Er-Ramthaniyye رﻣﺴﺎﻧﻴﺔ or اﻟﺮﻣﺜﺎﻧﻴﺔ | |
|---|---|
Village | |
 Ruins at Er-Ramthaniyye | |
  Er-Ramthaniyye | |
| Coordinates: 33°1′18″N35°48′20″E / 33.02167°N 35.80556°E | |
| Country |  Syria |
| Governorate | Quneitra |
| District | Quneitra |
| Region | Golan Heights |
| Destroyed | 1967 |
| Population | |
• Total | 1,304 |
Er-Ramthaniyye (Arabic : رﻣﺴﺎﻧﻴﺔ or اﻟﺮﻣﺜﺎﻧﻴﺔ), [1] or Ramsaniyye is a former Syrian village located in the Golan Heights. [2]
In CE 377, a sanctuary for John the Baptist was established inside a monastery at Er-Ramathiniyye. [3] The sanctuary was often visited by Ghassanids, [4] and the village held annual celebrations for the saint. [5]
Ramthaniyye was inhabited by Christians in the Roman and Byzantine eras. [6] Excavations have revealed a chapel, burial cave and sherds from the Late Roman era. [7] Christian Greek inscriptions and tombstones from the Byzantine period with Greek inscriptions have also been discovered. [8] No remains from other religious groups have been found. [6]
The village was inhabited during the Ottoman era as a winter village. [9] Transhumance shaped settlement in the Golan for centuries because of its harsh winters. The winters "forced tribespeople until the 19th century to live in hundreds of rudimentary 'winter villages' in their tribal territory. Starting in the second part of the 19th century, villages became "fixed and formed the nucleus of fully sedentary life in the 20th century Golan." [10]
Gottlieb Schumacher visited the site in the 1880s and documented crosses, ornaments and Greek inscriptions. [11] : 231–235 Schumacher noted that the Sabarjah, a branch of the Nu'aym tribe, had 25 tents pitched around the village. [11] : 90
After Israel occupied the area in the Six-Day War, they began destroying Syrian villages in the Golan Heights. [12] [13] Ramthaniyye was destroyed in 1967. [14] The population before the war was 1304. [14]
