_EXPLORATIONS IN GILEAD._
North of Heshbon the country rises slightly, and we enter the region
surrounding the large ruined city of ’Ammân--the Rabbath Ammon of the
Bible and the Roman Philadelphia. This was the most important ruin
surveyed in Palestine, as regards its antiquarian interest, and the best
specimen of a Roman town that I visited, except the still more wonderful
ruins of Gerasa, which yield only to Baalbek and Palmyra among Syrian
capitals of the second century of our era.
On the slopes below the plateau in this region is the still more
interesting ruin of Tyrus, the only dated Jewish building of early age
that we possess. Although it had often been visited, we were able to add
some interesting architectural details, and to correct a false
impression about the great Jewish inscription of five letters here
boldly carved on the rock.
Tyrus, now called ’Arâk el Emîr, is our one relic of the Jewish
architecture of the days of Judas Maccabæus. The priest Hyrcanus, who
fled from his brothers beyond Jordan, committed suicide at this place
(where he had lived seven years) on hearing of the approach of Antiochus
in 176 B.C. His life was one of adventure and of constant warfare
against the Arab or Nabathean tribes of the region. He first made
himself a stronghold consisting of numerous caves in two storeys, with
an open rock terrace leading to the upper tier, where, among other
chambers, he cut a great stable for his horses. We measured this stable,
and found mangers for a hundred steeds. Near this fortress he built his
great palace, which is now fallen in, except the east wall. The palace
was surrounded by a broad moat, and water was brought by an aqueduct
from the stream, which here breaks down rapidly towards the Jordan
Valley through dense bushes of oleander, which have grown to the size of
forest trees. The walls of the palace were of stones six to eight feet
in height and fifteen to twenty feet long. Only three courses were
required to reach up to the roof. The top course above a narrow frieze
was adorned at each corner by rude sculptured figures of lions, which
were carved in relief by sinking back part of the face of the stone
after it was placed in position.
The details of some fragments of cornice are rude imitations of Greek
classic style, but the extraordinary capitals of great pillars belonging
to the interior are unlike any that I have elsewhere seen, and they most
resemble Egyptian work. They seem not to have been noticed by De Vogüé,
whose work I have generally found to be very detailed and faithful.
Whether this great palace was ever quite finished seems doubtful. A
stone which must weigh about fifty tons lies half-way between the
building and the quarry, as though left on the last day when the
building was stopped. A deliberate destruction of the walls seems also
certainly to have occurred.
[Illustration: ALPHABETS OF WESTERN ASIA. 900 B.C. TO 500 A.D.]
Here, then, we have an ancient dated Jewish inscription, belonging to an
age singularly deficient in monumental remains, and to a time when
the characters used in writing were slowly changing from the old Hebrew
to the later square Hebrew letters. A photograph of these boldly-cut
letters shows that some of the great authorities who have discussed it
have unfortunately started with an incorrect copy. If we compare the
letters with those of other alphabets, we find only one which properly
accounts for these forms, namely, the alphabet of the Jewish coins which
were struck in the same century in which Hyrcanus lived. The meaning of
the text is still doubtful, but its date agrees with the comparison of
the letters with those used west of Jordan in the same age.
In spite of the scantiness of our materials, the history of writing in
Palestine is being gradually unfolded in a marvellous manner. When we
look back on the old theories which made the square Hebrew of our own
times an original alphabet, unchanged since the time of Moses, and on
the equally crude criticism which denied that writing was practised
before about 500 B.C., we become aware of the rapid advance of
knowledge. First came the Phœnician inscriptions, for a few of which
great antiquity is claimed, though the majority belong to Greek or
Persian times. Then the Moabite Stone was found, and the inhabitants of
Eastern Palestine were proved to have been acquainted with monumental
writing in the ninth century B.C. Then came the Siloam inscription,
giving almost an equal antiquity for the alphabet of Jerusalem. To these
are added several inscriptions of the second or first century B.C., and
quite a number which belong to the earliest Christian age. In this
series of alphabets we trace the same steady and gradual change which
has differentiated all known alphabets in the world. It would be
impossible now to mistake, within fairly narrow limits, the date of such
a text as that at Tyrus; and the same reasoning assures us of the age of
the important and ancient inscriptions above noticed.
