Tel Beersheva National Park
Traditionally associated with the biblical patriarch Abraham, Tel Beersheva contains the ruins of nine successive settlements, and because of the site's significance for the study of biblical-period urban planning, UNESCO has recognized it as a World Heritage Site. Archaeologists have uncovered two-thirds of a city dating from the early Israelite period (10th century BC). A fine example of a circular layout typical of the Iron Age, the planned city has sophisticated waterworks, as well as a fascinating reconstructed horned altar, and is believed to have been destroyed around 706 BC by Sennacherib of Assyria. At the northeastern end, outside the 3,000-year-old city gate, is a huge well (the deepest in Israel), which apparently once reached groundwater 90 feet below. It served the city from its earliest times, and scholars speculate that it could be the well that is documented in the Bible as Abraham's Well (Genesis 21:22–32). The observation tower is rather ugly, but it does afford beautiful views.
