The Roman Colonnaded Street

Site description: The site represents a section of the Colonnaded Street of the city of Nablus during the Roman period, and the street used to pass through the city from its western gate, ending at its eastern entrance, with an extension of 1500 m. In contrast to most of the main streets (called Cardo) in the Roman cities, whose main streets were directed in a north/south direction, the direction of Nablus city street was consistent with the direction of the valley on which the city was built, taking an east/west direction. This street appeared on the mosaic map of Madaba, which dates back to the Byzantine period, but the location of this street was not known at an early date.In 1985-1986 A.D., This part of the street was discovered during excavations by the Nablus municipality to establish a Zafir Al-Masri School for Girls on the site. When some remnants of this street began to appear, construction was halted, followed by excavations that showed the site's remains.The area discovered from the street is 27 x 17 meters, and it was not possible to expand the excavations; due to the presence of modern streets in the area of the excavation, the results of the excavations revealed the current image of this street, and it was found that it underwent many architectural modifications and additions during the Byzantine and Mamluk periods. Also, most of the columns and building stones were removed from the site; to construct new buildings in the subsequent periods, but it remained on the same path that was taken in the Roman period. Therefore, they found several walls, foundations, and stone staircases that were added to the floor of the original street during the later periods.According to the standards adopted in Roman cities, the width of the street is 11.5 meters, and it was paved with limestone slabs measuring 80 x 60 cm, with a thickness of 20 cm. However, it was subjected to modification during the later periods. Most of the stone tiles are still in place, while only a small part of the Roman building stones and some Corinthian-style bases and capitals remain, and they could not detect the entire width of the street, which included shops along its sides and its total length.Among the results of these excavations was the discovery of an essential part of the water system of the Roman city of Nablus. The opening on the side of the colonnaded street from the southern side represented this. It is an opening in the street that leads to 47 stone steps with a depth of about six meters. This narrow staircase leads to a water tunnel that follows the same path as the street; it is fed with water from the three springs of the city, Ras al-Ein, al-Qurayun, and Ein Dafneh.The purpose of this opening and stairs is to maintain the tunnel and monitor the flow of water and its suitability for use, in contrast to the opening of Beir Al-Dulab (well), which was connected to this tunnel and is about 200 meters east; the function of the well was to extract water from this tunnel using ropes. Two halls were established and used as a heritage museum in 1998 A.D. between the archaeological site and the school. It remained open to visitors until 2002 A.D. when the Israeli occupation forces destroyed the museum during the city invasion.In 2018, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities rehabilitated the two halls as a tourist interpretation center.