Footnote 2 – How Ancient Man First Utilized the Rivers in the Desert

As I later learned, David Alon had visited the site around 1950. He called it Geomaise, which in Arabic means sycamore. This was the name the local Bedouin had given to an old Turkish well located about one half mile upstream from the site. Although there are no sycamore trees in the immediate vicinity of the site, one lone sycamore still thrives near the Geomaise well. We decided to retain the name Alon had given to the site, but translated into Hebrew—thus Shiqmim (sycamores).