Neolithic and Chalcolithic The first occupation dates to the
Neolithic in the Near East and is associated with the
Lodian culture. Occupation continued in the
Levant Chalcolithic. Pottery finds have dated the initial settlement in the area now occupied by the town to 5600–5250 BCE.
Early Bronze In the Early Bronze, it was an important settlement in the central coastal plain between the Judean Shephelah and the Mediterranean coast, along Nahal Ayalon. Other important nearby sites were Tel Dalit, Tel Bareqet, Khirbat Abu Hamid (Shoham North),
Tel Afeq,
Azor and
Jaffa. Two architectural phases belong to the late EB I in Area B. The first phase had a mudbrick wall, while the late phase included a circulat stone structure. Later excavations have produced an occupation later, Stratum IV. Occupation continued into Early Bronze II with four strata (V-II). There was continuity in the material culture and indications of centralized urban planning.
Middle Bronze North to the tell were scattered MB II burials.
Late Bronze The earliest written record is in a list of
Canaanite towns drawn up by the
Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III at
Karnak in
1465 BCE.
Classical era From the fifth century BCE until the
Roman period, the city was a centre of Jewish scholarship and commerce. According to British historian
Martin Gilbert, during the
Hasmonean period,
Jonathan Maccabee and his brother,
Simon Maccabaeus, enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering the city.
Roman era , 8th century CE The Jewish community in Lod during the Mishnah and Talmud era is described in a significant number of sources, including information on its institutions, demographics, and way of life. The city reached its height as a Jewish center between the
First Jewish-Roman War and the
Bar Kokhba revolt, and again in the days of
Judah ha-Nasi and the start of the
Amoraim period. The city was then the site of numerous public institutions, including schools, study houses, and synagogues. During the First Jewish–Roman War, the Roman
proconsul of Syria,
Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to
Jerusalem in
Tishrei 66 CE. According to Josephus, "[he] found the city deserted, for the entire population had
gone up to Jerusalem for the
Feast of Tabernacles. He killed fifty people whom he found, burned the town and marched on". Lydda was occupied by Emperor
Vespasian in 68 CE. In the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE,
Rabbi Tarfon, who appears in many Tannaitic and Jewish legal discussions, served as a rabbinic authority in Lod. During the
Kitos War, 115–117 CE, the Roman army laid siege to Lod, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappos. Torah study was outlawed by the Romans and pursued mostly in the underground. The distress became so great, the patriarch Rabban
Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterwards, permitted fasting on
Ḥanukkah. Other rabbis disagreed with this ruling. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda" are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. In 200 CE, emperor
Septimius Severus elevated the town to the status of a city, calling it
Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. The name
Diospolis ("City of Zeus") may have been bestowed earlier, possibly by Hadrian. At that point, most of its inhabitants were
Christian. The earliest known
bishop is Aëtius, a friend of
Arius. after
St. George, a soldier in the guard of the emperor
Diocletian, who was born there between 256 and 285 CE. The
Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr is named for him. An isolated large building with a semicircular colonnaded plaza in front of it might represent the St George shrine.
Early Muslim period After the
Muslim conquest of Palestine by
Amr ibn al-'As in 636 CE, Lod which was referred to as "al-Ludd" in
Arabic served as the capital of
Jund Filastin ("Military District of Palaestina") before the seat of power was moved to nearby
Ramla during the reign of the
Umayyad Caliph
Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik in 715–716. The population of al-Ludd was relocated to Ramla, as well. With the relocation of its inhabitants and the construction of the
White Mosque in Ramla, al-Ludd lost its importance and fell into decay. The city was visited by the local Arab geographer
al-Muqaddasi in 985, when it was under the
Fatimid Caliphate, and was noted for its Great Mosque which served the residents of al-Ludd, Ramla, and the nearby villages. He also wrote of the city's "wonderful church (of St. George) at the gate of which Christ will slay the
Antichrist."
Crusader and Ayyubid period The
Crusaders occupied the city in 1099 and named it St Jorge de Lidde. and it remains a
titular see. It owed the service of 10 knights and 20 sergeants, and it had its own burgess court during this era. In 1226, Ayyubid Syrian geographer
Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Ludd and stated it was part of the Jerusalem District during
Ayyubid rule.
Mamluk period , 1487 Sultan
Baybars brought Lydda again under Muslim control by 1267–8. According to
Qalqashandi, Lydda was an administrative centre of a
wilaya during the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the
Mamluk empire. During this time, Lydda was a station on the
postal route between Cairo and Damascus.
