Acre lies at the northern end of
a wide bay with
Mount Carmel at the south. It is the best natural
roadstead on the southern
Phoenician coast and has easy access to the
Valley of Jezreel. It was settled early and has always been important for the fleets of kingdoms and empires contesting the area, serving as the main port for the entire southern Levant up to the modern era. The ancient town was located atop
Tel ʿAkkō (Hebrew) or Tell al-Fuḫḫār (Arabic), east of the present city
Middle Bronze Age Acre was resettled as an urban centre during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA, –1550BC) and has been continuously inhabited since then. Excavations of Tel ʿAkkō have shown that this period of Acre involved industrial production of pottery, metal, and other trade goods.
Iron Age Acre continued as a
Phoenician city and was referenced as a
Phoenician city by the
Assyrians.
Josephus, however, claimed it as a province of the
Kingdom of Israel under
Solomon. Around 725BC, Acre joined
Sidon and
Tyre in a revolt against the
Neo-Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser V. After
Alexander's death,
his main generals divided his empire among themselves. At first, the
Egyptian Ptolemies held the land around Acre.
PtolemyII renamed the city Ptolemais in his own and his father's honour in the 260sBC. conquered the town for the
Syrian Seleucids in 200BC. In the late 170s or early 160sBC,
AntiochusIV founded a Greek colony in the town, which he named Antioch after himself. About 165BC
Judas Maccabeus defeated the Seleucids in several battles in
Galilee, and drove them into Ptolemais. About 153BC
Alexander Balas, son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, contesting the Seleucid crown with
Demetrius, seized the city, which opened its gates to him. Demetrius offered many bribes to the
Maccabees to obtain Jewish support against his rival, including the revenues of Ptolemais for the benefit of the
Temple in Jerusalem, but in vain.
Jonathan Apphus threw in his lot with Alexander; Alexander and Demetrius met in battle and the latter was killed. In 150BC Alexander received Jonathan with great honour in Ptolemais. Some years later, however, Tryphon, an officer of the
Seleucid Empire, who had grown suspicious of the Maccabees, enticed Jonathan into Ptolemais and there treacherously took him prisoner. The city was captured by
Alexander Jannaeus (ruled –76BC),
Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55BC), and
Cleopatra (r. 51–30BC). Here
Herod the Great (r. 37–4BC) built a
gymnasium.
Roman colony Around 37 BC, the Romans conquered the Hellenized Phoenician port-city called Akko. It became a colony in southern
Roman Phoenicia, called
Colonia Claudia Felix Ptolemais Garmanica Stabilis. During the
Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), Acre functioned as a staging point for both
Cestius's and
Vespasian's campaigns to suppress the revolt in
Judaea. The city was a center of
Romanization in the region, but most of the population was made of local Phoenicians and Jews: as a consequence after the
Hadrian times the descendants of the initial Roman colonists no longer spoke
Latin and had become fully assimilated in less than two centuries (however the local society's customs were Roman). An important Roman colony ('''') was established at the city that greatly increased the control of the region by the Romans over the next century with Roman colonists translated there from
Italy. The Romans enlarged the port and the city grew to more than 20,000 inhabitants in the second century under emperor
Hadrian. Ptolemais greatly flourished for two more centuries.
Byzantine period After the permanent division of the
Roman Empire in 395 AD, Ptolemais was administered by the successor state, the
Byzantine Empire. The city started to lose importance and in the seventh century was reduced to a small settlement of less than one thousand inhabitants.
