center of a 15-building settlement, dispersed over 7.5 dunams (Haiman 1986: 218-20, figs. 1-4). It is oval shaped (4 x 8 m) and elevated about 0.4 m above ground level. The walls are constructed of large, standing, roughly-hewn fieldstones; the rounded mihrab niche in the middle of the southern wall is 2 m wide and 2 m deep. This oval shape is unusual; the other mosques in the Negev Highlands are either rectangular or square.
For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here
Five mosques, Negev Highlands
Chart showing mihrab directions in the Negev
As all of the open air mosques in the Negev face too far west, perhaps they were intended to face Petra, but those who set the Qiblas did not use accurate information or calculations.
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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