al-Manshiyya

The village was situated on a sandstone plateau in the northwestern segment of the plain of Acre, 3 km northeast of the city of Acre and 2 km north of the al-Na'amin River. One–half km to the west of it ran the al-Basha (Pasha) canal, which carried water from the springs of al-Kabri to Acre. Al-Manshiyya was linked by a short secondary road to the coastal highway that led to Acre. Its proximity to Acre afforded the village residents access to the city's transportation system and other facilities. The villagers believed that al-Manshiyya was established in the aftermath of the Crusades, and that the original inhabitants were brought by the Mamluks from North Africa to repopulate the area, whose own population had been greatly reduced by the Crusaders and by epidemics. If this were the case then the village must have disintegrated subsequently, for it does not appear among the villages recorded as paying taxes in 1596. In the late nineteenth century al-Manshiyya was once again inhabited. The village was situated on a plain, surrounded by arable land, and its houses were built of stone and mud. Its population was about 150.

At the beginning of this century the village had a square plan, and its houses (made of stone, cement, and mud) were grouped close together. Its entire population was Muslim. The village contained the shrine of Baha' Allah (whose name meant literally, 'splendor of God'). Baha' Allah was the founder of the Baha'i sect, a religion that emerged in Persia in the nineteenth century. Baha' Allah was interned in Acre by the Ottomans, at the request of the Persian government, and had died in the city in 1892. The village also had an Islamic orphanage and a mosque, called the mosque of Abu Ataba. The economy was based on agriculture, especially the cultivation of grain, and animal husbandry. In 1944/45 a total of 253 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 10,818 dunums were allotted to cereals; 619 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. Five graves were excavated in al-Manshiyya in 1955–56; the earliest dated from the thirteenth century B.C. About 1 km to the south of the village was Tall al-Fukhkhar ('mound of pottery'), where the ancient foundations of the town of Akka (Acre) were discovered in excavations beginning in 1973. A small settlement of farmers existed near the base of the tell in the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., and by the sixth century B.C. this settlement had already begun to expand westward toward the coast. The tell was the site of Acre during Greek and Roman times. In addition to pottery fragments, the tell contained the remains of cemeteries.