Equally valuable is the light thrown on history by the remains of the
Tyrus palace. It belongs to the period just before the revolt of Judas
Maccabæus against the Greeks. We see how strongly the builders were
influenced by Greek art, while the sculptures of animals show that they
were not limited by the commands of the Law which forbade such
representations of living things. It is also interesting to notice that
the stones in the wall, which are much larger than those in the
Jerusalem Temple, are surrounded by a draft like that employed by Herod
the Great. This drafting was a Greek method of finishing the stone. It
occurs in the walls of the Acropolis at Athens, and it was used in the
second century A.D. by the Roman builders of Gerasa and Baalbek, the
stones in this latter case having in a few instances Greek letters for
mason’s marks. There is, I believe, absolutely no foundation for the
idea that the early Phœnicians used such a finish to their stones.
Drafted stones are, it is true, used in Phœnicia, but the oldest
occur on structures of Greek character, and the latest in the Crusading
walls of Tyre.
It was the spread of this Greek influence in Palestine which led to the
revolt of the zealous and orthodox followers of Judas Maccabæus. The
monuments have begun to show us how strong and widely spread was this
influence. On the borders of the Egyptian delta Greek cities begin to be
known, through the admirable work of Mr. Petrie and others, which give
us remains of Greek or semi-Greek art of a time earlier than that of
which we speak. Of course the account of Naucratis in Herodotus; the
story of the flight of the Jewish high priest Onias to Egypt, and of his
opposition temple; and the account of the translation of the law into
Greek at Alexandria in the third century B.C., were all well known, as
are the chapters in the Book of Maccabees which describe the spread of
Greek manners in Jerusalem; but the discovery of existing monuments
brings this all more vividly before us; for we rightly attach a far
higher value to such contemporary evidence than we do to the modern
understanding of ancient literary works, especially when criticism
deserts its proper sphere, and begins to invent and to dogmatise.
We know then already, from the monuments, that before the days of the
revolt under Judas all the Levantine coast was permeated by Greek
influence. Greek coins passed everywhere; Greek pottery is found along
the coast; Greek architecture penetrated even into the wilds of Gilead
beyond Jordan. The Greek kings of Antioch are said to have left no
architectural remains, yet even as far away as southern Arabia the Greek
influence extended, and down to the days of Herod the Great it remained
one of the great civilising agents in the Levant.
At ’Ammân we find remains of later civilisation--of the great age of the
Antonines, when all Syria remained for a time peaceful and prosperous;
and in this town also exists one of the most remarkable architectural
relics of the Sassanian period in Syria. The oldest remains at ’Ammân
are the dolmens, of which, with other rude stone monuments, there are
some twenty in all. Next to these come the old rock-cut tombs, which,
from comparison with others, I should suppose to be of the early Hebrew
period. The Roman remains are the most important, including two
theatres, baths, a street of columns, and remains of what was once a
very great temple on the highest part of the acropolis of the city. To
this age also belong the magnificent private tombs surrounding the
city--towers of well-cut masonry filled inside with well-arranged
sarcophagi.
No inscriptions were found on these tombs, though inscriptions occur in
’Ammân. From the Greek texts which Sir C. Fellows collected in Lycia we
know that these monuments belonged to rich families in Roman times, and
that even then the Greek language predominated over Latin in Syria and
in Asia Minor. Greek texts of this age also occur at Gerasa and
elsewhere side by side with Latin inscriptions. The tomb-towers were
under the protection of the Government of the country, and an illicit
burial in any of the sarcophagi carved to await the death of the next
member of the family, was punished, not only by the curse announced
against such violation of a sepulchre, but also by a very substantial
fine levied by the state. The tomb-towers round ’Ammân show us,
therefore, that several noble families must have lived in the town.
The walls of the citadel may be of earlier date, perhaps of Greek
origin; for, according to Polybius, Antiochus the Great here besieged
Ptolemy Philopater’s forces in 218 B.C. The garrison held out until a
prisoner discovered a secret communication with a water supply outside
the walls. I was not aware of this statement in Polybius when we were at
’Ammân, but it explains a discovery which we then made, and I think
there can be little doubt that we found both this water supply and also
the secret passage. There is a great cavern in the hill on the north of
the citadel, evidently once used as a reservoir for water, the stream
which supplied the lower town being at some distance from the Acropolis.
