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Thursday, February 10, 2011

More British Building Ruins, and the Discovery of Rubber Stores



Today we discovered the remains of two previously unidentified British buildings and classified an entirely different type of building, unlike the Stonehenge Sheds.

First of all, we identified the remains of site 32 on the attached map (which shows the Ras el Ein base overlaying the current map of Rosh Ha'ayin). All that remains of this building is a concrete platform with a brick apron around it. On the Ras el Ein map it is labeled S.16, meaning it was formerly a Stonehenge Shed. We do not know when this building was leveled. It is one of two sites that we have found in which only a platform remains. (The other is site 31, or site #95 in Sasson's list).
More excitingly, we identified a British building north of the current city limits of Rosh Ha'ayin, along Highway 5. This confirms our belief that Highway 5 runs along the route of the former Ras el Ein road. This building is in quite poor shape, though it is still being actively used as a garage and seems to have undergone minimal alterations.
What surprised us most about this building was that it did not have the iconic curved profile that the Stonehenge Sheds have. At first we thought this building's roof may have been altered, but upon further consideration we felt it was original. Then it occurred to us - perhaps this building was labeled differently on the Ras el Ein map? Sure enough, instead of having an S.x number, it is labeled R.3. According to the key, this makes it a former Rubber Store, and it makes sense that this building looks different that the others.

Once we had this piece of information, we realized that we had seen another building with a similar design - site 29 on the map. When we rechecked the Ras el Ein map, we noticed that this building was also labeled as a Rubber Store - R.2. (site #93 on Sasson' list). Thus we feel we have convincingly shown that a third type of building existed in Ras el Ein - the Rubber Storage building. It should be noted that there were two other R buildings on the map - R.4 next to R.3, which we did not see and may have been demolished, and another that once stood on Mantzura Street- site 11 on the map, or R.1 on the British Map. We will have to recheck this neighborhood to see if it is still standing.

2 comments:

  1. יפה ומעניין. מזמן היה חשד שתוואי כביש 5 קשור לכבישי המחנה הבריטי.
    הפתעה של ממש תהיה אם תצליחו למצוא שרידים של הסתעפות פסי הרכבת שנכנסו לתוך המחנה, תוואי אשר יצר את רחוב העבודה של היום. אולי יש משהו באחת מחצרות המפעלים שם....

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  2. It's possible that something remains, but I would guess that there aren't any remains, because on the 1958 map it says the spur going into the city was being dismantled.

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