Eshkol National Park
| Eshkol National Park | |
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| גן לאומי אשכול | |
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Blooming flowers & dates trees in the park
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| Eshkol National Park | |
Eshkol National Park (Hebrew: גן לאומי אשכול) is a national park located in Northern Negev, Israel, near Gaza.[1] The 875-acre park offers lawns and shaded picnic areas and boasts at its centre the largest spring in the Nahal Besor/Wadi Ghazzeh basin, known in Hebrew as Ein HaBesor and in Arabic as Ein Shellal. The spring taps the near-surface aquifer, which is fed by the runoff of winter rains.[2]
East of the springs,[3] the mound of Khirbet Shellal dominates the landscape. At Shellal ANZAC troops discovered during the World War I Second Battle of Gaza a beautiful floor mosaic depicting a variety of animals,[4] part of the ruins of a Byzantine church. The mosaic is now displayed in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.[2] Shellal is located some 3 km northeast, and across the valley of Nahal Besor/Wadi Ghazzeh, from of a much more famous biblical archaeological site, Tell el-Farah (South).
References
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- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Jewish National Fund, The Besor Park and Route
- ↑ Sketch of the mosaic at Fig. 11
