Taninim Stream Nature Reserve

Points of interest

The Taninim Stream Nature Reserve, on the northern coastal plain, contains two main focal points: a sparkling stream – the last remnant of the region’s coastal waterways – and a dam from the Late Roman-Byzantine period that created an approximately 6,000 dunam (1,500 acre) lake. The region’s ancient inhabitants built the dam to raise by 3 meters the level of the Taninim Stream, which flows at 3 meters above sea level, so it could be channeled to Caesarea. Another dam, about 2 kilometers north of the reserve, blocks off the valley from the north. A lake was formed in the Kebara Valley between the dams and Mount Carmel, which became the starting point for Caesarea’s Low Aqueduct. The abundance of water led to the construction of water-operated flour mills in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods. A Byzantine-era vertical paddlewheel was found there of a type otherwise known in this country only from the Crusader period.

The stream was named Taninim – Hebrew for crocodiles – because these reptiles inhabited the nearby Kebara swamps until the beginning of the 20th century.