Five graves were excavated in al-Manshiyya in 1955–56; the earliest dated from the thirteenth century BC. It is probably it
Richard Pococke refers to when he passed by in 1738: "On the highest ground of it are the ruins of a very strong square tower, and near it, is a mosque, a tower, and other great buildings; the place is called
Abouotidy, from a
Sheik who was buried there." In 1760,
:it:Giovanni Mariti called the place
Bahattbe: "situated on a small eminence, which contains the ruins of an ancient temple, employed as a place of worship both by the Turks and Christians, but at different periods. Some paces further is a mosque, remarkable on account of its burying-ground, in which was interred a prodigious number of infidels, who perished under the walls of Acre." A map from 1799 showed the place as an "uninhabited ruin", while
Guérin, who visited in 1875, observed that the village is "newly founded". In 1881, the
PEF's
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the village of Al-Manshiyya as being situated on a plain, surrounded by arable land, with houses built of stone and
adobe. It had a population of about 150. A population list from about 1887 showed that
Kiryet el Menshiyeh had about 400 inhabitants, all Muslim.
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities Al Manshiyeh had a population of 371; all Muslims, increasing in the
1931 census to 460, still all Muslims, in a total of 132 houses. In the
1945 statistics, Al-Manshiyya had 810 Muslim inhabitants and 270 Jewish inhabitants, while 27 dunams were built-up (urban) land.
1948 and aftermath The villagers, who were farmers, lived peacefully and had significant interaction with their Jewish neighbors. But the fighting in
Acre, and later, the
Deir Yassin massacre, frightened them. The village was first drawn into the
1948 Arab–Israeli War on 6 February 1948. On that day a number of armed Jews, using automatic weapons and
Sten guns, attacked the village. They were driven back by village defenders. Manshiyya was captured by on 14 May 1948 during
Operation Ben-Ami. One villager recalled that the dawn attack came from the hill overlooking the village. The villagers, "with bullets whizzing over their heads", ran towards the east "because all other sides were surrounded by the Jews". When they returned to remove the dead bodies, they found the village strewn with
mines. One former villager recounted that her father returned to Al-Manshiyya about 10 days after the attack and found it had been razed. On 16 June 1948,
David Ben-Gurion mentioned Manshiyya as one of the villages
Israel had destroyed. Following the war the area was incorporated into the
State of Israel. Two new villages,
Shomrat and
Bustan HaGalil, were established in 1948 on village land, north of the village site. The site is now part of the city of Acre. Andrew Petersen, an archaeologist specializing in
Islamic architecture, visited Al-Manshiyya in 1994. He found the mosque and shrine of Abu Atabi was still standing, though it has been turned into a residential complex since 1948. The prayer room functioned as a living room. An inscription in two parts was set above the doorway leading to the
domed chamber containing the tomb. The date 1140 H (1727–28 C.E.) was still visible in the upper part, while the lower part, written in larger ornamental script might be earlier, possibly dating to
Mamluk times. Abu Atabi is said locally to be a Muslim warrior from the time of the
Crusades, killed during the
siege of Acre. ==References==