Khirbet El-Mafyar is located 3 km north of Jericho and commonly called Hisham's Palace because it was first thought to have been built by the Umayyad Caliph Hisham bin Abdul Malek (724-743 AD), who ruled an empire stretching from India to the Pyrenees. The palace was left unfinished and was destroyed by an earthquake in 746. The site was covered over by sand and remained forgotten until 1937, when it was located and excavated by British archaeologists. Numerous finds from the site, including the figural representations characteristic of early Islamic art, can be seen in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
