THE SHEPHELAH AND PHILISTIA.
On the 11th of March we at last marched down from the hills to our new
camp at Beit Jibrîn. Past the “Oak of rest,” and the Russian Hospice now
building near it, we rode westwards to a narrow valley, wandering
through vineyards and down rocky hillsides gay with flowers, and through
hollows full of sprouting barley, and over slopes covered with grey
olives. The road led to the hill-town of Tuffûh (Beth Tappuah), thence
down to the mud village of Idhnah (Dannah), and then north-west through
an open corn valley by Deir Nakhâs which is perched on a hill; and
finally we came to the camping-place by a long village, on low ground,
surrounded by hills, which hide it completely, and by long olive-groves.
North of the houses are the traces of the old fortifications (which King
Fulco constructed in 1134 A.D.) extending some 2000 yards. To the south
is a fortress, and about one mile south-east, up the hill, is the old
Byzantine Church of St. Anne, which was repaired at a later period by
the Crusaders.
Dr. Robinson was the first to show, by means of the distances to
surrounding places, that Beit Jibrîn is the ancient Eleutheropolis; but
this name has disappeared, as is usually the case with foreign names for
places in Palestine. The present name, Jibrîn, was thought by the
Crusaders to have some connection with the angel Gabriel, and they seem
to have erected a church to St. Gabriel, of which only the north aisle
remains, though the site is still remembered by the peasants, who there
venerate a piece of open ground, which probably marks the old nave, and
is now dedicated to Neby Jibrîn, “the Prophet Gabriel.” Here again we
find the Moslems unconsciously worshipping at a Christian shrine.
The Gibilin of the Crusaders is the Beto Gabra of the fourth century,
and the name can be traced yet farther back. The Talmudic scholars
understood “the dew of heaven from above” (Gen. xxvii. 39) to have some
mysterious reference to Beth Gubrin, in Idumæa, and to its fertile
neighbourhood; thus the present name is carried back to Jewish times,
and there is no reason to suppose that the place ever had any other
Hebrew name.
Beit Jibrîn is famous for its great caverns, hollowed out in the white
soft rock on every side of the village. They have generally names of
little importance, but one is called “Cavern of the Fenish” (or
Philistines), and the ground near it is “the Garden of the Fenish.” It
is, perhaps, from these great caves, numbering eleven in all, that the
place came to be considered as a former habitation of the Horites, or
“cave-dwellers.” Jerome states that Eleutheropolis, or “the City of
Freemen,” was once inhabited by the Horites, which he renders “freemen.”
This idea is derived, as are many of Jerome’s more fantastic criticisms,
straight from the Jews, for the same connection between these two names
is to be found in the Talmud.
The question of the date of the great caverns is difficult. One of them
has been enlarged, so as to cut into an old Jewish tomb, and it must
therefore be comparatively recent. In another there are niches for
funeral urns, which date back no doubt to Roman times. Others have
inscriptions in Cufic on the walls, containing in one instance the name
of Saladin. In one we discovered rudely-carved figures, perhaps intended
to symbolise the Crucifixion, and there are many Latin crosses, and
apses pointing east. One long tunnel with sculptured walls is called
“the Horse’s Cavern,” but it seems to have been a chapel, fifty feet
long and eighteen wide. Altogether there is not any evidence that the
caverns, as they now exist, are older than the twelfth century, when the
town was fortified, and there are indications that, if not originally
excavated, they were at least enlarged in times subsequent to the Jewish
epoch. There are, however, near Beit Jibrîn, ancient tombs (one having
thirty-four Kokim), and also cisterns and wine-presses, showing the
village to be a Jewish site, and a great vault containing 1774 niches
for urns; there are also domed caverns with flights of rock-cut steps,
which seem to have been used for storing water. The site is extensive,
and several days were occupied in its exploration; but it is not a
naturally strong position, and we should not therefore expect it to
represent any one of the great Palestine strongholds.
[Illustration: COLUMBARIA NEAR BEIT JIBRÎN.]
