Ein Gedi

At Mikveh Cave archaeologists found Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) flint tools and an arrowhead.

A Chalcolithic temple (ca. mid-fourth millennium BCE) belonging to the Ghassulian culture was excavated on the slope between two springs, Ein Shulamit and Ein Gedi. More Chalcolithic finds were made at the Moringa and Mikveh Caves.[5]

No traces of Bronze Age settlement have been found at Ein Gedi.

The remains of the Iron Age settlement at Ein Gedi are located at a tell on the north bank of Wadi Arugot, known in Arabic as Tell el-Jurn (grid position 187/097 PAL) and in Hebrew as Tel Goren. The first permanent Iron Age settlement was Judean and was established around 630 BCE. The site was destroyed or abandoned after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587/86 BCE.

In Joshua 15:62, Ein Gedi is enumerated among the wilderness cities of the Tribe of Judah in the desert of Betharaba, and in Ezekiel 47:10, it is prophesied that one day, its coastal location will make it into a fishing village, after the water of the Dead Sea has been made sweet:

Fishing nets will be spread from En-gedi to En-eglaim.[6]

Fleeing from King Saul, David hides in the strongholds at Ein Gedi (1 Samuel 23:29 and 24:1–2) and Saul seeks him "even upon the most craggy rocks, which are accessible only to wild goats" (1 Samuel 24:2). Psalm 63, subtitled a Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah, has been associated with David's sojourn in the desert of En-gedi.[7]

In 2 Chronicles 20:2 Ein Gedi is identified with Hazazon-tamar,[8] Hazezon Tamar,[9] Hatzatzon-Tamar [10] or Hazezontamar (חַצְצוֹן תָּמָר ḥaṣṣōn tāmār, "portion [of land] of date palms"), on account of the palm groves which surrounded it,[11] where the Moabites and Ammonites gathered in order to fight Josaphat, king of Judah. In Genesis 14:7 Hazazon-tamar is mentioned as being an Amorite city, smitten by Chedorlaomer in his war against the cities of the plain.

The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon 1:14) speaks of the "vineyards of Ein Gedi". The words of Ecclesiasticus 24:18, "I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades" ('en aígialoîs), may perhaps be understood as the palm trees of Ein Gedi.

The settlement at Tel Goren is a rare example of a town which reached its zenith during the Persian period, probably during the late 5th century BCE.

Ein Gedi receives a fortress and becomes a royal Hasmonean estate.

According to Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, Ein Gedi served as the capital of a toparchy, and there were excellent palm trees and balsam growing there.[12] The date palm's fruit and the balsam plant's fragrance were essential to the village's economy. The balsam plant also served as a source for expensive medications.[13]

During the First Jewish-Roman War, the Sicarii, who fought the Romans until their defeat and mass suicide at Masada, plundered local villages including Ein Gedi. At Ein Gedi, they drove out the defenders, and killed over seven hundred women and children who could not run away.[14][15][16] Pliny claims that Ein Gedi was destroyed during the war, although the Babatha archive shows that Jews lived there once again during the reign of Hadrian and probably earlier. The Babatha archive mentions Ein Gedi as a crown property; the Cohors I Milliaria Thracum is attested there, indicating the presence of Roman soldiers there at the time. The Babatha archive also refers to Ein Gedi as "a village in the territory of Jericho in Judaea". This evidence led researchers to believe that Ein Gedi was no longer a toparchy in its own right following the First Jewish-Roman War and had instead become a village inside the toparchy of Jericho.[12]

Mosaic from ancient Ein Gedi synagogue

Ein Gedi survived the catastrophic results of the Bar Kokhba revolt and continued to exist until the sixth or seventh centuries.[13] Eusebius described Ein Gedi as "a large Jewish village" in his early fourth-century Onomasticon.[13] In the early third century CE, a synagogue was built in the center of the village. Its remains include a Judeo-Aramaic inscription mosaic now on display at Jerusalem's National Archaeology Campus warning inhabitants against "revealing the town's secret" – possibly the methods for extraction and preparation of the much-prized balsam resin, though not stated outright in the inscription – to the outside world.[17]

Ein Gedi was destroyed in a fire during the late Byzantine period. According to the archeologists who excavated the synagogue, the village was destroyed during the early 6th century by Byzantine emperor Justinian as part of his persecution campaign against Jews in his empire. Others claim that the village was destroyed in a Bedouin raid that occurred before the Persian invasion, probably around the late 6th or early 7th century.[17]

After Ein Gedi was destroyed, the cultivation of balsam around the Dead Sea ceased, and it is believed that its Jewish residents, who were now refugees, took the knowledge of cultivating the balsam with them, causing this knowledge to be lost forever.[17]

In 1838, Edward Robinson reported that the whole area was covered with gardens, mainly cucumbers, all belonging to the Rashaideh tribe.[18]

In April 1848, Lieutenant William Francis Lynch led an American expedition down the Jordan River into the Dead Sea, that stopped at Ein Gedi (Ain Jidy).[19]

In 1998–99, the archaeological expedition of Yizhar Hirschfeld at Ein Gedi systematically excavated what has been called "the Essenes site", first discovered by Yohanan Aharoni in 1956.[20]