Tel Mulabbis (Arabic: ملبس, Hebrew: אומלבס, מולבס) is an archaeological mound in modern Petah Tikva, Israel.
Mulabbis is a key site in the Yarkon River basin, with habitation remains from the Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Late Ottoman periods.
Crusader and Mamluk periods Khirbat Mulabbes was home to the Crusader village of Bulbus, an identification proposed in the nineteenth century by French scholar fr. A Crusader source from 1133 CE states that the Count of Jaffa granted the land to the Hospitaller order, including “the mills of the three bridges” (“des moulins des trios ponts”).Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p. 37, No. 147Delaville Le Roulx, 1894, pp. 86−87, No. 97Clermont-Ganneau, 1895, pp. 192−196: "Les Trois−Ponts, Jorgilia"Haddad, 2013, Petah Tikva, Kh. Mulabbis
In 1478 CE (AH 883), the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, endowed a quarter of the revenues of Mulabbes to two newly established institutions: Madrasa Al-Ashrafiyya in Jerusalem, and a mosque in Gaza.
Ottoman period David Grossman suggests that Mulabbes was "Milus", a village with 42 Muslim households, mentioned in the Ottoman tax records in 1596.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 154. Suggested by David Grossman, 1986, p. 372, cited in Marom, 2019
"Melebbes" appears on Jacotin's map drawn up during Napoleon's invasion in 1799,Karmon, 1960, p. 170 and shows up as "el Mulebbis" on Kiepert's map of Palestine, published in 1856.Kiepert, 1856, Map of Southern Palestine
Following the invasion of the Levant by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt (1831-1841), the village was repopulated by Egyptian emigrants belonging to the Abu Hamed al-Masri clan as part of a wider wave of migration that settled in Palestine's coastal lowlands.Marom, The village of Mulabbis , Cathedra 176, 2020, pp. 48-64.
In 1870, Victor Guérin noted that "Melebbes" was a small village with 140 inhabitants, surrounded by fields of watermelon and tobacco.Guérin, 1875, p. 372 An Ottoman village list from about the same year showed that "Mulebbes" had 43 houses and a population of 125, though the population count included men only. It was also noted that the village was located on a hill, "Auf einer Anhöhe", 2.75 hours northeast of Jaffa.Socin, 1879, p. 158Hartmann, 1883, p. 136, also noted 43 houses at "Mulebbes".
The Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine visited "Mulebbis" in 1874 and described it as "a similar mud village [as Al-Mirr], with a well."Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p. 252 Following the sale of Mulabbes' lands to Jewish entrepreneurs, its residents dispersed in neighboring villages like Jaljulia and Fajja.
In 1878, Jewish entrepreneurs purchased the land of Mulabbes, establishing the first Jewish moshava, Petah Tikvah.
References
Bibliography
(p. 216)
External links Survey of Western Palestine, Map 13: IAA, Wikimedia commons