Abila (Peraea)

Abila (Arabic: ابيلا) was an ancient city east of the Jordan River in the Plains of Moab, later Peraea, near Livias, about twelve km northeast of the north shore of the Dead Sea.

[1][2][3] There is a widely supported theory that in the Hebrew Bible, it is referred to as Abel-Shittim, as well as in the shorter forms Shittim and Ha-Shittim.

[Note 1] The place is mentioned as a-bi-il-šiṭ-ṭi along with Gilead and described as "the border of the land Bīt Ḫumria (Israel)" in the royal annals of Tiglath-Pileser III.

[4][5][6][7][8][9] Josephus stated that there was in his time a town, Abila, "full of palm trees",[11] at a distance of sixty stadia (9 kilometres (6 mi)) from the Jordan,[citation needed][dubious – discuss] and described it as the spot where Moses delivered the exhortations of Deuteronomy.

[14] The Madaba Map also depicts the date palms still growing in the area of Livias-Betharamtha in the sixth century AD.