In the side of this cavern, high up near the entrance, I found a very
narrow passage running away in the direction of the citadel walls. I
pursued it as far as possible, but it is choked at the end before
emerging above-ground. This cave probably contained the water supply on
which the Egyptian Greek forces depended in their struggle against the
Syrian Greek forces of Antiochus.
To a later period belongs what I have called a Sassanian or early Arab
building. It is well known that Dr. Tristram discovered near the Haj
Road, east of Heshbon, the remains of a very fine building, which Mr.
Fergusson called the Palace of Chosroes. Whether it was really built
during the short period of Persian rule in Palestine preceding the
triumph of Islam, will probably not be settled until we have copies of
the inscriptions which remain at this palace. I regret that the sudden
stoppage of the Survey and the unfriendliness of the Beni Sakhr Arabs
made it impossible for me to obtain such copies. It is, however, beyond
dispute that the art of the Mashita palace is of Persian origin, or
influenced by Persia, and it is perhaps not Moslem work; for whereas in
the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem the representation of animal life is
absent from the mosaics, the stone carvings of Mashita give us many such
forms in their elaborate arabesques.
At ’Ammân there is one building, and remains exist of another, which
appear very clearly to belong to about the same age with the Mashita
palace. The complete building is singularly perfect, though its
decorations are unfinished. How it ever came to be described as a
Byzantine church it is hard to understand, seeing how well known are the
features of Byzantine churches in Palestine. Moreover, there is a ruined
cathedral with two chapels at ’Ammân itself which are of the Byzantine
age.
The building in the citadel is entirely different to any church. It is a
square structure, with a central court and four deep alcoves under
arched roofs, one on each side of the court. This arrangement is exactly
that of some ruined buildings of the Sassanian age in Persia. The form
of the arches, the adornment of the walls with arcades in low relief,
and other features, are, equally with the plan, common to the ’Ammân
buildings and to those of the Sassanians in Persia.
This building may, however, have been erected by Persian architects for
one of the early Moslem Khalifs of Damascus. No birds, beasts, or other
living things occur in the rich details of its stone tracery, which I
carefully copied and measured, and of which Lieutenant Mantell took
photographs. The building is of high importance for a period of art in
the East concerning which very little as yet is known.
It may be noticed in passing that the walls of this kiosque at ’Ammân
are in a style which throws some light on the history of the Dome of the
Rock at Jerusalem. That building is pronounced by architectural
authority to be the work of the Khalif Abd el Melek, just as the Arab
chroniclers, nearly contemporary with its building, also tell us, and in
accordance with the existing inscriptions; but, as I pointed out in
1878, there are reasons for thinking that the octagonal outer wall was
built only in the ninth century A.D. The details of that wall are very
like those of the ’Ammân building, and this comparison will, no doubt,
some day prove instructive, especially if we can ascertain the age of
the great Mashita palace in Moab.
There is a very old mosque at ’Ammân, with round arches and a short
minaret. Unfortunately it is without inscription (save for a later
scrawl over the door), and whether it is older than the kiosque may be
doubtful, but it shows us that the Moslems built in this town at a very
early date. From El Mukaddasy we have a Moslem account of the place as
old as the tenth century A.D. He speaks of this very mosque as being
near the market-place, and he calls the citadel “Goliah’s Castle,” and
apparently alludes to the kiosque as a mosque over the tomb of Uriah.
Thus the buildings we are discussing clearly existed in 985 A.D. The
town appears to have been then prosperous; living was cheap and fruit
plentiful; grain and honey are mentioned by the Moslem geographer, where
now the only cultivation is that of a few wretched gardens tilled by
Circassian exiles living in the theatre.
The Survey was extended only a few miles north of ’Ammân; the region as
far as Gerasa I saw in 1882, when accompanying their Royal Highnesses
Princes Albert Victor and George of Wales beyond Jordan. The region is
extremely picturesque, including the wooded hills of Gilead, the bare
heights of ’Ajlûn, and the uplands round Gerasa. It is remarkable that
this great city beside its mountain stream seems to have been deserted
earlier than ’Ammân, although the country near it now contains villages
with a settled population, whereas south of Es Salt there are now no
villages beyond Jordan, and the Circassians at ’Ammân are almost the
only inhabitants who do not live in tents. To the antiquary this has
been an advantage, since Gerasa remains a purely Roman ruin, only
equalled by Palmyra. The area within the city walls at Palmyra (500
acres) was indeed greater than that included within the walls of Jerash
(170 acres), but in some respects the architectural remains at the
latter date are even of greater importance.
