🧿 Antipatris

Antipatris was a city built during the first century BC by Herod the Great, who named it in honour of his father, Antipater. The site, now a national park in central Israel, was inhabited from the Chalcolithic period to the Late Roman period. The remains of Antipatris are known in Modern Hebrew as Tel Afek, and in Arabic as Khulat Rās al-‘Ayn, after the nearby riverhead of the Yarkon. It has been identified as either the tower of Aphek mentioned by Josephus, or the biblical Aphek, best known from the story of the Battle of Aphek. During the Crusader period the site was known as Surdi fontes, "Silent springs". The Ottoman fortress known as Binar Bashi or Ras al-Ayn was built there in the 16th century.