Early Islamic period Following the defeat of the
Byzantine army of
Heraclius by the
Rashidun army of
Khalid ibn al-Walid in the
Battle of Yarmouk, and the capitulation of the Christian city of Jerusalem to the Caliph
Umar, Acre came under the rule of the
Rashidun Caliphate beginning in 638. The
Arab conquest brought a revival to the town of Acre, and it served as the main port of Palestine through the
Umayyad and
Abbasid Caliphates that followed, and through Crusader rule into the 13th century. During the 10th century, Acre was still part of Jund al-Urdunn. Local Arab geographer
al-Muqaddasi visited Acre during the early
Fatimid Caliphate in 985, describing it as a fortified coastal city with a large
mosque possessing a substantial
olive grove. Fortifications had been previously built by the autonomous Emir
Ibn Tulun of Egypt, who annexed the city in the 870s, and provided relative safety for merchant ships arriving at the city's port. When Persian traveller
Nasir Khusraw visited Acre in 1047, he noted that the large
Jama Masjid was built of
marble, located in the centre of the city and just south of it lay the "tomb of the Prophet
Salih." Khusraw provided a description of the city's size, which roughly translated as having a length of and a width of . This figure indicates that Acre at that time was larger than its current Old City area, most of which was built between the 18th and 19th centuries. Its function was to provide Crusaders with a foothold in the region and access to vibrant trade that made them prosperous, especially giving them access to the Asiatic spice trade. By the 1130s it had a population of around 25,000 and was only matched for size in the Crusader kingdom by the city of Jerusalem. Around 1170 it became the main port of the eastern Mediterranean, and the kingdom of Jerusalem was regarded in the west as enormously wealthy above all because of Acre. According to an English contemporary, it provided more for the Crusader crown than the total revenues of the king of England. Its commercial prominence under Crusader rule seems to have attracted Jewish immigrants, including scholars from Europe. By the late 13th century, sources suggest that the Jewish community in Acre may have accumulated enough wealth to own slaves. In 1232, as a result of the inter-Christian
War of the Lombards between the local barons and
Emperor Frederick II, Acre organised itself as a
commune under the mayorship of
John of Ibelin. The old part of the city, where the port and fortified city were located, protrudes from the coastline, exposing both sides of the narrow piece of land to the sea. This could maximize its efficiency as a port, and the narrow entrance to this protrusion served as a natural and easy defense to the city. Both the archaeological record and Crusader texts emphasize Acre's strategic importance—a city in which it was crucial to pass through, control, and, as evidenced by the massive walls, protect. Acre was the final major stronghold of the Crusader states when much of the Levantine coastline was conquered by
Mamluk forces. Acre itself fell to Sultan
Al-Ashraf Khalil in
1291.
Mamluk period (1291–1517) Acre, having been isolated and largely abandoned by Europe, was conquered by Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil in
a bloody siege in 1291. In line with Mamluk policy regarding the coastal cities (to prevent their future utilization by Crusader forces), Acre was entirely destroyed, with the exception of a few religious edifices considered sacred by the Muslims, namely the Nabi Salih tomb and the Ayn Bakar spring. The destruction of the city led to popular Arabic sayings in the region enshrining its past glory. Throughout the Mamluk era (1260–1517), Acre was succeeded by
Safed as the principal city of its province. English academic
Henry Maundrell in 1697 found it a ruin, The
khan was named Khan al-Ilfranj after its French founders. During Ottoman rule, Acre continued to play an important role in the region via smaller autonomous sheikhdoms. Jazzar's improvements were accomplished through heavy imposts secured for himself all the benefits derived from his improvements. About 1780, Jazzar peremptorily banished the French trading colony, in spite of protests from the French government, and refused to receive a consul. Both Daher and Jazzar undertook ambitious architectural projects in the city, building several caravanserais, mosques, public baths and other structures. Some of the notable works included the
Al-Jazzar Mosque, which was built out of stones from the ancient ruins of
Caesarea and
Atlit and the
Khan al-Umdan, both built on Jazzar's orders. In 1799
Napoleon, in pursuance of his scheme for raising a Syrian rebellion against Turkish domination, appeared before Acre, but after a
siege of two months (March–May) was repulsed by the Turks, aided by Sir
Sidney Smith and a force of British sailors. Having lost his siege cannons to Smith, Napoleon attempted to lay siege to the walled city defended by Ottoman troops on 20 March 1799, using only his infantry and small-calibre cannons, a strategy which failed, leading to his retreat two months later on 21 May. Jazzar was succeeded on his death by his
mamluk,
Sulayman Pasha al-Adil, under whose milder rule the town advanced in prosperity till his death in 1819. After his death,
Haim Farhi, who was his adviser, paid a huge sum in bribes to assure that
Abdullah Pasha (son of Ali Pasha, the deputy of Sulayman Pasha), whom he had known from youth, will be appointed as ruler—which didn't stop the new ruler from assassinating Farhi. Abdullah Pasha ruled Acre until 1831, when
Ibrahim Pasha besieged and reduced the town and destroyed its buildings. During the
Oriental Crisis of 1840, the city was bombarded on 4 November 1840 by the allied British, Austrian, and French squadrons, and, in the following year, it was restored to Turkish rule. It regained some of its former prosperity after linking with the
Hejaz Railway by a branch line from
Haifa in 1913. According to the
Ottoman population statistics of 1914, Akka had a total population of 40,852 people, consisting of 31,800 Muslims, 4,316
Catholic Greeks, 3,959
Orthodox Greeks, 332
Protestants, 268
Latins, 106
Jews, 67
Maronites and 4
Armenians. It was the capital of the Akka Sanjak in the
Beirut Vilayet until the British captured the city on 23 September 1918 during
World War I. The
1931 census counted 7,897 people in Acre, 6,076 Muslims, 1,523 Christians, 237 Jews, 51 Baháʼí, and 10 Druze. In the
1945 census Acre's population numbered 12,360; 9,890 Muslims, 2,330 Christians, 50 Jews and 90 classified as "other".
