BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in This Article: The Desert Bible. By Morris S. Seale. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture. By Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar. Sayyid Ahmad. A Study of the Religious Reform Movement of Sayyid Ahmad of Rē Bareli. By Muhammad Hedayetullah. The Khilafat Movement in India, 1919-1924. By A. C. Niemeijer. History of Medieval Deccan (1295-1724), Vol. I (Mainly Political and Military Aspects). Edited by H. K. Sherwani and P. M. Joshi. New French Imperialism, 1880-1910: The Third Republic and Colonial Expansion. By James J. Cooke. The U.S.S.R. and the Middle East. Edited by Michael Confino and Shimon Shamir. Survival or Hegemony? The Foundations of Israeli Foreign Policy. By Samuel J. Roberts. Truman, The Jewish Vote and the Creation of. Israel. By John Snetsinger.     

The appearance and disappearance of Birket El-Kamar,Jaffa, Israel

ABSTRACT

The harbor of Jaffa is one of the oldest in the land of Israel and was a significant entry from the sea for the last 4000 years, from the Middle Bronze Age to the twentieth century. Birket el-Kamar was a sandy bay in the coastal strip south of modern Jaffa harbor that had been part of the harbor during various past periods, but no longer exists. Its name, meaning ‘the Moon Pool’, occurs in historical archival documents, mainly maps, from the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. This study focuses on the changing outlines of Birket el-Kamar during the last 800 years, based on recently revealed archaeological remains, and documentary evidence. It seems that in addition to the natural processes, the Ottoman fortress that was built on the natural sand strip connecting the rocks in the sea with the coast, also affected the on-going processes, through which the inner port, the central port and the north anchorage suffered higher erosion rates and the shoreline retreated eastward.