Hazon, Israel

Hazon is a moshav administered by the Merom HaGalil Regional Council.[1] The 2022 Central Bureau of Statistics locality file lists it in Israel's Northern District and Safed subdistrict and assigns it locality code 1047.[2]

The settlement lies on the northwestern slopes of Mount Hazon in the Lower Galilee, northwest of the Sea of Galilee and south of Highway 85, at a recorded average elevation of 442 meters above sea level.[1][2] Access is via Highway 806, which branches southward from Highway 85.[1]

Hazon was founded in 1969; a 2004 place list records its affiliation as “PM.”[3][1] Its older section consists mainly of farms and agricultural land, while an expansion neighborhood occupies the southern part of the moshav.[1]

Detailed plan G/15039 provided for the addition of 75 housing units for moshav members.[1] For the relevant residential lots, the plan permits one dwelling per lot, requires a minimum lot area of 500 square meters, and allows two floors plus an attic to a maximum height of 10 meters.[1] A 502-square-meter lot in the expansion area was valued at 251,491 shekels as of 19 March 2021, excluding VAT and development costs; the objection to that valuation was rejected.[1]

A national place list recorded 358 inhabitants in Hazon on 31 December 2004.[3] The Central Bureau of Statistics locality file recorded 293 residents in 2022, all within the “Jews and others” category and including 293 Jews.[2] The two dated records therefore show a lower recorded population in 2022 than in 2004.

The principal occupations in Hazon are described as agriculture, liberal professions, and rural hospitality.[1] The settlement contains farms, residential lots, auxiliary farms, public areas, and agricultural land, with a mixture of residential, agricultural, and rural non-residential uses.[1]

Development work observed in the expansion neighborhood included gravel roads, water and sewage infrastructure, preparation for underground electricity infrastructure, and sidewalks paved with interlocking stones.[1] Plan G/15039 also permits up to two hospitality units, with a combined area of 80 square meters, as an integral part of a residence on an eligible lot.[1]

The modern moshav surrounds the ancient site known as Hazon or Khirbet Hazzur. The edges of the site are covered on all sides by the contemporary settlement, and part of it has been built upon.[4] The site is recorded at map reference 1874/2569 and an elevation of 460 meters, on a mound along a spur branching from Mount Hazon.[4] Steep slopes protect it on three sides, while to the south it connects to the saddle of Har Hazon.[4]

The site lies roughly two kilometers south of the Beth ha-Kerem–Ramat Korazim route and is described as difficult to access.[4] Nearby agricultural terrain includes terra rossa and rendzina soils on steep slopes, as well as extensive alluvial plains in the Hananya Valley about one kilometer away.[4] The survey records Hazzur as an Arabic name also found in the Ottoman census. It measured the site at 10 dunams, although a report prepared before the moshav's establishment gave an area of 18 dunams.[4]

Documented remains include three large cisterns, additional cisterns with capstones, a threshing installation, an oil press, winepresses, caves, and architectural remains.[4] Researchers Tepper and Shahar interpreted a tunnel-connected group of cisterns and caves as a possible hiding complex.[4] Finds also included a ceramic roof tile bearing the impressed stamp of the Roman Sixth Legion.[4]

The archaeological analysis examined 111 identifiable sherds: one Late Hellenistic rim, 13 Early Roman, 31 Middle Roman, 43 Late Roman, 22 Early Byzantine, and 1 Late Byzantine sherd.[4] The survey placed the beginning of settlement in the Early Roman period, while the Late Hellenistic rim may indicate an early phase around the mid-first century BCE. Most of the dated material belongs to the Middle and Late Roman periods.[4]

Four local Byzantine sherds were of types first produced around the mid-fourth century CE, but much of the Early Byzantine material had a broad chronological range, making the date of abandonment difficult to establish precisely.[4] The small quantity of unequivocally Byzantine pottery suggests abandonment close to the mid-fourth century, while the single Late Byzantine sherd was not considered evidence of permanent settlement.[4]

Earlier survey work reported Hellenistic/Roman, Roman-Byzantine, Early Islamic, Mamluk, and Ottoman pottery, together with coins of Constantine I dated 317–320 CE and Constantius II dated 346–361 CE.[4] A salvage excavation recovered first- through third-century CE pottery, Iron Age and Persian-period pottery, and another Sixth Legion roof tile. The excavated buildings were dated to the medieval period, and no stratified Roman-period remains were documented in that excavation.[4] A later examination dated the assemblage from one cistern to the early second through early third centuries CE and found that its Roman-period cooking vessels had been produced at nearby Kefar Hananya.[4]