Kudna (, also transliterated Kodneh, Kudnah, Kodana) is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Quneitra Governorate, located south of Quneitra in the Syrian-controlled area of Golan Heights. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Kudna had a population of 1,857 in the 2004 census.
The village is recorded as Rhadanos () in the Diocletianic boundary stones corpus, dated to c. 300 CE. It's modern name is Aramaic, and means "a mule".
Transhumance shaped settlement in the Golan for centuries because of its harsh winters. The winters "forced tribespeople until the 19th century to live in hundreds of rudimentary 'winter villages' in their tribal territory. Starting in the second part of the 19th century, villages became "fixed and formed the nucleus of fully sedentary life in the 20th century Golan."Roy Marom, “Sukayk and al-Summāqah: Mamluk Rural Geography in the Northern Jawlān/Golan Heights in the Light of Qāytbāy’s Endowment Deeds,” in Kate Raphael and Mustafa Abbasi (ed.s), The Golan in the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods: an Archaeological and Historical Study: Excavations at Naʿarān and Farj, In Honour of Moshe Hartal, Yigal Ben Ephraim and Shuqri ‘Arraf, Annual of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion Volume xiv (2024): 69-70. Specifically, Kudna is the traditional headquarters of the Nu'aym, a large Arab tribe mainly based in southern Syria. Historically, Kudna was a well-known pasture ground for the Arabian horses of the Nu'aym and their leading household, the Tahhan family.
References