Acre's fort was converted into a jail, where members of the Jewish underground were held during their struggle against the Mandate authorities, among them
Ze'ev Jabotinsky,
Shlomo Ben-Yosef, and
Dov Gruner. Gruner and Ben-Yosef were executed there. Other Jewish inmates were freed by members of the
Irgun, who
broke into the jail on 4 May 1947 and succeeded in releasing Jewish underground movement activists. Over 200 Arab inmates also escaped.
1948 Palestine War In the 1947
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Acre was designated part of a future
Arab state. On 18 March 4 technicians from the Palestine Electric Company and five British soldiers in their escort were killed while travelling to mend a cable in an RAF camp, when an Arab ambush exploded a mine on the route just outside the Moslem cemetery east of Acre. The Haganah responded by blowing up a bridge outside the city and derailing a train. Before the
1948 Arab–Israeli War broke out, the
Carmeli Brigade's 21 Battalion commander had repeatedly damaged the
Al-Kabri aqueduct that furnished Acre with water, and when Arab repairs managed to restore water supply, then resorted to pouring flasks of
typhoid and
dysentery bacteria into the aqueduct, as part of a
biological warfare programme called
Operation Cast Thy Bread. At some time in late April or early May 1948, Jewish forces cut the town's electricity supply responsible for pumping water, and a typhoid epidemic broke out. Israeli officials later credited the facility with which they conquered the town in part to the effects of the demoralization induced by the epidemic. Israel's Carmeli forces attacked on May 16 and, after an ultimatum was delivered that, unless the inhabitants surrendered, 'we will destroy you to the last man and utterly,' the town notables signed an instrument of surrender on the night between 17 and 18 May 1948. Sixty (60) bodies were found and about three-quarters of the Arab population of the city (13,510 of 17,395) were displaced.. He devoted himself to organizing the municipal services and worked to improve the situation of new immigrants and Arab residents. To promote coexistence in the City, Noy encouraged Arabs to run for municipal council and instituted the practice of electing a deputy mayor from the Arab inhabitants. During his term, the first new neighborhoods were established, and the beginning of the development of
Kfar Ata was laid. The old city of Akko remained largely Arab Muslim (including several Bedouin families), with an Arab Christian neighbourhood in close proximity. The city also attracted worshippers of the
Baháʼí Faith, some of whom became permanent residents in the city, where the Baháʼí
Mansion of Bahjí is located. Acre has also served as a base for important events in Baháʼí history, including being the birthplace of
Shoghi Effendi, and the short-lived schism between Baháʼís initiated by the attacks by
Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí against ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Baháʼís have since commemorated various events that have occurred in the city, including the imprisonment of
Baháʼu'lláh. In the 1990s, the city absorbed thousands of Jews who immigrated from the former Soviet Union. Within several years, however, the population balance between Jews and Arabs shifted backwards, as northern neighbourhoods were abandoned by many of its Jewish residents in favour of new housing projects in nearby
Nahariya, while many Muslim Arabs moved in (largely coming from nearby Arab villages). Nevertheless, the city still has a clear Jewish majority; in 2011, the population of 46,000 included 30,000 Jews and 14,000 Arabs. Ethnic tensions erupted in the city on 8 October 2008 after an Arab citizen drove through a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood during
Yom Kippur, leading to five days of violence between Arabs and Jews. In 2009, the population of Acre reached 46,300. In 2018
Shimon Lankri was re-elected mayor with 85% of the vote. ==Archaeology==