On the 13th of March we rode to the white cliff called Tell es Sâfi, the
site of the Crusading fortress of Blanche Garde, which was built in
1144 A.D., as an outpost for defence against the people of Ascalon. Of
the fortress nothing remains beyond the rock scarps, which are only
dimly traceable; but the position is one of immense natural strength,
guarding the mouth of the Valley of Elah, and the situation is that in
which Jerome describes the Philistine Gath. Identification is impossible
without the recovery of the ancient name, but there is, I think, no
place which has stronger claims than this site to be identified with
Gath. It is now a mud village with olives beneath it; the cliff on which
it is built is 300 feet high, and is burrowed with caves on the north;
on the south a narrow saddle joins it to the ridge, but on every other
side the “Shining Hill,” as it is well called, is impregnable, and when
protected by fortifications on the weaker side, it must have been a most
important post.
Beit Jibrîn had suffered severely from the fever of the last autumn. It
was said that 500 people out of 1000 had died in the neighbourhood. The
“cursed water” had appeared, by which title was intended a series of
stagnant pools in the valley, which if not dry by autumn always
foreboded fever in the village. I asked why the villagers did not drain
them; the Sheikh replied, “It is from Allah.” Such is the fatalistic
indolence of the peasantry, which prevents any chance of progress or of
civilisation so long as the hopelessness of the creed of Islam bars the
way.
From Beit Jibrîn we visited a site which is of primary interest, as
representing apparently the Cave of Adullam.
This famous hold, where David collected “every one that was in distress
and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,”
was, according to Josephus, at the city called Adullam (Ant. vi. 12, 3).
This city was one of the group of fifteen (Josh. xv. 35) situate in the
Shephelah or “lowlands.” The towns next on the list, including Jarmuth
(El Yermûk), Socoh (Shuweikeh), and others, lie north-east of Beit
Jibrîn, and are close together. The term Shephelah is used in the Talmud
to mean the low hills of soft limestone, which, as already explained,
form a distinct district between the plain and the watershed mountains.
The name Sifla, or Shephelah, still exists in four or five places within
the region round Beit Jibrîn, and we can therefore have no doubt as to
the position of that district, in which Adullam is to be sought.
M. Clermont Ganneau was the fortunate explorer who first recovered the
name, and I was delighted to find that Corporal Brophy had also
collected it from half a dozen different people, without knowing that
there was any special importance attaching to it. The title being thus
recovered, without any leading question having been asked, I set out to
examine the site, the position of which agrees almost exactly with the
distance given by Jerome, between Eleutheropolis and Adullam--ten Roman
miles.
The Great Valley of Elah (Wâdy es Sunt) is the highway from Philistia to
Hebron; it has its head not far from Terkûmieh, and runs down
northwards, past Keilah and Hareth, dividing the low hills of the
Shephelah from the rocky mountains of Judah; eight miles from the
valley-head stands Shochoh, and Wâdy es Sunt is here a quarter of a mile
across; just north of this ruin it turns round westward, and so runs,
growing deeper and deeper, between the rocky hills covered with
brushwood, becoming an open vale of rich corn-land, flanked by ancient
fortresses, and finally debouching at the cliff of Tell es Sâfi.
About two and a half miles south of the great angle near Shochoh, there
is a very large and ancient terebinth, one of the few old trees of the
species, along the course of the valley, which took its Hebrew name of
Elah from them. This terebinth is towards the west side of the vale,
just where a small tributary ravine joins Wâdy es Sunt; and near it are
two ancient wells, not unlike those at Beersheba, with stone
water-troughs round them; south of the ravine is a high rounded hill,
almost isolated by valleys, and covered with ruins, a natural fortress,
not unlike the well-known Tells which occur lower down the Valley of
Elah.
This site seems to be ancient, not only because of the wells, but
judging from the caves, the tombs, and the rock quarryings which exist
near it. The hill is crowned with a little white-domed building,
dedicated to “the notable chief” (Sheikh Madhkûr), who seems to have no
other name. The ruins round it are named from the Sheikh.
But although to the site itself no name except Sheikh Madhkûr is
applied, there are ruins below the hill and near the well, which are
called ’Aid el Ma, or ’Aid el Miyeh, “Feast of the Water,” or “Feast of
the Hundred.” Both pronunciations are recognised, and either is
radically identical with the Hebrew Adullam. The ’Aid represents the
Hebrew Ed, “monument,” and the Ma, “water,” reminds one of Jerome’s
curious translation of the name Adullam--“Testimonium Aquæ, Monument of
Water.”
