Palestine

by C. R. Conder

Another important discovery, which may yet lead to more valuable finds, was the recovery of the probable site of the old cemetery on the island, which may, I believe, exist under the present Moslem graveyard. We squeezed through a narrow fissure in the rocks on the shore, and found ourselves in a Phœnician tomb of the peculiar character found at both Tyre and Sidon—a chamber at the bottom of a deep shaft from the surface. Unfortunately this tomb has been rifled, and the sarcophagus which it once held now lies on the ground outside the shaft. There may be other tombs not far off of the same kind which remain to be discovered, but excavation in a modern cemetery would present considerable difficulties.

Tyre was already a city on an island in the sea in the fourteenth century B.C., as we learn from an Egyptian papyrus of that date. Enumerating the coast towns of Beirût, Sidon, and Sarepta, the Egyptian traveller adds, “They are nigh to another city on the sea. Tyre, the double port, is its name; water is carried to it in boats; it is richer in fish than in sands.” The reference to the want of water is of interest, for this has always been the weakness of Tyre, which was somewhat later supplied by an aqueduct from the fine springs on the shore at Ras el Ain. The joining of the island to the mainland appears to have been first effected when Alexander the Great besieged the city and made a causeway to it from the shore, which causeway is now broadened by the constant drifting of the sands. The so-called “spring of Tyre” on the causeway is fed, I believe, by the ancient aqueduct, which we carefully traced. The work seems in great part to be probably Roman, but I found that in one part “false arches,” like those in Etruscan and early Greek vaults, occur in this aqueduct, which can only be attributed to the Phœnicians. The aqueduct probably existed in the time of Shalmanezer IV., for the inhabitants in 724 B.C. dug cisterns when the water-supply from the land was cut off.

Although Tyre is perhaps more celebrated than any other Phœnician city, it is from Sidon that the finest Phœnician remains as yet found have been recovered, including the celebrated sarcophagus of Esmunazar—the date of which is still disputed within several centuries—and the recent large find of sarcophagi and art objects which remain in the Constantinople Museum, unpublished and only very vaguely described. These remains are not older, apparently, than the Greek period, or in some cases, perhaps, of the Persian age. It is sincerely to be hoped that good accounts of them will be soon forthcoming.

It is still very doubtful what we mean when speaking of Phœnicians. The alphabet and the language of the Phœnician monuments are Semitic, and are traced perhaps as early as the time of Solomon. The representation of the Fenekhu or Phœnicians on Egyptian pictures of the time of Thothmes III. also presents us with a Semitic type of bearded aquiline profile. These Semitic people were certainly the Phœnicians known to the Greeks, and there is no good reason for doubting the statement of Herodotus that they were emigrants from the Persian Gulf.

There are, however, many things in Phœnician antiquity which are not easily explained by the aid of Semitic studies. Thus, for instance, the gods Tammuz and Nergal were adored in Phœnicia. Even Gesenius is unable to give a Semitic derivation for these names, and they are very well known to be Akkadian words, meaning “The spirit of the rising sun” and “The great lord.” Both these deities were adored in Chaldea, and their presence in Phœnicia indicates a population of like character to the Akkadian on the shores of Palestine. Nor is this the only indication of the kind. The Hebrew language itself contains foreign words of the same derivation, including a good many of what are known as “culture words,” relating to architecture, agriculture, and settled life, indicating the influence of that settled non-Semitic population which the Hebrews found dwelling in walled cities and tilling the land when they invaded Canaan.

It is not possible here to enlarge on this subject, though it is one of very great interest. No scholar who has carefully studied the early Phœnician seals and cylinders can fail to observe how like they are to the art of Mesopotamia, not only in general character, but in subject and in the details of symbolism. Rude monosyllabic words constantly meet the eye in Phœnician nomenclature, in the names of gods and in short inscriptions on seals, which it is very difficult to explain as Semitic. The conclusion at which it seems to me we must arrive is, that in Phœnicia, as in other parts of Syria, there was from a very early period a mixed population. The traders and rulers of the cities were of a race akin to the Hebrews, and spoke a language which is only a Hebrew dialect; but there must have been also an old element of population existing perhaps, in this case, chiefly among the lower class, which was quite distinct, and which belonged to that ancient and wide-spread “Turanian” race to which the Medes, the Akkadians, and the Hittites also belonged. It was from this race originally that the Phœnicians acquired their knowledge of metal-work, of seal-engraving, of sculpture; and I believe that it was from the syllabaries and older hieroglyphics of the Hittites that they developed their great invention, the alphabet, which they bequeathed as a practical benefit to all engaged in commerce and literature throughout the world; for it is from the Phœnician alphabet that every other alphabet of Europe or of Asia has sprung.

The number of Phœnician gems with carved emblems, and of small Phœnician pottery figures of the gods which fill our museums contrasts in a very remarkable way with the absence of such remains in Palestine proper. The only places where such pottery figures have been found in the south are at Gaza and at Gezer, as far as I can ascertain. The Jerusalem seals, generally speaking, have only an engraved name, though a few, said to be Hebrew, have emblems like those of Phœnicia. There is no apparent reason why these pottery images and other idols should exist undiscovered in Palestine, for collectors are just as eager in the south as in the north of Syria, and the tombs have been rifled equally in all parts. In the Palestine tombs glass tear-bottles are found, and coins occasionally occur; but the pottery statuettes are absent. The explanation seems to be that there was a difference of religion between the Hebrews and their neighbours; that the Phœnicians, like the Chaldeans or Egyptians, believed in the efficacy of such figures, symbolic of their many gods, while the Hebrews were forbidden by the Law to make any such image. The same sort of conclusion may, as we shall see in a later chapter, be drawn from the absence of rude stone monuments in Palestine, such monuments being very abundant in parts of Syria not reached by the zeal of Hezekiah and of Josiah.

The course of our investigation now carries us into the extreme north-east corner of the Holy Land, to Banias, under the slopes of Hermon, where the Jordan springs forth a full-grown stream, joining the Hasbâny river, which geographically, but not historically, is the true head-water. The fastnesses of this lofty mountain, which forms a conspicuous background to many a view in Galilee, in Samaria, and even in Judea, have always formed a remote and isolated region. It was here that the men of Dan, according to the Book of Judges, came to Laish, “unto a people that were quiet and secure, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with fire; and there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no business with any man” (Judges xviii. 27, 28); and in later ages this mountain was the cradle of the Druze religion, which at one time had its missionaries in Afghanistan and in India, as well as in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt.

The Druze race inhabiting Hermon, and now existing in great numbers in the Hauran, to which some of the chief families have migrated from the Lebanon since the establishment of Christian rule in that province, represents one of the finest elements of population in Syria.

Tall, stalwart men, and women with features more delicate than any of the Arab or Fellahah females, seem to belong to a Persian rather than a Semitic race, although the language of their literature and of daily life is Arabic.[44] It is not hard to become acquainted with Druzes of every class, but to penetrate beneath the surface which they present to those of other creeds is far more difficult, and our knowledge of their creed is derived, not from any communications made by themselves, but from the capture of their sacred books; although even these probably only reveal the outer aspect of their belief, with one exception.