Lake Ram


Lake Ram is a crater lake in the northeastern Golan Heights, near Mount Hermon, in Israel. Josephus knew it by the name Lake Phiala. The sources of the lake are rain water and an underground spring. The lake has no outlet. It is known in Hebrew as "Brekhat Ram", meaning high pool. It is also called Birket Ram, using the Arabic word for pond. The area is inhabited by the Druze community.

Geology

Most geologists believe that the lake formed inside the crater of an extinct volcano.

Archaeology

During excavations evidence was discovered of Palaeolithic human and hominid activity. Most notably, excavation led to the discovery of the Venus of Berekhat Ram, a pebble allegedly worked by Homo erectus. The artefact has been claimed to be the oldest known example of representational art in the world. The pebble was found in a context datable to at least 230,000 years before present time, thus to the early Middle Palaeolithic. The claim that it is the earliest manifestation of human art is contested on multiple grounds.
The site has been excavated for evidence of human activity during its history. Research on lacustrine sediments at the site concluded that the area has been heavily settled four times over history, first during the early Bronze Age, secondly during the Hellenistic and Roman–Byzantine periods, thirdly during the period of medieval Crusader rule, and finally in modern times. Between these periods the area became overgrown as local woodland regenerated, evidencing phases of low human occupation.

Legends

According to The Talmud, Sanhedrin 108a, Brekhat Ram is one of three underground springs, along with Hamat Gader in the southeastern Golan Heights and Hamat Tiberias, that opened up in the Flood of Noah and didn't close up again after the flood.
In a local Druze legend the lake is the "eye" of the "sheikh's wife", the name for a hill nearby. Mount Hermon, referred to as the sheikh himself, is supposed to have been separated from the "wife", whereupon her eye filled with tears.