But if this ruined fortress be, as there seems no good reason to doubt
it is, the royal city of Adullam, where, we should naturally ask, is the
famous cave? The answer is easy, for the cave is on the hill.
We must not look for one of the greater caverns, such as the Crusaders
fixed upon in the romantic gorge east of Bethlehem, for such caverns are
rarely inhabited in Palestine; and there is nothing in the Bible
narrative to show that anyone except David himself lived in the cave.
His four hundred men may have inhabited the “hold” or fortress on the
top of the hill.
The site at Adullam is ruinous, but not deserted. The sides of the
tributary valley are lined with rows of caves, and these we found
inhabited, and full of flocks and herds; but still more interesting was
the discovery of a separate cave, on the hill itself, a low,
smoke-blackened burrow, which was the home of a single family. We could
not but suppose, as we entered this gloomy abode, that our feet were
standing on the very footprints of the Shepherd-King, who here, encamped
between the Philistines and the Jews, covered the line of advance on the
cornfields of Keilah, and was but three miles distant from the thickets
of Hareth.
No doubt many travellers will visit the famous site thus recovered, but
I saw nothing more to describe than the bare chalky hill, with its black
cave, its white dome, and scattered blocks of masonry, the ancient round
stone wells below, the magnificent old terebinth, and the cave stables
in the opposite hillside.
The hill is about 500 feet high; it commands a fine view eastwards over
the broad valley (up which the high-road to Hebron runs), its course
dotted with terebinths and rich with corn; in the distance are high
rocky mountains, dark with brushwood, and steeply sloping, with a small
village, here and there, perched on a great knoll, and gleaming white.
There is ample room to have accommodated David’s four hundred men in the
caves, and they are, as we have seen, still inhabited. The meaning of
the old name of the site is now quite lost, and there is a confused
tradition of a feast of one hundred guests, by which it is generally
explained.
It is interesting to observe that the scene of David’s victory over
Goliath is distant only eight miles from the cave at ’Aid el Ma. It was
in the Valley of Elah, between Shochoh and Azekah, that the Philistines
encamped in “Ephes Dammim,” or “the Boundary of Blood.” Saul, coming
down by the highway from the Land of Benjamin, encamped by the valley (1
Sam. xvii. 2) on one of the low hills; and between the two hosts was the
Gai or “ravine.” Even of the name Ephes Dammim we have perhaps a trace
in the modern Beit Fased, or “House of Bleeding,” near Shochoh.
Two points required to be made clear as to the episode of David’s battle
with Goliath; one was the meaning of the expression Gai or “ravine;” the
other was the source whence David took the “smooth stones.” A visit to
the spot explains both. In the middle of the broad open valley we found
a deep trench with vertical sides, impassable except at certain
places--a valley in a valley, and a natural barrier between the two
hosts; the sides and bed of this trench are strewn with rounded and
water-worn pebbles, which would have been well fitted for David’s sling.
Here, then, we may picture to ourselves the two hosts, covering the low
rocky hills opposite to each other, and half hidden among the lentisk
bushes; between them was the rich expanse of ripening barley and the red
banks of the torrent with its white shingly bed; behind all were the
distant blue hill-walls of Judah, whence Saul had just come down. The
mail-clad champion advanced from the west, through the low corn, with
his mighty lance perhaps tufted with feathers, his brazen helmet shining
in the sun; from the east, a ruddy boy, in his white shirt and sandals,
armed with a goat’s-hair sling, came down to the brook, and, according
to the poetic fancy of the Rabbis, the pebbles were given voices, and
cried: “By us shall thou overcome the giant.”
The champion fell from an unseen cause, and the wild Philistines fled to
the mouth of the valley, where Gath stood towering on its white chalk
cliff, a frontier fortress, the key to the high-road leading to the
corn-lands of Judah, and to the vineyards of Hebron.
The Survey work round Beit Jibrîn was unusually heavy, for, on an
average, three or four ruined sites were found to every two square
miles, and the number of names was very large. The storms also
interrupted us, and thus it was only on the 1st of April, or three weeks
from the date of our arrival in the district, that we could move on.
The spring flowers, including the delicate cyclamens, were now in full
bloom, the hoopoes and storks had arrived, and Palestine was at its
best. The work had extended over 180 square miles in the three weeks,
and 424 names, only 50 of which were previously known, had been
collected, including more than 200 ruins.
