ABSTRACT
If one looks at ancient maps of the Levant or even at more recent ones of Palestine from the British Mandate Period, a large body of water called Lake Hula or the Hula Swamp is clearly visible in the region north of the Sea of Galilee. The Hula Valley is 25 km long and 7 km wide, bordered by the Golan Heights on its eastern side and the Levant highlands on the west, and at one time it contained a shallow lake and wetland complex with a surface area of 60 km2 (Dimentman, Bromley, and Por 1992; Hambright and Zohary 1998) Similar to the Iraqi marshlands, Lake Hula is a snow-fed system, in this case beginning in the Lebanese mountains to the north. The extensive marshlands owe their origin to the presence of a large basalt plug situated about 30 km north of the Sea of Galilee which served to back up the southward ow of the Jordan River (Hambright and Zohary 1998).
