Maale Akrabim

The story

Maale Akrabim is the ascent south of the Small Makhtesh, in which the road climbs from the Zin Valley to the Negev Highlands. The Romans paved a road here in the second century CE: at first 1,900 meters long, and afterwards in an extension to 2,500 meters in switchbacks, in order to reduce the gradient; in the places where the gradient reached thirty percent they built retaining walls and wide steps. In 1927, in the period of the British Mandate, a parallel road was paved between two camel police stations, in order to control the desert expanse. From that year until 1954 this was the main road between Beersheba and Eilat, and then road 40 was paved and the traffic moved to it. The road is today part of road 227, and since 2007 it has been closed to motor vehicles because of its fragile condition and the lack of guardrails; since 2017 it serves mainly cyclists, among them the “Gran Fondo Arava” race held there since 2020. At the top of the ascent stands a structure in the form of a tower, the emblem of the Engineering Corps, which was erected in 1950.

• Archaeology
• British Mandate
• Roads and routes
• Desert