There was always some difficulty in ascertaining names; suspicion,
ignorance and fanatical feeling were against us, but we here found a new
difficulty, for the peasantry were convinced that the Franks knew the
old names better than they did themselves. One guide, pointing out the
ruin of Horân, said that the real name was Korân. I asked why, and he
answered that a European had told him. Thus, also, at Kefr Saba we were
told that the Frank name was Antifatrûs; and at Adullam one man refused
to tell me the name of the place, saying that the Franks knew it best.
I protest against the immorality of corrupting the native traditions, by
relating to the peasantry the theories of modern writers as authentic
facts, for it destroys the last undoubted source of information as to
ancient topography. The confusion caused by Crusading and early
Christian traditions which have been engrafted in a precisely similar
manner, forms already a most serious difficulty; and if in addition we
are to have modern foreign theories disseminated among the peasantry,
identification will be impossible. Throughout the course of the Survey,
we never allowed the peasantry to suppose that we attached more value to
one name which they gave, than to another, and we never asked leading
questions or gave them any information as to ancient sites.
Our next camp was at the village of Mejdel, near the shore, just north
of Ascalon, separated from Beit Jibrîn by nineteen miles of corn-land
and sandy downs. The plain was dotted with brown mud villages, and was
coloured with patches of purple lupines. We passed on our march through
Keratîya, in which we probably recognise the name of the Philistine
Cherethites, and where is a Crusading tower now known as Kŭl’at el
Fenish, “Castle of the Philistines,” thence crossing over the sand-ridge
we looked down on green hedgeless fields, brown ploughland, and
beautiful olive-groves, and on the village of Mejdel, with its
conspicuous minaret and tall palm-grove.
This place is the principal town between Gaza and Jaffa: it boasts of a
bazaar and has a weekly market. The inhabitants are rich and
well-disposed. There are sandy lanes, hedged with the prickly pear,
round the town, and on the west a large cemetery near the sand-dunes. To
the north, under a row of aged olive trees, we found a most pleasant
camping ground.
From this camp we made the large-scale survey of Ascalon, and cleared up
the curious question as to the two Episcopal towns of that name which
existed in the fifth century, the one being apparently Ascalon by the
sea, the second a ruined site called ’Askelôn in the hills near Beit
Jibrîn.
Ascalon, “the bride of Syria,” is now entirely ruinous, and only the
fragments of its great walls, built by the English, under Richard
Lion-Heart, in 1191 A.D., remain half buried by the great dunes of
rolling sand, which are ever being blown up by the sea breeze from the
south-west. The whole interior of the site is covered with rich soil, to
a depth of about ten feet, and the natives find fragments of fine
masonry, shafts, capitals, and other remains of the old city, by digging
in this.
The walls inclose a half circle, or bow, as described by William of
Tyre, the string being towards the sea, where are cliffs about fifty
feet high, above the beach. The town measures one mile and
three-quarters round, and three-eighths of a mile from east to west. The
foundations of the five great towers, noticed by the chronicler of King
Richard’s expedition, are all discernible, with the land-gate, the
sea-gate, the church, and some other ruins. The whole place is now full
of gardens, containing palms, olives, apples, lemons, almonds,
pomegranates, and tamarisks, irrigated by no less than forty wells of
sweet water.
The walls are of small masonry, which is much less solid than the work
of the Christian kings of Jerusalem; but the mortar is so hard that, in
places, the stone has given way and cracked, while the mortar joints
remain unbroken. A huge tower-foundation lies tilted up on one side,
like a great cheese, close to the land-gate; it is twenty feet in
diameter, and six feet thick.
The fruits here ripen a month earlier than in other parts of Palestine;
and were it not that now, as in King Richard’s time, Ascalon has no
port, it would no doubt be a place of importance.
Of Herod’s beautiful colonnades, nothing now remains. The Crusaders had
little respect for antiquities, and the innumerable granite
pillar-shafts, which are built horizontally into the walls, are no doubt
those originally brought to the town by Herod.
