Palestine

Roman Age.

Relatively little archaeological material has been found pertaining to the early historical epochs of the Israelites and the Philistines, and the development of Hellenism. The pros perity of the Roman Age, already indicated by visible monu ments scattered about the country, particularly by the Graeco Roman cities of Samaria and Gerasa has already received material illustration. Before the war, excavations on the former site con ducted by Dr. Reisner, had disclosed (in addition to the founda, tions of the royal palace of Ahab) the Senate house and forum of Herod's creation Sebaste, as well as portions of the masoned ramparts and western gateway. Since then the Palestine Explora tion Fund, at Ascalon, has uncovered the remains of another Senate House on a similar but larger plan, and has laid bare the foundations of the famous peristyle with which Herod the Great adorned the favoured city of his birth. The style of decoration is Corinthian, and there are indications that many elements of the building were shipped bodily from abroad. The full splen dour and appearance of these columned cities is however to be seen now in the unparalleled result of uncovering the ruins of Gerasa (now Jerash), in the course of the work of consolidation which the government of Trans-Jordan has undertaken. There the whole via principalis, a kilometre in length, is now cleared from gate to gate, showing the original pavement and the masoned side-walks for the most part intact. The temples, theatres, nym phaeum and triumphal arch, are being steadily brought to light and put into repair; numerous inscriptions are already recovered, as well as objects of sculpture and architectural carvings. A local museum is established, so that this unique city of the Decapolis may now be visited and visualized upon the spot.

The later monuments of Graeco-Roman style, notably the Syn agogues of Galilee have also received a share of active attention. That of Tell Hum (Capernaum), which had long lain in ruins as a result of earthquake has been partly reconstructed; and that of Kerazi (Chorazim) has been cleared of debris and made ac cessible to visitors. Mention must be made, in concluding this brief list, of the mediaeval buildings of Palestine and Trans Jordan. The Crusaders' castles at Athlit, upon the coast, and at Ajloun, which overlooks the Jordan valley near Jerash, no less than the standing walls of Jerusalem itself, are among the most imposing antiquities of the country. But by far the best preserved and most extensive monument of the period is to be seen at Kerak near the eastern shores of the Dead sea and only to be reached by a relatively long journey by Amman. Here, crown ing a hill-top, the vast stronghold of the Saracens rests upon a veritable labyrinth of earlier fortifications, the origin of which is traced at least to pre-Roman date. These buildings are all in cluded in the programme of conservation which the governments responsible under the mandate have drawn out, and are classed among the promising sites available for investigation.

Palestine is a land of small divisions not forming a separate entity. In the words of Sir George Adams Smith (The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 58), it "has never belonged to one nation and probably never will." Its position gives the key to its history. Along the west coast ran the old road for traders and for the campaigns which have made the land famous. The seaports (more especially in Syria, including Phoenicia), were well known to the pirates, traders and sea-powers of the Levant. The south ernmost, Gaza, was joined by a road to the mixed peoples of the Egyptian Delta, and was also the port of the Arabian caravans. Arabia, in its turn, opens out into both Babylonia and Palestine, and a familiar route skirted the desert east of the Jordan into Syria to Damascus and Hamath. Damascus is closely connected with Galilee and Gilead, and has always been in contact with Mesopotamia, Assyria, Armenia and Asia Minor. Palestine lay at the gate of Arabia and Egypt, and at the tail end of the states stretching down from Asia Minor. Encircled by famous ancient civilizations, its history cannot be isolated from that of the sur rounding lands. Recent research, in bringing to light consider able portions of long-forgotten ages, is revolutionizing those im pressions which were based upon the Old Testament—the sacred writings of a small fraction of this great area—and a broad sur vey of the vicissitudes of this area furnishes a truer perspective of the few centuries which concern the biblical student. The

history of Israel is only part of the history of Palestine, and this is part of the history of a very closely interrelated portion of a world sharing many similar forms of thought and custom. The close of Old Testament history (the book of Nehemiah) in the Persian age forms a convenient division between ancient Palestine and the career of the land under non-oriental influence during the Greek and Roman ages. It also marks the culmination of a lengthy historical and religious development in the establishment of Judaism and its inveterate rival Samaritanism. The most im portant data bearing upon the first great period are given elsewhere in this work, and it is proposed to offer here a more general sur vey. See further JEWS.

Prehistory.

To the prehistoric ages belong the palaeolithic and neolithic flints, from the distribution of which an attempt might be made to give a synthetic sketch of early Palestinian man. (H. Vincent, Canaan d'apres l'exploration recente, pp. 374 Sqq., 392-426.) The discovery (1925) in a Galilaean cave of part of a Neanderthal skull, associated with Mousterian tools, has proved the antiquity of culture in Palestine and has also shown that it was not isolated. A burial cave at Gezer revealed the existence of a race of slight build and stature, muscular, with elongated crania, and thick and heavy skull-bones. The people lived in caves or rude huts, and had domesticated animals (sheep, cow, pig, goat), the bones of which they fashioned into various implements. Physically they are quite distinct from the normal type, also found at Gezer, which was taller, of stronger build, with well-developed skulls, and is akin both to the Sinaitic and Palestinian type illustrated upon Egyptian monuments from c. 3000 B.C. to the modern native. At what period Palestine first be came the "Semitic" land which it has always remained, is uncer tain; nor can one decide whether the megalithic monuments, espe cially to the east of the Jordan, are due to the first wave which in troduced the Semitic (Canaanite) dialect and the place-names. At all events during the last centuries of the third millennium B.C., remarkable for the high state of civilization in Babylonia,• Egypt and Crete, Palestine shares in the active life and intercourse of the age; and while its ports and fertile fields are visited by Egypt, Babylonia had already claimed supremacy as far as the Mediter ranean. (See further CANAAN.) Egyptian Suzerainty.—A definite stage is reached in the period of the Hyksos (c. 1700), the invaders of Egypt, whose Asiatic origin is suggested inter alia by the proper-names which include "Jacob" and "Anath" as deities. After their expulsion Egypt at once enters upon a series of campaigns in Palestine and Syria as far as the Euphrates, and its successes over a district whose political fate was bound up with Assyria and Asia Minor laid the foundation of a policy which became traditional. Apart from rather disconnected details, which belong properly to the history of Babylonia and Egypt, it is not until about the 16th century B.C. that Palestine appears in the clear light of history, and henceforth its course can be traced more continuously. Of fundamental importance are the cuneiform tablets discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt in 1887, containing some of the political correspondence between Western Asia and Egypt for a few years of the reigns of Amenophis III. and IV. (c. 1411-1360). The first Babylonian dynasty, famous for its Khammurabi, belonged to the past, but the cuneiform script and language are still used among the Hittites of Asia Minor (centring at Boghaz-keui) and the kings of Syria and Palestine. Egypt itself was now passing from its greatness, and the Hittites (q.v.) were its rivals for the posses sion of the intervening lands. Peoples apparently of Indo-Iranian connection from the powerful state of Mitanni (Northern Syria) had already left their mark as far south as Jerusalem, as may be inferred from the personal names; and in addition to the inter course with Aegean culture (revealed by excavation), the tablets add references to mercenaries and bands from Meluhtla. (Arabia), Mesopotamia and the Levant.