ABSTRACT
In 1837 a major earthquake destroyed a third of the structures of the Old City of Safed, Upper Galilee, Israel. A structural survey found that "strange longitudinal" wooden beams had been inserted in the exterior walls of some of the city's rebuilt historic buildings. One of the important building details is the existence of a narrow longitudinal wooden beams inserted in the exterior section of the external stone wall. This was subsequently identified in other buildings in Old Acre and in other historic towns and villages in the Upper Galilee region. The wooden beams are always inserted in the main façade of the exterior wall. The wooden beam is always in the cut stone exterior leaf and not in the rubble stone interior-facing section, and its width is never greater than the wall thickness. The beams have been inserted in an area with a concentration of rebuilt buildings, especially in the destroyed Old Jewish Quarter.
