Governorate Hebron | ||
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Name meaning The ruin of the house of ’Amra Weather 11°C, Wind W at 14 km/h, 92% Humidity | ||
Beit 'Amra (Arabic: خربة بيت عمرة) is a Palestinian town located twelve kilometers southwest of Hebron.The town is in the Hebron Governorate Southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 2,165 in 2007.
Contents
Map of Bayt Amra
History
French explorer Victor Guérin visited the place in 1863, which he described as a ruin. He noted that "these ruins extend over a large hill, whose lower parts are provided with sustaining walls. A good many cisterns are cut in the sides of the hill. Several of these are provided with the stones intended to stop the orifice. On all sides are to be seen old subterranean magazines, once belonging to houses now destroyed, the ruins of which are covered with brushwood. The vestiges of two churches, almost completely destroyed, are still visible. They are both built east and west; one occupied the higher part of the town, the other the lower. On the site of the first, among other things, are the fragments of a baptismal font."
In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine found it to be a "ruined site on a hill, resembling Khurbet 'Aziz in character. Cisterns, ruined walls, shafts of pillars, and lintel stones were observed".