Some very interesting Greek inscriptions once belonging to the early
church in Gerasa have been copied by De Vogüé, by Rev. R. B.
Girdlestone, by Sir Charles Warren, and by myself. They appear to have
gradually fallen into decay, so that my own copy is somewhat less
complete than those of the text as it existed twenty years before. The
longest of these texts is a poem in hexameter, consisting of thirteen
lines, of which the eleventh is taken from Homer,[57] and the whole is a
Homeric imitation.
The longest inscription that I copied is not written in regular lines,
but runs on, the new line of hexameter being in one case divided from
the preceding by a well-shaped Greek cross. The forms of the letters,
which I very carefully preserved, are those used in Greek Byzantine
inscriptions. This text consisted of six lines of poetry, and is written
by a certain wrestler, Theodorus, whose soul is in the broad heaven and
his body in the earth. The longer text belonged to the church door, and
mentions the cross. It may be translated as follows, being one of the
most curious of the early Christian inscriptions in Syria:--
“Wonder and awe together the passer-by have encountered.
Clouds of error are gone, and now in place of the darkness
Which was aforetime here, the grace of God is around me.
And when the sound of the groans of the four-footed victims is silenced
Formerly falling here--and dire was the stench that arose,
So that the wayfaring man must stop his nostrils in passing
Yea and strive to escape the evil smell on the breezes
Now on the sweet-smelling plain the wandering travellers journey,
Lifting up as they go the palm of the right to their faces
Making the honoured sign of the cross as a deed that is holy.
And if you farther would ask this also that you may know it,
Æneas to me has given this excellent glory.
Æneas the all-wise priest, well instructed in worship.”
The reference is clearly to the establishment of the Christian ritual,
and to the abolition of sacrifices in the Pagan temple.
These inscriptions show us that Gerasa was still inhabited in early
Byzantine times, and the church stands just south of the great heathen
temple. My visit to Jerash only lasted a day, and it was thus not
possible to explore the site very completely, but we found nine
inscriptions in all, one of which seems to be new, though unfortunately
only a fragment.
On the stylobate of the southern temple is a very boldly carved name,
perhaps that of Pertinax, which would give a date towards the end of the
second century.[58]
The city stood on the sides of an open mountain-valley, and through the
midst flowed a stream, which, running south, breaks in a cascade just by
the southern wall. The course is fringed with oleanders, but the hill
slopes are bare and stony, though covered, when visited, with corn. The
whole course of the city walls is traceable, the masonry lying in heaps,
having probably been thrown down by the early Arab invaders from the
south. Five gates are distinguishable at the ends of the streets, which
were regularly laid out at right angles. The main street ran parallel to
the stream on the west, and was flanked throughout, for a length of 700
yards, by columns supporting epistylia. On the south this colonnade ends
in a peribolus, which has been supposed to be the forum, just in front
of the southern temple. Fifty-eight pillars remain in a single oval 300
feet long, all having Roman Ionic capitals, but not all of equal height.
We approached the city from the south, where, nearly a quarter of a mile
from the gate, the road is spanned by a Roman arch of triumph, supposed
to be not earlier than the time of Trajan. The ground on the side is
strewn in places with violated sarcophagi. On the left of the arch is
the great Naumachia basin, surrounded by seats for the spectators, and
filled by channels from the brook. On entering the town, a temple is
found immediately to the left, and behind this is a theatre with
twenty-eight tiers of seats, and capable of holding five thousand
persons.
The street of columns from the oval forum consisted of pillars,
generally about fifteen feet high and five yards apart. It is divided
into three sections by tetrapylons where cross streets intersect.
Towards the centre of the street the Corinthian order was found, with
Ionic capitals in the northern and southern parts. Near the middle was
a basilica to the right, where, no doubt, judgments were pronounced, and
on the left a propyleum, behind which flights of steps appear to have
led up to the great temple, which stood high on the hillside, having
pillars thirty-eight feet high and six feet in diameter. North of this
temple was another theatre, with sixteen tiers of seats--not an odeum,
like the preceding, which had a stage, but probably intended only for
gladiatorial shows. So also at ’Ammân an odeum with stage, quite as
complete as that of the southern theatre of Gerasa, stands close to the
larger semicircle, before which is the open area with its vomitoria.
