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well, water pools, and an aqueduct. That era ended during the Abbasid Dynasty at the beginning of the 9

c. CE.

From that point up to the beginning of the 20

century, the site has been visited by passersby using the

water of the spring and the jujube tree as a landmark on the horizon. At the beginning of the British
Mandate period, a police station was built along with five houses, a well with a pump, and a watering
trough for horses and camels. It was one of several “Camel Police Stations” on the road from Be’ersheba
to Eilat. The station was taken over and used by the Israel Defense Forces when Israel was declared a
state in 1948. In the 1960s the military camp was moved south and a wandering-settler family was
brought in from a place that they tried to occupy near Moa. At Tamar they established a cooperative
community that they named Ir Ovot, which now exists to the east of the ruins and is currently the mailstop
for Biblical Tamar.

British Police Station