Ottoman period In 1517, Lydda was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire as part of the
Damascus Eyalet, and in the 1550s, the revenues of Lydda were designated for the new
waqf of
Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (
Roxelana), the wife of
Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1596 Lydda was a part of the
nahiya ("subdistrict") of
Ramla, which was under the administration of the
liwa ("district") of
Gaza. It had a population of 241 households and 14 bachelors who were all Muslims, and 233 households who were Christians. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, special product ("dawalib" =spinning wheels In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of
al-Sawālima from around
Jaffa attacked the villages of
Subṭāra,
Bayt Dajan,
al-Sāfiriya,
Jindās, Lydda and
Yāzūr belonging to
Waqf Haseki Sultan. The village appeared as
Lydda, though misplaced, on the map of
Pierre Jacotin compiled in
1799. Missionary
William M. Thomson visited Lydda in the mid-19th century, describing it as a "flourishing village of some 2,000 inhabitants, imbosomed in noble orchards of
olive,
fig,
pomegranate,
mulberry,
sycamore, and other trees, surrounded every way by a very fertile neighbourhood. The inhabitants are evidently industrious and thriving, and the whole country between this and Ramleh is fast being filled up with their flourishing orchards. Rarely have I beheld a rural scene more delightful than this presented in early harvest ... It must be seen, heard, and enjoyed to be appreciated." In 1869, the population of Ludd was given as: 55 Catholics, 1,940 "Greeks", 5 Protestants and 4,850 Muslims. In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish merchants migrated to the city, but left after the
1921 Jaffa riots.
British Mandate From 1918, Lydda was under the administration of the
British Mandate in Palestine, as per a
League of Nations decree that followed the
Great War. During the
Second World War, the British set up supply posts in and around Lydda and its railway station, also building an airport that was renamed
Ben Gurion Airport after the death of Israel's first prime minister in 1973. At the time of the
1922 census of Palestine, Lydda had a population of 8,103 inhabitants (7,166 Muslims, 926 Christians, and 11 Jews), the Christians were 921 Orthodox, 4 Roman Catholics and 1
Melkite. This had increased by the
1931 census to 11,250 (10,002 Muslims, 1,210 Christians, 28 Jews, and 10 Bahai), in a total of 2475 residential houses. In 1938, Lydda had a population of 12,750. In 1945, Lydda had a population of 16,780 (14,910 Muslims, 1,840 Christians, 20 Jews and 10 "other"). Until 1948, Lydda was an Arab town with a population of around 20,000—18,500 Muslims and 1,500 Christians. In the
ensuing war, Israel captured Arab towns outside the area the UN had allotted it, including Lydda. In December 1947, thirteen Jewish passengers in a seven-car convoy to
Ben Shemen Youth Village were ambushed and murdered.
State of Israel The
Israel Defense Forces entered Lydda on 11 July 1948. The following day, under the impression that it was under attack, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to shoot anyone "seen on the streets". According to Israel, 250 Arabs were killed. Other estimates are higher: Arab historian
Aref al Aref estimated 400, and
Nimr al Khatib 1,700. In 1948, the population rose to 50,000 during the
Nakba, as
Arab refugees fleeing other areas made their way there. to 1,056 The town was subsequently
sacked by the Israeli army. Some scholars, including
Ilan Pappé, characterize this as
ethnic cleansing. The few hundred Arabs who remained in the city were soon outnumbered by the influx of Jews who
immigrated to Lod from August 1948 onward, most of them from Arab countries. After the establishment of the state, the biblical name Lod was readopted. File:Lod 7 dec 1948.jpg|Lydda five months after Operation Danny. December 1948. File:LyddaOldCity.png|Lydda, 1948 File:Lydda church.jpg|
Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr, after the battle. 1948 File:Lydda mosque.jpg|Palmach 3 inch mortar in front of Lydda mosque. 1948 File: Lydda Mandate Police HQ.jpg The Jewish immigrants who settled Lod came in waves,
first from
Morocco and
Tunisia, later from
Ethiopia, and then from the former
Soviet Union. Since 2008, many urban development projects have been undertaken to improve the image of the city. Upscale neighbourhoods have been built, among them Ganei Ya'ar and Ahisemah, expanding the city to the east. According to a 2010 report in the
Economist, a three-meter-high wall was built between Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods and construction in Jewish areas was given priority over construction in Arab neighborhoods. The newspaper says that violent crime in the Arab sector revolves mainly around family feuds over turf and honour crimes. In 2010, the Lod Community Foundation organised an event for representatives of bicultural youth movements, volunteer aid organisations, educational start-ups, businessmen, sports organizations, and conservationists working on programmes to better the city. in Lod, 11 May 2021 In the
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a state of emergency was declared in Lod after Arab rioting led to the death of an Israeli Jew. The Mayor of Lod, Yair Revivio, urged
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to deploy
Israel Border Police to restore order in the city. This was the first time since 1966 that Israel had declared this kind of emergency lockdown. International media noted that both Jewish and Palestinian mobs were active in Lod, but the "crackdown came for one side" only. ==Demographics==