To the right of the street of columns, opposite the northern theatre,
and close to the stream, are well-preserved remains of the great baths
of Gerasa. In the extreme north-east part of the city, not far from a
spring is a third temple, well preserved, and by the spring itself there
seems to have been a nymphæum with three altars. Ruins farther south,
east of the brook, are thought to represent a market-place and its
stables. There are two ancient bridges over the stream, one close to the
central basilica, and just outside the south-east gate are the ruins of
another church or chapel. It was interesting to note how the paving of
the bridge was laid diagonally (as in the opus reticulatum), and ruts
seemingly cut through it to guide the wheels of carts or of chariots. By
the basilica also are remains of four porphyry columns, and since no
such stone is found anywhere nearer than Egypt or Sinai, we see here, as
at ’Ammân also and at Tyre, that great labour and expense were devoted
to the adornment of the town. I also observed some double columns like
those of the Galilean synagogues of the same age, or like the huge
granite double monolith at Tyre, probably once belonging to the temple
of Melcarth.
The most remarkable fact concerning Gerasa is the absence of historical
notices of the city. It already existed in 78 B.C., and is mentioned by
Josephus and by Pliny. It was still a place of importance in the fourth
century, and there are allusions to the name in early Arab works and in
Crusading history. Stephen of Byzantium says that Ariston Rhetor came
thence. Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius knew the place, and there were
bishops of the city present at some of the Councils; but beyond this we
know nothing, save that which we gather from the inscriptions still
existing. So numerous and so magnificent were the Roman cities of the
second century of our era, that even the fine buildings of a town as
large as ancient Tyre excite no particular notice. So imperfectly was it
known, that the old Roman map of the fourth century, which makes the
Hieromax flow into the Dead Sea direct, appears to put Gerasa opposite
Jericho, and the Persian Gulf immediately east of the city. Yet when we
visit the ruins, we find that granite pillars were brought from Egypt to
adorn its basilica; that its busy population (said to include
descendants of some of Alexander’s soldiers) had their baths, their
theatres, their public memorials. An _Æthlophoros_, become Christian,
dedicates a church with Homeric hexameter verses, and the names of
Antoninus and perhaps of Pertinax are boldly sculptured on public
buildings. Few ruined cities so well attest the far-reaching power of
imperial Rome.
The Crusading King Baldwin II., in 1121 A.D., made a raid into this
country, and overturned a Moslem fortress near Jerash. The Crusaders
had other outposts at Tibneh, at Salt, and on the conical hill of Rubud;
but the broad plains of the Hauran, which Baldwin III. endeavoured in
vain to conquer, were never wrested from the Sultans of Damascus.
The road to Jordan from Gerasa passes along in sight of the distant
castle of Rubud and by the ancient village of Reimun, a well-watered
place with ancient tombs. Here, I believe, we should probably place the
celebrated Ramoth Gilead, which has, for no reason at all, been
identified with Es Salt, a town which takes its name from the old
episcopal title Saltus Hieraticus, due to the woods on the hill slopes
not far off. From Reimun the path winds down into the beautiful “Valley
of the Roebuck” (Wâdy Hamûr), full of picturesque glades. The valley was
green with young corn when I visited it, and the stream bordered with
oleanders. On the hillsides a dense wood of oaks was topped by dark
pines on the higher part of the ridge. Lentisk, arbutus, oleaster,
formed its underwood, and here, as on Carmel, the blackbird’s song may
be heard. The jay, cuckoo, hoopoe, and tomtit I also found in these
woods, with the “murmuring of innumerable doves,” as in the Nazareth
oaks.
Among the flowers which I saw in spring on the slopes of Gilead are many
of our English species. Clover, ragged-robin, red and white cistus,
clematis, crow’s-foot, purple lupins, squills, the pink phlox, the red
or blue anemone, cyclamen, corn-flowers, pheasant’s eye, salvia,
asphodel (both blue and yellow), vetches, wild mustard, marigold,
borage, moon-daisies, cytizus, orchids, and the white broom, Star of
Bethlehem, poppies, tulips, and buttercups, all grow in the grassy
dells. Mock orange, hawthorn, honeysuckle, and antirrhinum, the arbutus
and the lauristinus, are among its shrubs. Nowhere else in Palestine
save in the Jordan Valley have I seen such fields of flowers; but the
ravines and hill-slopes of the beautiful Sorrento scenery near Naples
both in fauna and flora very nearly approach the natural history of
Gilead.
