al-Sumayriyya (السميرية)

Place

Museum of the Palestinian People (MPP)

Place Name

Place Description

al-Sumayriyya was a historic Palestinian village in the Acre subdistrict of the western Galilee, situated approximately 6 km north of Acre on a sandstone hill near the Mediterranean coast. The village was connected to Acre and Ra's al-Naqura, and ultimately Beirut, by the coastal highway, while the al-Kabri canal ran west of the village toward Acre; nearby were historic aqueducts and the wadis of al-Majnuna and Tall al-Zuhur. The village had been inhabited since antiquity and may have been known as Katasir in the Canaanite period and Someleria under the Crusaders. By the late nineteenth century, it was surrounded by olive and fig trees and arable land, and by 1944/45 its 760 inhabitants cultivated 6,854 dunums of cereals, 632 dunums of citrus and bananas, and 354 dunums of irrigated or orchard land. The village also had a mosque, a boys' elementary school established in 1943, two archaeological sites, and several stone quarries.