Rehovot-in-the-Negev

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Rehovot-in-the-Negev

רחובות בנגב‎ 'Rehovot ba-Negev' (Hebrew) 'Khirbet Ruheibeh' (Arabic)
Shown within Israel
Location	Southern District, Israel
Region	central Negev
Coordinates	31°01′54″N 34°33′54″E / 31.0317°N 34.5650°E / 31.0317; 34.5650
Type	Settlement
History
Founded	1st century
Abandoned	7th century
Cultures	Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine
Site notes
Archaeologists	Yoram Tsafrir
Condition	In ruins
Public access	Yes

Rehovot-in-the-Negev (English), from Rehovot ba-Negev [he] (רחובות בנגב, modern Hebrew name), derived from Khirbet Ruheibeh (Arabic, 'Ruheibeh Ruins'), is an archaeological site in the Wadi er-Ruheibeh area of the central Negev in Israel,^[1] containing the remains of an ancient town. Apparently founded in the first century CE by the Nabateans, it was a thriving city by the fifth century during the Byzantine period, when it grew to more than 10,000 inhabitants, thanks to its being on the Arabian incense trade route.^{[citation needed]}

By population, Rehovot-in-the-Negev was the second largest of the Byzantine-period "Negev towns".^[2]

The city was repeatedly hit by earthquakes, the major 7th-century seismic event which destroyed Avdat also leading to the abandonment of this city.^[3]

Easton's Bible Dictionary, published in 1893-97, tentatively associated the well dug by Isaac in Gerar and called by him Rehoboth (see Genesis 26:22) with a site "in Wady er-Ruheibeh, some 20 miles south of Beersheba."^[4] Modern archaeology, however, dismisses the identification of Ruheibeh (Rehovot-in-the-Negev) with Isaac's Rehoboth, because the site contains no remains older than the Roman period.^[1]

• Rehoboth (disambiguation)