Gesher Jisr al-Majāmiʿ

At the beginning of 1996, Abdullah Mokary and Zvi Gal conducted excavations for the IAA on the site that occupies a small peninsula surrounded by the river on the north, east and south. It is not far from the modern Kibbutz Gesher, and is next to the bridge over the Jordan, over which the road from Damascus to Beth Shean passed at different times. This bridge is known locally as Jisr al-Majami, Bridge of the Meeting (of the river Yarmk with the Jordan). Gurin, who visited the site in June 1875, wrote that he saw the ruins of an ancient fortified khan and was built from well-dressed, basalt stones. The gates were built of alternating white and black stones (in the ablaq style). There were in fact three separate bridges, one Crusader-Mamlk, one Ottoman and one British, that were built next to the khan and in association with it.Keywords: basalt stones; Bridge of the Meeting; Gesher; Jordan; river Yarmk