These scenes were among the last through which it was my lot to pass in
Syria. Hurrying back from Damascus to Jerusalem, I rejoined my
companions, and we went down to Jaffa, where we took the northern
steamer in order to escape Alexandria by a longer sea-route. Rumours had
already reached us of the massacres in Egypt, and my reports concerning
the unsettled state of the Levant I found to have been already confirmed
by the telegrams which were arriving in England when we returned. The
steamer was crowded with refugees, and it was not many weeks later that
I again stood in the familiar streets of Alexandria, and saw the city of
gutted houses, and the ruins which covered the great square with heaps
of stone and of plaster. Thus our explorations may be said to have been
continued to the last days of peace, before the Levant became the
theatre of historic events.
There is only one district of Palestine which has not been described in
this volume, namely, the great plains of the Hauran and the volcanic
regions of the Lejah and Jaulan. Full as this region is of rude stone
monuments, of Roman towns, of Nabathean and Arab texts scrawled on the
rock, of Greek temples and Greek inscriptions, it is yet perhaps less
unknown and less interesting than the wild deserts of Moab and of Judah,
the oak woods of Gilead, the fastnesses of Hermon, the romantic
mountains of Northern Syria, which have here been described. Still it
remains a matter of regret to me that the work which was so
systematically carried out in other parts of Palestine has not yet been
extended over the whole of the Hauran plains.
Such, then, is the present condition of exploration east of Jordan.
About a quarter of that region has been surveyed and mapped, and nearly
the whole region has been visited by modern trained explorers. Much,
however, still remains to be done in the future in this interesting
country.
Reference has already been made in the introductory chapter to the map
made in this region by Herr G. Schumacher, a younger member of the
German colony of Haifa, which has been published by the Palestine
Exploration Fund. This map extends eastward of the Sea of Galilee for
about twenty miles, and reaches on the north to Banias, and on the south
to the region near Abila of Decapolis. An account of the country has
also been published from Herr Schumacher’s notes. The curious volcanic
region of the Jaulan is included in this area, and the most interesting
discoveries, already noted, were the sites of Susieh (or Hippos) and of
Kokaba, one of the towns mentioned in connection with the ancient
Ebionite sectarians of the second century, A.D.
The unfinished work by De Vogüé remains, however, perhaps the most
important contribution to our knowledge of this region. He was the first
scientific explorer who exploded the popular fallacy of the “giant
cities of Bashan,” by proving that not only were the stone towns of the
Hauran of very ordinary dimensions, but that the Greek inscriptions on
their walls showed them to have been built by Christians of the third
and later centuries, A.D. The oldest remains in Bashan are apparently
the dolmen groups discovered by Herr Schumacher, which are of the same
character with those described further south. In the early Christian
period the Ebionites flourished in Bashan, where they converted the
invading Arabs who advanced from the south; and it is even said that the
Arab king, Amr, erected monasteries as early as 180 A.D. The Græco-Roman
buildings found in the Hauran belong chiefly to this period when the
Arab capital was at Bosrah.
The Hauran is a great plateau stretching east to the isolated Jebel
Kuleib, which lies on the borders of the Syrian desert. This plateau
presents the chief cornfield of Palestine, and the wheat is thence
brought down for export to Acre. The population is in great measure
Druze, mixed with Arab and Circassian elements. The water supply is
chiefly from wells and cisterns, and for this reason Bashan has always
presented great difficulties to military expeditions, and the Crusaders
never effected its conquest.
The Greek texts, pagan and Christian, here collected by Waddington, De
Vogüé, and others, are very numerous, but less interesting as a rule
than are the early Arab inscriptions copied by the same explorers. The
Nabathean or North Arab texts of the Hauran range from 200 B.C. to 200
A.D., and are of great epigraphic importance, showing a population of
the same stock then also existing in Petra. Yet further east Mr. Cyril
Graham discovered inscriptions and rude sketches executed by another
Arab stock which advanced from Yemen about the same period. Some seven
hundred of these South Arab texts are now known, and in 1877 their
relation to the alphabet of South Arabia was demonstrated by Halévy. It
was this rising tide of northward migration which a few centuries later
broke down the Roman power in Syria at the famous battle of the Yermuk
(south-east of the Sea of Galilee), when Islam triumphed over the
degenerate Byzantines.