Dam Nahal Tanninim

This is a view of the old Dam at the Nahal Tanninim (also Taninim; Crocodile Stream).  It is located about 2.6 mi. north northeast of Caesarea.  The Dam was built to block up the Tanninim Stream so that a 1,500-acre lake formed behind it.  The elevated water level of the lake (about 9 feet) was the major source of water for the Low-Level Aqueduct.

Note the piers of the old dam and the road that goes over them.

Later, in the Byzantine and Ottoman Periods, water-operated flourmills were constructed in the area.

The stream was named "Tanninim" — Hebrew for crocodiles (תנינים/תנין) — because these reptiles inhabited the nearby Kebara swamps until the beginning of the 20th century.

This photo was taken in the 1970s, prior to the development of this place as a Nature Reserve.

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See Porath, Yosef.  "Caesarea: The Israel Antiquities Authority Excavations." Pages 1656-65 in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land — vol. 5 — Supplementary Volume. Edited by Ephraim Stern, Hillel Geva, Alan Paris, and Joseph Aviram. Jerusalem and Washington, DC: Israel Exploration Society and Biblical Archaeological Society, 2008.