Qalunya (, also transliterated Qaluniya) was a Palestinian village located west of Jerusalem. Prior to the village's destruction in 1948, with the exception of 166 dunams, Qalunya's land was privately owned: 3,594 dunams were owned by Arabs, while 1,084 dunams were owned by Jews.
Location Qalunya stood on a mountain slope, facing southwest; Wadi Qalunya passed through its eastern edge. The village lay on the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway, and a dirt path linked it to its neighboring villages.Khalidi, 1992, p. 309 Qalunya was located where the Israelite and Jewish town of Motza was believed to have been. The Modern Motza is now an outlying neighborhood of Jerusalem, and ruins of demolished buildings from Qalunya are present near Motza, covered in vegetation, just off the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The town of Mevaseret Zion today is expanding upon some of the territory of former Qalunya.
History Ancient history
Roman and Byzantine periods Qalunya preserves the name of Colonia Amosa or Colonia Emmaus, a Roman colony established at the site of the Jewish village of Motza, which was destroyed during the First Jewish–Roman War. After 71 CE, Emperor Vespasian settled 800 Roman soldiers in the town, as part of a post-war policy of land confiscation and veteran settlement, which aimed to reward soldiers and establish a loyal population in the province. The settlers came from throughout the Roman Empire, and "might have been, at least partially, of non-Semitic" origins.
The word colonia produced the Byzantine-period Greek name, Koloneia, for the site. The status of the site in the early Islamic period has not been established, but the name was preserved in Crusader times as Qalonie or Qalunia and in Arabic as Qalunya. Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali reported that in 1192 it was a village near Jerusalem.Al:Khalidi 1968:181, Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p.309
New Testament It has also been suggested that Qalunya was Emmaus of the New Testament.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 40 The site is at more or less the correct distance from Jerusalem to match the story told in the Gospel of Luke (). The village where Vespasian settled the 800 veterans was known as Emmaus at that time. The new military colony completely eclipsed the title town and its name was lost to history. During the Byzantine period the name Emmaus was not in use, so the Byzantine Christians did not know of it. The tradition of Emmaus was attached to Emmaus-Nicopolis instead.Murphy-O'Connor, 2008, pp. 362−363 Excavations in 2001-2003 headed by Professor Carsten Peter Thiede let him conclude that Khirbet Mizza/Tel Moza was the only credible candidate for biblical Emmaus.
Ottoman period
In the 1596 tax registers, Qalunya was a village in the Ottoman Empire, nahiya (subdistrict) of Jerusalem under the liwa' (district) of Jerusalem, and it had a population of 19 Muslim households, an estimated 110 persons. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on a number of crops, including wheat, barley and olives, as well as on goats, beehives and molasses; a total of 6,450 akçe. All of the revenue went to Waqf.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 118. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 309
In 1838, Kulonieh was noted as a Muslim village in the Beni Malik district, west of Jerusalem.Robinson and Smith, vol. 3, 2nd appendix, p. 123Robinson and Smith, vol. 2, p. 146
In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be a village of 500 inhabitants,Guérin, 1868, pp. 257-262 while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Kalonije had a population of 120, in 43 houses, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p. 155 It was noted to be in the Bene Malik districtHartmann, 1883, p. 118, also noted 43 houses
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Qalunya as being a moderate-sized village perched on the slope of a hill, above a valley. Travelers reported that it had a "modern" restaurant. The villagers tended orange and lemon trees that were planted around a spring in the valley.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 17. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 309 To the west of the restaurant were ruins, possible of Byzantine origin.Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 132
In the 1890s, Jews purchased some of Qalunya's farmlands, and established the village of Motza, the first Jewish settlement outside Jerusalem.
In 1896 the population of Kalonije was estimated to be about 312 persons.Schick, 1896, p. 126
British Mandate In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Qalunieh (Qalonia) had a population 549; 456 Muslims, 88 Jews and 5 Orthodox Christians,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p. 14Barron, 1923, Table XIV, p. 45 increasing in the 1931 census to 632, 632 Muslims and 10 Christians; in a total of 156 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 42
During the 1929 Palestine riots an nearby house belonging to the Makleff family was attacked, and the father, mother, son, two daughters, and their two guests were killed. Twelve residents of Qalunya were charged with the murders, but the judge found them not guilty on account of contradictions in the Jewish evidence. The defense claimed that the murders were done by Bedouin, which the judge called "pure invention".
In the 1945 statistics, Qalunya had a population of 900 Muslims and 10 Christians, while Motza had a population of 350 Jews. The total land area was 4,844 dunams. A total of 1,224 dunums of land were irrigated or used for plantations, 955 were used for cereals;Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 103 while 227 dunams were classified as built-up areas.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 153
1948, and after Qalunya was situated just east of the battlefield of Castel and part of the Arab siege on Jerusalem."Near Kolonia Arabs constructed five road blocks and dug three ditches across highways." ()"Qaluniya ..., whose militiamen had repeatedly attacked positions".() As a result on 11 April 1948, as part of Operation Nachshon, Hagana forces entered the village and blew up 50 housesPappe, 2006, p. 91. - after "the inhabitants had been evacuated." According to Ilan Pappe, Qalunya was one of four villages that were systematically destroyed by Hagana units in this fashion in the immediate wake of the Deir Yassin massacre; the others being, Beit Surik, Biddu and Saris.
Archaeology According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the earliest archaeological finds of Qaluniya date back to the Early Bronze Age, Early Bronze Age I, Iron Age II, followed by artefacts retrieved from the Hellenistic-Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, and Crusade period.The Archaeological Survey of Israel (Israel Antiquities Authority), Qaluniya , Site no. 31 The remains of a Byzantine Church were discovered on the site.
In 2012 Israeli archaeologists discovered the Tel Motza temple, an Israelite cultic building dating to the monarchic period (Iron Age IIA).First Temple Period Ritual Structure Discovered Near Jerusalem
References
Bibliography
(p. 47)
External links Welcome To Qalunya Qalunya, Zochrot Survey of Western Palestine, Map 17: IAA , Wikimedia commons Qalunya, from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center