Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Valley of Elah
Summary
The Valley of Elah or Ella Valley ("the valley of the terebinth"; from the עמק האלה Emek HaElah), called in وادي السنط, Wadi es-Sunt, is a long, shallow valley in Israel and the West Bank best known as the place described in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament of Christianity) where the Israelites were encamped when David fought Goliath (; ). It is home to several important archaeological sites, including those identified as the ancient towns of Azekah and Socho (). Rising up from the valley on its extreme southeast end lies the hilltop ruin Adullam, and on its north lie the ruins of the ancient fortress city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, which is identified with the ancient town of Sha'araim ().
The valley is named after the large and shady terebinth trees (Pistacia atlantica) which are indigenous to it. On the west side of the valley, near Socho, there is a very large and ancient tree of this kind, in height with a trunk in circumference and a canopy at least in diameter. This tree is notable for being one of the largest terebinths in the area, and marks the upper end of the valley.
Since the early 1970s, the valley has also contained a large satellite relay station, with an antenna farm containing some 120 satellite dishes of various sizes. From 2010 to 2014, the region around the valley was believed to be threatened by shale oil extraction through the CCR ground-heating process, with the Green Zionist Alliance and the grassroots group Save Adullam, among others, working to stop exploitation of the region. The plan was ultimately blocked in 2014 by a zoning committee decision. In July 2019, the Elah Valley came under the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, owing largely to its historical importance and the desire to curtail the encroaching city limits of Beit Shemesh to its north.
In 2009, Professor Yosef Garfinkel discovered a fortified city from the Iron Age II dated sometime between 1050 and 915 BC at Khirbet Qeiyafa, southwest of Jerusalem in the Elah Valley.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.