Ashkelon National Park

Ashkelon National Park (Hebrew: גן לאומי אשקלון‎) is an Israeli national park along the shore of the Mediterranean sea southwest of the city of Ashkelon.

The national park is situated in the heart of ancient Ashkelon. It is surrounded by a wall built in the mid-12th century by the Fatimid Caliphate. The wall was originally 2,200 meters in length, 50 meters in width and 15 meters in height. The remains of the wall are located in the eastern and southern parts of the national park.

The site contains archeological remains of the different civilizations that lived in the area, including Canaanites, Philistines, Persians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims and Crusaders. Roman remains include marble and granite columns and capitals, a Roman basilica and Roman statues. The site also features a Middle Bronze Age gate with the world's earliest arch, dating back to approximately 1850 BCE.

Archaeology

In 1815, Lady Hester Stanhope's expedition to Ashkelon constituted the first modern archaeological excavation in Palestine. Using a medieval Italian manuscript as her guide, she persuaded the Ottoman authorities to allow her to excavate the site in search of a large hoard of gold coins allegedly buried under the ruins of the Ashkelon mosque. The governor of Jaffa, Abu Nabbut (Father of the Cudgel) was ordered to accompany her. On the second day of digging, the lower foundation walls of the mosque were discovered at a depth of three or four feet, along with fragments of marble pillars, a Corinthian capital, a faience vessel, and two small pottery phials. Further exploration revealed several distinct phases in the history of the structure, leading to the conclusion that the site had originally been a pagan temple converted into a church and then a mosque. Stanhope's main find was a seven-foot headless marble statue, which was smashed and thrown into the sea.

National park

A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of 'wild nature' for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined "National Park" as its Category II type of protected areas.

While this type of national park had been proposed previously, the United States established the first "public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people", Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. The first area to use "national park" in its creation legislation was the US's Mackinac Island, in 1875. Australia's Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the world's third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park and national park status was consequently lost. As a result, Australia's Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence.

List of national parks of the United States

The United States has 59 protected areas known as national parks that are operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. The first national park, Yellowstone, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Mackinac National Park in 1875 (decommissioned in 1895), and then Rock Creek Park (later merged into National Capital Parks), Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Many current National Parks had been previously protected as National Monuments by the President under the Antiquities Act before being upgraded by Congress. Seven national parks (six in Alaska) are paired with a National Preserve. While administered together, they are considered as separate units and their areas are not included in the figures below. The newest national park is Pinnacles National Park, upgraded in 2013.

National park (disambiguation)

A national park is a reserve of land.

National Park may also refer to:

See also

Ashkelon

Ashkelon /æʃkɛloʊn/ also Ashqelon and Ascalon; (Hebrew: אַשְׁקְלוֹן [aʃkelon]  (audio) ; Arabic: عسقلان‎ ʿAsqalān ; Latin: Ascalonia ; Akkadian: Isqalluna ; Ancient Greek: Ἀσκάλων, Askalon) is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age. In the course of its history, it has been ruled by the Ancient Egyptians, the Philistines, the Israelites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hasmoneans, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs and the Crusaders, until it was destroyed by the Mamluks in 1270.

The Arab village of al-Majdal or al-Majdal Asqalan (Arabic: المجدل‎; Hebrew: אל-מג'דל, מגדל‎), was established a few kilometres inland from the ancient site in the 16th century, under Ottoman rule. In 1918, it became part of the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and in 1920 became part of Mandatory Palestine. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, al-Majdal was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in Gaza.

Ashkelon (disambiguation)

Ashkelon may refer to:

Places

Organizations

Schools

Other

See also