In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

It is worth while to give some short account of the Madaba map, not only because the history is interesting in itself, but because it is thoroughly typical of much which happens in this country. The facts are taken from a Mémoire presented by Mons. Clermont-Ganneau to the French Academy, and subsequently published in the Recueil d'Archéologie Orientale.

The discoverer of the mosaic was a Greek monk, of whom the very name has been forgotten, and who, in 1884, communicated the fact to the Greek Patriarch, who took no notice whatever. One feels little regret that this worthy ecclesiastic was, later, exiled to Constantinople, and succeeded by the patriarch Gerasimos, who, in 1890, six years after the original discovery, found the letter, and immediately sent off an architect with orders that the mosaic should be included in the church about to be erected at Madaba. We have the testimony of four monks that, at this time, the mosaic was almost complete, but the intelligent workman destroyed much of it in order to lay the foundations of the church, sacristy, and out-buildings; broke up part to insert a pilaster, and left much of the bordering, with its decorations of biblical imagery, outside. He then returned, with the assurance that the mosaic was unimportant.

Another six years elapsed, and Father Cléopas, librarian of the Greek patriarchate, who chanced to be arranging a visit to Jericho, was prevailed upon by Monsignor Gerasimos, who had never lost interest in the reported discovery, to continue his journey as far as Madaba, in order to report upon it. He returned in January 1897, thirteen years after the original discovery, bringing with him a sketch of the map, and some notes. M. Arvanitaki, a professional map-maker, was at once despatched to make a drawing. He was a Greek, a member of the Astronomical Society of France, and an accomplished linguist, a matter of great importance when abbreviations and contractions had to be correctly rendered. Before his work could be finished the patriarch died, and the geometer, not being new to the little ways of Jerusalem, was about to abandon an undertaking which any succeeding patriarch might possibly repudiate, but was, fortunately, encouraged by the Franciscans, who undertook to translate the MS. of Père Cléopas into French, and to publish the work of the artist in twelve sheets of half-a-metre square. This was successfully accomplished by means of Lumière's orthochromatic plates, and was forwarded to the Academy of France on the 16th of March. The story of the misfortunes of the map was, however, not yet complete. The Greek patriarchate claimed the original drawings, and the negatives were broken on their way to Paris. M. Clermont-Ganneau, however, succeeded in reproducing them, and made them the basis of a communication to the Institute, and so of introducing the valuable "find" to the archæological world.

Meantime, Père Vincent, of the Dominican Order in Jerusalem, had made another drawing, which was published in pamphlet form with a monograph by his learned colleague, Père Lagrange, collaborating with Père Cléopas himself. A further record was made, also early in March, by Père Germer Durand, of the Assumptionist Order, who also laid a complete photograph before the Academy of France, consisting of ten sheets, taken from above, a light scaffolding having been erected for the purpose, an experiment pronounced in the Mémoire as having been "carried out in the most satisfactory manner possible." Within two months, therefore, of the visit of Père Cléopas, the mosaic, neglected for thirteen years, had been the subject of three separate monographs. The representative of the English Palestine Exploration Fund made a visit to Madaba which was wholly unsuccessful, but the German architect, Paul Palmer, of Jerusalem, assisted by a couple of artists, succeeded in triumphing over many difficulties, political as well as mechanical, and has made a reproduction of the map, of the original size and colouring, which now hangs, by the desire of the patriarch, in the Greek School at Jerusalem, where it is accessible to all comers, an object of permanent value to scholars and archæologists.

The discovery has naturally given rise to a vast amount of discussion, and has involved much reconsideration of earlier topographical conclusions. We can never sufficiently regret all that has been so gratuitously lost, although, in Palestine, one necessarily becomes somewhat hardened to losses of the kind. Trustworthy witnesses who saw the map before the mutilation recently inflicted concur in testifying that it originally recorded the position of Ephesus, Smyrna, and Constantinople, showing that it must have included Asia Minor and the Bosphorus.

And so we wrangle and regret; we take long journeys to see this marvel of the science of at least thirteen hundred years ago; we dispute who shall be accounted the first to perceive its worth; what nation first presented the facts to the world; what bearing they have upon the learning of to-day; and, meantime, the name of the discoverer, though he may still be living, is never mentioned, and no one thinks of the human soul that imagined, the human hands that wrought—the nameless Byzantine priest into whose labours we have entered!

"Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats.

Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?

What porridge had John Keats?"