The Judaean Mountains, (Hebrew: הרי יהודה "Harei Yehuda" );(Arabic: جبال الخليل Jibal al-Khalil), also Judaean Hills and Hebron Hills is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,000 m.[1]
Contents |
Running north to south, the Judaean mountains encompass West and East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah. The range forms a natural division between the Shephelah coastal plains to the west and the Jordan Rift Valley to the east. The Judaean Mountains were heavily forested in antiquity. The hills are composed of terra rosa soils over hard limestone.[2]
The Judaean Mountains’ anticlinorium, Israel, is part of the Syrian Arc.[3] It underwent several phases of compressional folding, uplift and faulting from post-Turonian to Quaternary times. In prehistoric times, animals no longer found in the Levant region were found here, including elephants, rhinoceri, giraffes and Wild Asian Water Buffalo. [4] The range has karst topography including a stalactite cave in Nahal Sorek National Park between Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh and the area surrounding Ofra, where fossils of prehistoric flora and fauna were found.
An Israel Railways line runs from Beit Shemesh along the Brook of Sorek and Valley of Rephaim into Jerusalem Malha Train Station.