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Abstract

The Naḥal Tanninim Dam (193 m long) was built in the second half of the fourth century CE, at the openings of Naḥal Tanninim and Naḥal ‘Ada, in the kurkar ridge between Kibbutz Ma‘gan Mikha’el and the village of Jisr ez-Zarqa. The dam created an artificial water reservoir on the east, extending over an area of c. 6000 dunams. To prevent the water from overflowing to the north, another dam (c. 900 m long) was built in the Carmel trough, north of Naḥal Tanninim, between the kurkar ridge and Mount Carmel. The reservoir functioned as an enormous elevation pool (6.5 m asl) that allowed the water stored in it to flow south to Caesarea via the Low-level Aqueduct and north to Dor, as well as to operate six flour mills (totaling 12 pairs of millstones) that were rock-hewn and built southwest of the dam. The water source was the Kabara Springs, located at 3.0 –3.5 m above sea level, and flood waters in winter. The construction of the reservoir and that of the Lower Aqueduct were not recorded in the historical sources. Their construction post-dates three burial caves rock-hewn in the kurkar ridge to the northeast of the dam and about 15 quarries and a ‘lower aqueduct’ (whose quarrying was never completed). After the Muslim conquest of Caesarea in 640/641 CE, the city lost its economic supremacy, and the aqueduct ceased to function. It seems that the dam was also damaged by stone robbery and collapse, and the water level in the reservoir behind it dropped. During the Crusader and Mamluk periods, the dam was restored, and two mills were built adjacent to its (western) air face. After the mills fell out of use, the dam was abandoned, and parts of its northern end had collapsed. During the Ottoman period, the dam was renovated, the breach in its northern part was mended and seven new flour mills were built adjacent to its air face (western face), two of them replacing mills of the Crusader and Mamluk periods (totaling 13 pairs of millstones). The water to propel them flowed above chutes through openings cut in the dam. The mills ceased to function in the 1920s, while attempting to dry the swamps of Kabara, during which the ancient dam was breached in three places.

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