Image Details

Werner Braun

Aphek, at the headwaters of the Yarkon River. A strategic site throughout the ages, Aphek was fortified again and again to control passage along the critical north- south coastal route, the Via Maris. Most evident today are the walls and towers of the 17th-century Turkish fortress. Within and without these walls, neatly defined squares mark excavation areas, seen here at an early stage. Inside the Turkish walls were uncovered the remains of a Middle Bronze (2000–1500 B.C.) Egyptian palace. Outside to the left are vestiges of the earliest settlement, dating to the third millennium B.C., and in the foreground are the remains of the Herodian town built by Herod and renamed Antipatris.