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Suba, Jerusalem

Suba
SubaRuins.jpg
Remains of the Suba village square and surrounding buildings, formerly the Belmont Castle courtyard
Suba is located in Mandatory Palestine
Suba
Suba
Arabic صوبا
Name meaning The heap
Also spelled Soba, Sobetha, Zova
Subdistrict Jerusalem
Coordinates 31°47′5″N 35°7′26″E / 31.78472°N 35.12389°E / 31.78472; 35.12389Coordinates: 31°47′5″N 35°7′26″E / 31.78472°N 35.12389°E / 31.78472; 35.12389
Palestine grid 162/132
Population 620, (1945)
Area 4,102 dunams
Date of depopulation 13 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities Tzova,Yedida school

Suba (Arabic: صوبا‎‎) was a Palestinian Arab village west of Jerusalem that was depopulated and destroyed in 1948. The site of the village lies on the summit of a conical hill called Tel Tzova (Hebrew: תל צובה‎‎), or Jabal Suba, rising 769 metres above sea level, and it was built on the ruins of a Crusader castle.

Belmont castle was excavated by archaeologists in 1986-9. Middle Bronze Age cairn-tombs have been excavated in the neighborhood of the ruined Arab village, though the site itself has not yielded artifacts from before the late Iron Age. The place can perhaps be identified with Σωρης mentioned in the Greek version of Josh. 15:59. There has also been a tentative identification with the Tzova in 1 Samuel 14:47 and 2 Samuel 23:36. In the later Roman period, the site was mentioned in rabbinical sources as Seboim. Until the mid-19th century, Christian pilgrims mistakenly identified the site with Modi'in, the origin of the Maccabees.

Excavations on a plastered cave on the grounds of Kibbutz Tzova identified as the Cave of John the Baptist began in March 2000.

It has been suggested that Suba was Subahiet, one of 21 villages given by King Godfrey as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1114, the gift was re-confirmed by Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

A "Brother William of Belmont" was mentioned in Crusader sources in the years 1157 and 1162, he might have been castellan at Belmont.


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