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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2007
In 1958 an Arabic inscription written in monumental angular script was found in the woods next to Aqua Bella-‘Ayn Hemed, on the road between Jerusalem and the coast. The inscription was misfiled in the archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority, remaining unknown to the public for almost fifty years. Following a thorough search of the archives during doctoral research, the author found the original documentation relating to the long-forgotten inscription. The fragmentary inscription is incised into a marble slab, of which only the end of the last three lines remains. The surviving words are in line with the formula found on other milestones dated to the Umayyad period, allowing a reconstruction of the last sentence, and even of the missing upper parts of the inscription. The lines read: “From Jerusalem to this milestone, five miles”.
1 This article forms part of an ongoing postdoctoral research project on the “road archaeology” of southern Bilād al-Shām during the early Islamic period. The research was partly supported by The Golda Meir Fellowship Fund of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the academic supervision of Professor Amikam Elad of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. I would like to express my great gratitude to Professor Elad for his constant encouragement and guidance, as well as his contributions to and comments on this article.
