Golan
Golan is a city of refuge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, later known from the works of Josephus and Eusebius. Archaeologists localize the biblical city of Golan at Sahm el-Jaulān, a Syrian village east of Wadi ar-Ruqqad in the Daraa Governorate, where early Byzantine ruins were found.
In 1954, Israeli historical geographer Zev Vilnay had tentatively identified the town of Golan with the Goblana of the Talmud, which he thought to be the ruin ej-Jelêbîne on the Wâdy Dabûra, a wadi near the Lake of Huleh, by way of a corruption of the site's original name.
Etymology; name and meaning throughout history
The name derives from the Semitic root g-w-l "to move in circle" with the suffix -ān commonly used to form toponyms, with the sense "surrounded".The shift in the meaning of Golan, from a town to a broader district or territory, is first attested by the Jewish historian Josephus. His account likely reflects Roman administrative changes implemented after the Great Jewish Revolt. The name Golan Heights was not used before the 19th century.
In the Grecized form Gaulanitis, it is the name of the region apparently named for the town of Golan.
In the Mishnah the name is Gablān, similar to Aramaic language names for the region: Gawlāna, Guwlana and Gublānā.
The Arabic name is Jawlān, sometimes romanized as Djolan, which is an Arabized version of the Canaanite and Hebrew name. Arab cartographers of the Byzantine period referred to the area as a mountain, though the region is a plateau.
Kh. ej-Jelêbîne near the Hula Valley
According to Vilnay, the village took its name from the district Gaulanitis. The ruin is not far from the Daughters of Jacob Bridge. The traces of the town were described by G. Schumacher in the late 19th century as being "a desert ruin", having "no visible remains of importance, but the appearance of great antiquity."Hebrew Bible
In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament's books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Chronicles, Golan is mentioned as a city of refuge in the Bashan. The area is referred to as the territory of Manasseh in the conquered territory of Bashan: Golan was the most northerly of the three cities of refuge east of the Jordan River. Manasseh gave this Levitical city to the Gershonite Levites. According to the Bible, the Israelites conquered Golan, taking it from the Amorites.The village during the Roman period
The settlement was known to Josephus. It formed the eastern boundary of Galilee and was part of the tetrarchy of Philip. It was described by Eusebius in his Onomasticon as a large village that gave its name to the surrounding country.The region in antiquity
Persian period
During the Persian period, the Golan region, together with the Bashan, formed the satrapy of Karnaim.Hellenistic period
During much of the Hellenistic period, the region was part of the Seleucid Empire. Now named Gaulanitis, the area formed a district all by itself during the early Hellenistic period. Once the Seleucid Empire started its gradual collapse, the Golan became a target for Iturean and other Arab tribes. At the same time it was enveloped by the regional wars fought by Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jannaeus against the Nabatean kings Obodas I and Aretas III between ca. 93–80 BCE, leading to the conquest of the Golan by Jannaeus.Early Roman period
In 63 BCE, the entire former Seleucid realm was conquered by Roman general Pompey, and the Golan is settled by the Itureans. In 23 BCE, the Jewish king Herod the Great, a client ruler loyal to Rome, receives the rule over the wider Hauran region. He leaves it to his heirs, who hold it until the death of Agrippa II at the end of the first century CE.Late Roman and Byzantine periods
The wider Golan region was prosperous between the 2nd and the 7th century CE, when pagan communities were step by step replaced by Christian ones. A different view is that the Christians of the Golan were Ghassanids, an Arab tribe originally from Yemen, used by the Byzantines as frontier guards since the end of the 5th century. An important Jewish presence was attested by archaeology since the Roman period in the Golan, and by the 6th century the population of the Byzantine Golan was made up by Jews and Christian Ghassanids.The Golan was prosperous during the Roman and Byzantine periods, but had a purely rural character and lacked any larger towns.