The Jews held Ascalon to be no part of “the Land.” Even as late as the
twelfth century, three hundred Samaritans lived there. The famous Temple
of Derceto, in the town, is noticed in the Mishna, as well as the idol
Serapia, which was here worshipped. A place called Yagur is also noticed
in the Talmud as on the boundary of “the Land,” apparently outside the
walls of Ascalon; this, no doubt, is represented by the modern village
of El Jûrah, on the north-east, beyond the fosse, among gardens and
lanes which are half covered with sand.
It is indeed quite mournful to see how the dry blown sand, advancing, it
is said, a yard every year, has climbed over the southern walls of the
town, and has already quite destroyed the fruitful gardens on that side.
We heard a curious tradition at Ascalon. A tomb had been opened by the
peasantry, near the ruins, some thirty years ago. Under a great slab, in
the eastern cemetery, they found a perfectly preserved body, apparently
embalmed, lying in its robes, with a sword by its side, and a ring on
its finger. The dead eyes glared so fiercely on the intruders, that they
let fall the slab, and as one of the party soon after died, they came to
the conclusion that it was a Neby or “Prophet” whom they had disturbed,
and the place has thus become surrounded with a mysterious sanctity.
Seven and a half miles north of Mejdel is the site of the famous city of
Ashdod, now only a mud village of moderate size, on the eastern slope of
a knoll which is covered with loose sandy soil and hedged in with
prickly pear. On this knoll the old city no doubt stood, and though its
elevation is not great, it commands the surrounding land, which accounts
for the siege of twenty-nine years by Psammetichus, that Ashdod
underwent. On the south is a small white mosque, a water-wheel, and the
fine Khân which has fallen into ruins within the last thirty years.
There is a great mud-pond on the east, with palms near it, and to the
south a marsh, fig gardens and numerous sycamore trees. The corn-lands
are wide and fertile, but the place has no antiquities beyond a few bad
coins and gems.
The ever-rolling sand-dunes have here encroached no less than three
miles, and are lapping against the village. Riding due west from Ashdod
we reached the shore, at a point which seems to have been rarely visited
by former travellers. There are here extensive ruins of a town,
stretching along the shore, and a square fort with round corner towers,
probably of Crusading date. This is no doubt the ancient port of Ashdod,
mentioned in the fifth century, and the place is still used as a landing
by small boats.
The name which is given to this harbour as well as to the ports of Abu
Zabûra, Yebna, and Ghŭzzeh, is very interesting; they are each known
as El Mîneh, but the word is not Arabic. The Talmud speaks of the
harbour of Caesarea as Limineh, and here we have the solution of the
puzzle. The Jews were not a race of sailors; the only notices of the sea
in the Bible, show the awe with which they regarded its rolling waves.
They had no harbours along the coast, and apparently no word in their
language for a port; thus they adopted a foreign epithet, and
naturalised the Greek Limen, now further corrupted into the modern El
Mîneh.
One other great city occupied our attention from the Mejdel camp, namely
Lachish, a place which seems to have been still known in the fourth
century. We visited Umm Lags, the site proposed by Dr. Robinson, and
could not but conclude that no ancient or important city ever stood
there, nor has the name any radical similarity to that of Lachish. Much
nearer indeed would be the title El Hesy, applying to a large ancient
site with springs, near the foot of the hills, about in the proper
position for Lachish. The modern name means “a water-pit,” and, if it is
a corruption of Lachish, it would afford a second instance of a change
which is well known to have taken place in the case of Michmash--the K
being changed to guttural H. The distance from Beit Jibrin to Tell el
Hesy, is not much greater than that given by the Onomasticon for
Lachish, while the proximity of Eglon (’Ajlân), and the position south
of Beit Jibrin, on a principal road, near the hills, and by one of the
only springs in the plain, all seem to be points strongly confirming
this view.
On the 15th of April we marched fourteen miles south to Gaza, over
rolling corn-lands with patches of red sandy cliff, and by brown mud
villages, with white domes, and large ponds in which the little red oxen
were standing knee-deep. Riding up a low ridge, we came upon a great
avenue of very ancient olives, which stretches south for four miles to
the houses of Gaza.
This ancient city, the capital of Philistia, is very picturesquely
situated, having a fine approach down the broad avenue from the north,
and rising on an isolated hill a hundred feet above the plain. On the
higher part of the hill are the Governor’s house, the principal mosque
(an early Crusading church), and the bazaars. The green mounds traceable
round this hillock are probably remains of the ancient walls of the
city.
