Ein Gedi Nature Reserve
Interesting facts
- A charred scroll found in the synagogue in 1970 was read in 2015 with digital scanning, without unrolling it, and turned out to hold the Book of Leviticus.
- That scroll is the earliest copy of a book of the Torah ever found in a synagogue's Torah ark, and its text matches the later standard Hebrew Bible.
- Its name means spring of the kid, a young goat, and the Bible also calls the place Hazazon Tamar, the portion of land with date palms.
- The Roman writer Pliny the Elder ranked Ein Gedi second only to Jerusalem for the fertility of its soil and its date palm groves.
- After Jerusalem fell in 70 CE, the oasis's prized balsam plantations were taken over directly by the Roman imperial treasury.
- During the Bar Kokhba revolt, residents fled to the Cave of Letters about 6 km away, taking their house keys, documents and everyday vessels with them.
- When the village was finally destroyed, knowledge of growing balsam around the Dead Sea seems to have vanished with its refugees.
- Besides resident species, more than 200 kinds of migrating birds pass through the reserve in spring and autumn.
- The vegetation mixes plants from tropical, desert, Mediterranean and steppe zones, including the Sodom apple, acacia and jujube.
- The reserve also holds two water-powered flour mills from the Mamluk period and the mound of Tel Goren, with remains from the Iron Age.
Why it is worth it
Ein Gedi is a burst of green on the bare, cliff-bound western shore of the Dead Sea. Two canyons, Nahal David and Nahal Arugot, cut down from the Judean Desert plateau to the shore, and the springs that feed them — together producing around three million cubic metres of water a year — sustain waterfalls, pools, reeds, acacias, jujube and poplar in a landscape that is otherwise rock and salt. The reserve falls from about 200 metres above sea level on the plateau to the Dead Sea itself, more than 400 metres below it, so that its oasis lies near the lowest point of dry land on earth.
The walk up Nahal David is the classic introduction: a path along the stream through shady vegetation to a series of cascades, ending at David's Falls dropping into a pool beneath the cliff. Nubian ibex move with startling ease over the rock faces, and rock hyraxes bask on the boulders by the path. The Arugot canyon is wilder and longer, its stream running between tall walls of pale stone.
People have valued this water for thousands of years. Above the springs stand the remains of a Chalcolithic temple more than 5,000 years old. The Bible places David here hiding from Saul, and the Song of Songs speaks of henna blossom "in the vineyards of En-gedi". In Roman and Byzantine times the village grew rich on balsam, a precious perfume and medicine. The mosaic floor of its ancient synagogue carries a long inscription that, among other things, lays a curse on anyone who reveals "the secret of the town" — very likely the method of producing that balsam.
The nature reserve was established in 1971 and enlarged in 1988, and it covers some 14 square kilometres.
Getting there
Ein Gedi lies on the road along the western shore of the Dead Sea. The nearest Israeli town is Arad, about 29 km away as the crow flies (further by road via the Dead Sea shore). Bus 486 runs from Jerusalem in about an hour and a quarter. Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) is about 77 km away in a straight line, with the road route running via Jerusalem. Masada lies a short drive to the south along the same road.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Dead Sea 10.4 km · lake
- Masada 17.2 km · fortress
- Wadi Mujib 17.0 km · gorge
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Ein Gedi, also spelled En Gedi, meaning "spring of the kid", is an oasis and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. Ein Gedi is a popular tourist attraction and was listed in 2016 as one of the most popular nature sites in Israel. The site attracts about one million visitors a year.
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