RAMALLAH, West Bank — The archaeological site of Khirbet Balama contains the ruins of an ancient fortified Canaanite city. The location, at the southern entrance to the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, is a historical crossroads in Wadi Balama, which connects the Plain of Araba with the Marj Ibn Amer Valley.

Khaled Rabaiah, head of the directorate of tourism and antiquities in Jenin governorate, told Al-Monitor, “Khirbet Balama is known in ancient texts as Abliam and was mentioned in the Royal Archives of Egypt in the fifteenth century B.C. The site was a major city in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age. It survived the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic periods, as well as the Crusader/Ayyubid and the Ottoman dynasties.”

He said, “The Balama tunnel is one of the most important archaeological elements discovered at the Khirbet Balama site, and it is one of the longest water tunnels in Palestine. It is one of the most unique and distinctive examples of the concealed water systems that were common in ancient cities at the end of the Bronze Age in Palestine. Similar systems were discovered in Jerusalem.”