Gaza bristles with minarets, and has not less than twenty wells. The
population is now eighteen thousand, including sixty or seventy houses
of Greek Christians.
The Samaritans in the seventh century seem to have been numerous in
Philistia, near Jaffa, Ascalon, and Gaza. Even as late as the
commencement of the present century, they had a synagogue in this latter
city, but are now no longer found there.
There are two large suburbs of mud cabins on lower ground, to the east
and north-east, making four quarters to the town in all. East of the
Serai is the reputed tomb of Samson, whom the Moslems call ’Aly Merwân
or “Aly the enslaved.” On the north-west is the mosque of Hâshem, the
father of the Prophet. The new mosque, built some forty years since, is
full of marble fragments, from ancient buildings which were principally
found near the sea-shore.
The town is not walled, and presents the appearance of a village grown
to unusual size; the brown cabins rise on the hillside row above row,
and the white domes and minarets, with numerous palms, give the place a
truly Oriental appearance. The bazaars are large and are considered
good.
Riding round the town to the east, I found the Moslem inhabitants
celebrating a festival, in tents pitched in the cemeteries, where
black-robed women, wearing the Egyptian veil, sat in circles, singing
and clapping their hands to keep time. On the south-east of the city is
a very conspicuous isolated hill called El Muntâr, “the watch-tower;”
and on it another place sacred to ’Aly, a little white building, with
three domes, surrounded with graves. This is traditionally the hill to
which Samson carried the gates of Gaza, and a yearly festival of the
Moslems is held here.
An interesting discovery was made in 1879 at Tell el’Ajjûl south of
Gaza. A statue, fifteen feet high, was found buried in the sand,
representing an old man with a beard. There can be little doubt that it
is the statue of Marnas, the Jupiter of Gaza, whose temple was still
standing near the city in the fifth century of our era.
On the 16th of April I rode out to a point north-east of Gaza,
accompanied by Corporal Brophy and by a native soldier from the town.
The Teiâha Arabs were at war with the ’Azâzimeh, who had called in the
Terabîn to assist them, and battles were being fought within a few miles
of the city, quite unnoticed by the Turkish Governor.
We were riding across a heavy ploughed field, when I heard cries of
“There they are!” and looking back I saw the main road occupied by a
band of about twenty horsemen, half hidden by a swell of the ground.
They were all well mounted, and armed with swords, guns, and pistols,
and with great lances of cane with long iron heads and tufts of ostrich
feathers. As I looked six spearmen started out and spurred full speed at
our Bashi-Bazouk, who was some two hundred yards behind us. They came
down like a whirlwind, shaking their lances horizontally, and kicking up
a great cloud of dust. It was an awkward moment, for we were
out-numbered, and flight or resistance would have been equally vain. I
resolved to face it out, and turning back we also galloped up towards
the six champions, who drew up round our soldier, and dug their
spear-butts into the ground, then suddenly wheeled round and cantered
back to the main body, which, to my great relief, filed slowly away
eastwards. It appeared that they had mistaken us for Terabîn Arabs, but,
finding that we were English, and protected by the Gaza government, they
had been afraid to interfere with us.
This little adventure gave us a good idea of the tactics of the Bedawîn
in warfare. The military advantage of superior numbers is thoroughly
recognised by these wary and pretentious warriors.
From Gaza we also visited Deir el Belah, the Crusading Darum fortified
by King Amalrich in 1170 A.D.--a village with remains of a Greek Church
of St. George and numerous date-palms, whence its present name “Convent
of Dates” is derived. From Darum we also went to Umm el Jerrâr, the site
identified by Vandevelde with the Gerar of Abraham and Isaac. A large
Tell exists here, but no ancient wells like those of Beersheba, and I
was thus led to the conclusion that Abraham’s wells, which the
Philistines filled up, and which Isaac is said to have dug again, were
probably similar to the pits which the Arabs still dig near this site,
to reach the water flowing beneath the surface in the shingly bed of the
great trench which runs through the flat alluvial plain of Gerar.
