On a gorgeous weekend in early February, we visited Tel Hadid, an archaeological
site nestled in the Ben Shemen Forest in central Israel. Also known as
al-Haditha in Arabic and as Adida or Aditha in ancient times, Tel Hadid rises
147 metres above sea level. From an observation deck, visitors
can enjoy sweeping views of the Lod Valley to the south and west, while the
Tel Aviv metropolitan area stretches across the horizon to the west and north. The area surrounding the
tel (an ancient mound formed by centuries of human settlement) contains excavations of ancient agricultural installations and a large grove of ancient olive trees.
One of the cuneiform tablets found at Tel Hadid
Tel Hadid has been settled for over three thousand years. Archaeologists have found evidence of several main periods: the Iron Age (10th–6th centuries BCE), the Late Hellenistic period (2nd–1st centuries BCE), the Roman period including the time of the
Mishnah (around the 1st–2nd centuries CE, when Jewish oral laws were first written down), and a modern Arab village that was abandoned in 1948. A fascinating part of Tel Hadid's history comes from an Iron Age II settlement, where two
cuneiform tablets from the first half of the 7th century BCE were found. These legal documents mention people with non-local names, mainly
Akkadian, alongside local names such as Ahab, showing that the site was home to a mixed community of locals and people brought here by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
In
Hasmonean times,
Simeon the Hasmonean fortified the city in 143 BCE and fought the
Seleucid general
Tryphon nearby. During the time of the Mishnah, sages such as Rabbi Yakim of Hadid lived here. According to the Roman historian
Josephus,
Emperor Vespasian built a fortress at Hadid during his siege of Jerusalem.
Tel Hadid also appears on a section of the
Madaba mosaic map, discovered in 1884 in a Byzantine church in Madaba, Jordan. This ancient map, created in the 6th century CE, shows the Holy Land with dozens of illustrated sites. The Greek letters in this section read: "Adithaim now Aditha." In 1955, excavations uncovered a Byzantine‑period mosaic (6th century CE) depicting a sailing ship, which is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Haifa.
Byzantine‑period mosaic from Tel Hadid
Today, Tel Hadid is largely covered with olive groves and cactus hedges planted by the former inhabitants of the Arab village of al-Haditha, alongside pine trees added later by the
KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund). The remains of ancient walls, cisterns, burial
caves, tombs, and an olive press are scattered around the site as a testament to the long history of settlement on this hill. In 1949, a new farming settlement, Moshav Hadid, was established to the west of the site. The Israel National Trail, a long-distance hiking path that crosses the country from north to south, passes nearby.
The area around Tel Hadid is part of a KKL‑JNF forest and is open to the public. For flower lovers like me, February and March are the best months to see carpets of
Iris Eretz‑Israel, a stunning flower in the iris family that blooms only in Israel and Syria, alongside the bright red anemones, known as
kalaniot in Hebrew.
An interesting aside, Tel Hadid sits above
Kvish Shesh, or Road 6, Israel's major north-south toll highway that runs from the Galilee in the north to the Negev in the south, passing beneath the
tel through a tunnel. Road 6 follows the ancient
"Via Maris" (Way of the Sea), which once linked Egypt with the northern empires of
Mesopotamia. When the highway was built about twenty years ago, the tunnel was carved through the hill solely to preserve the archaeological remains of Tel Hadid, which happens to sit on top. Tens of thousands of people pass through the tunnel every day, completely unaware that an ancient city lies above their heads.
