Cana
Κανᾶ
Cana (Κανᾶ).
1.
A village of Galilee, the scene of our Lord's first miracle. (S. John, ii.) A village of this name in Galilee is mentioned by Josephus, as his temporary place of residence during his command in that country, and his notices of it appear to indicate that it was not far distant from Sepphoris. (Vita, § 16, seq.) The village of Kephr Kenna, 1 1/2 hour NE. of Nazareth, is pointed out to modern travellers as the representative of Cana of Galilee;
but it appears that this tradition can be traced back no further than the 16th century. An earlier, and probably more authentic tradition, current during the period of the Crusades, assigns it to a site 3 miles north of Sepphoris on the north of a fertile plain, now called el-Bŭttauf; where, a little east of Kephr Menda, are still found on a hill side ruins of ah extensive village, to which a wavering and uncertain local tradition gives the name of Kana. (Robinson, B. R. iii. p. 204--207.)
2.
There appears to have been another village of this name not far from Jericho, where the army of Antiochus Dionysus perished with hunger after their defeat by the Arabs (Joseph. B. J. 1.4.7, comp. Ant. 13.15.1), and where Herod the Great was encamped in his war with Antigonus. (B. J. 1.17.5.) [G.W]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.