News of a serious fight near Beersheba, in which 700 Arabs were killed
and wounded, determined us to set our faces northwards, leaving the
district north-west of Beersheba to be finished during the autumn of
1877. On the last day of April we left our Gaza camp, and marched back
to Mejdel, and thence, on the following day, to Yebnah, the ancient
Jamnia, famous as the seat of the Sanhedrim after the fall of Bether.
The great Valley of Sorek, which rises north of Jerusalem, and runs down
by Zoreah (Sŭr’ah) and Beth Shemesh (’Ain Shemes), reaches the sea
north of Yebnah. It is here called “Reuben’s River,” from the little
enclosure sacred to the “Prophet Reuben,” which, from the middle ages,
has been a Moslem shrine for pilgrimage. The harbour north-west of
Yebnah is known also as Mînet Rubîn.
The district round Yebnah is full of sacred shrines. Neby Shît or Seth,
Neby Yûnis or Jonah, and Neby Kunda, probably “the Chaldean,” with many
minor saints, have domes within a few miles of one another. The mosque
of Yebnah, with its little minaret, was a Christian church, which was
partly rebuilt and altered in 673 A.H. There are three other sacred
places near it, one being a mosque dedicated to Abu Harîreh, Companion
of the Prophet.
The town of Yebnah stands on an isolated hillock, with olives to the
north, and it is supplied by wells with water-wheels, or Sâkia, as at
Ashdod. There is nothing of great antiquity at the place, and even the
walls of the Crusading fortress of Ibelin, built at Yebnah in 1144 A.D.,
have disappeared. The Crusaders considered Yebnah (or Jamnia) to be the
site of Gath; but, as usual, their views are not supported by the facts
of earlier history.
Three miles east of Jamnia the Valley of Sorek passes through a defile,
having a hill on either side; on each hill a village stands above the
rich corn-land, and each village is an ancient site. The southern--now
Katrah--is supposed to be Gederoth; the northern, El Mŭghâr (“the
Cave”) is the site which Captain Warren proposes for Makkedah.
This latter is a remarkable place, and one of the most conspicuous sites
in the plain. A promontory of brown sandy rock juts out southwards, and
at the end is the village climbing up the hillside. The huts are of mud,
and stand in many cases in front of caves; there are also small
excavations on the north-east, and remains of an old Jewish tomb, with
Kokim. From the caves the modern name is derived, and it is worthy of
notice that this is the only village in the Philistine plain at which we
found such caves. The proximity of Gederoth (Katrah) and Naamah
(Na’aneh) to El Mŭghâr also increases the probability that Captain
Warren’s identification of El Mŭghâr with Makkedah is correct, for
those places were near Makkedah (Josh. xv. 41).
North-east of Makkedah, Ekron still stands, on low rising ground--a mud
hamlet, with gardens fenced with prickly pears. There is nothing ancient
here, any more than at Ashdod or Jamnia, but one point may be mentioned
which is of some interest. Ekron means “barren,” yet the town stood in
the rich Philistine plain. The reason is, that north of the Sorek Valley
there is a long sandy swell reaching to the sea-coast--an uncultivated
district, now called Deirân, the Arabic name being equivalent to its old
title, Daroma; Ekron stands close to this dry, barren spur, and above
the fertile corn-lands in the valley.
Our last Philistine camp was at the edge of the low hills, in a
fig-garden, just south of Dhenebbeh. We reached it on the 8th of May,
and left on the 15th, on which day we completed one thousand square
miles, which had been surveyed in eleven weeks, since the 25th of
February--the most rapid piece of work during the whole course of the
Survey.
The village of Dhenebbeh lies south of Wâdy Sŭrâr, the old Valley of
Sorek. The view up this valley, looking eastward, is picturesque. The
broad vale, half a mile across, is full of corn, and in the middle runs
the white shingly bed of the winter torrent. Low white hills flank it on
either side, and the high rugged chain of the mountains of Judah forms a
picturesque background. On the south, among the olives, is the ruin of
Beth Shemesh, to which place the lowing kine dragged the rude cart
through the barley-fields. On the north, a little white building with a
dome is dedicated to Sheikh Samat, and stands close to Zoreah.
Such is a slight sketch of the Philistine campaign, the full details of
which must be left to be enumerated in the memoir of the map, of which
they form a large section. We must hasten on now to other questions of
greater interest and importance.
[Illustration: THE SEA OF GALILEE.]