As regards age, these monuments—dolmens and menhirs—were erected apparently by a people who had little mechanical power. Very rarely are the stones shaped, however roughly, and the dolmens are hardly ever on hill-tops, but on slopes where they might be easily formed by dragging the stones down-hill, and sliding the cap-stones on to their supports. Probably the people that erected them was unable to sculpture or to write. In other countries such monuments are of high antiquity, and there is no reason why they should not be very ancient in Syria.
As regards distribution, these monuments are absent in Judea and Samaria. There is one example on Gilboa, and five or six in Upper Galilee, one of which is called “the stone of blood.” I have seen near Jeba, north of Jerusalem, what might be a fallen dolmen, and have found what might be cup-hollows, but more probably these were mortars scooped in the rock in which gleanings of the fields were crushed. East of Jordan there are such hollows, used for making gunpowder, not connected with dolmens. The surveyors, who found so many dolmens in Moab, found none at all south of Galilee. In Moab, Gilead, and Bashan they are more numerous than anywhere else in Western Asia, as at present known.
In a previous chapter I have noticed that pottery statuettes, found in abundance in Phœnicia, are almost unknown in Palestine proper, and have suggested the reason. The same reason holds good, perhaps, as regards the rude stone monuments. They may very probably have once existed, and may have been purposely destroyed. Israel was commanded to “smash” the menhirs of the Canaanites, to “upset” their altars, and to destroy their images. These commands Josiah, the zealous king of Judah, is recorded to have carried into practice. May not this, I would ask, be the true reason for their disappearance? The Greeks and the Romans would not have so acted, and dolmens still stand close to the Roman city of ’Ammân. The Arabs, who left them east of Jordan, and who regard them as “ghouls’ houses,” would not have destroyed them west of the river. Josiah and Hezekiah did not penetrate beyond Jordan. At Dan many of these monuments seem to have been purposely overthrown. It seems to me therefore probable that the absence of such monuments, like the absence of sculptures and of pottery images, is best explained by supposing their destruction in the time of the reforming kings of Judah. It seems to me also that the existing monuments, though not impossibly erected by Nabatheans or other pagan Arabs, are very probably the surviving work of Canaanite tribes, as are very certainly the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Northern Syria. The age so claimed for these remains is not equal to that of some of the monuments of Egypt and of Chaldea, which represent a more advanced civilisation, and the presence of dolmens on the slopes of Nebo cannot but recall the altars which Balak, king of Moab, is said to have erected on that mountain.[54]
The ruins of the cities of Heshbon and Medeba are those of Roman towns with later Byzantine additions. At Medeba there was a fine church, of which only foundations remain. Here the Jesuit Fathers claimed to have discovered four ancient Nabathean inscriptions, which I afterwards copied in Jerusalem; but I regret to say that learned opinion regards these as forgeries. Such texts should be found in Moab, and Sir Charles Warren obtained a copy of one said to exist farther south. At present, however, the Moabite Stone is the only important inscription from this region. It was found accidentally by a missionary, just as the Siloam text was discovered by a Jewish boy. Even of this monument the genuineness has been questioned by a learned writer, but his reasons seem to be insufficient. He says that the letters are much sharper than the water-worn surface of the stone, and hence argues that they were carved by the forger on an old cippus. My experience in respect to a very large number of ancient texts which I have copied is that the letters are generally better preserved than the surface. They get filled with mud, and are thus guarded against the weather, which wears the surface in which they are cut.
There is one famous spot in Moab which requires special notice, namely, Mount Nebo, whence Moses is recorded to have gazed on the Promised Land. The celebrated “Pisgah view” has often been described, but some writers seem to have given accounts not based on notes taken on the spot. The value of all geographical descriptions depends on their being written with the scene before the eyes of the writer, for memory plays strange tricks, and in the present case accuracy is of the greatest importance. I not only made detailed notes sitting on the ruined cairn on Nebo, but I also drew an outline of the panorama which is preserved in my note-book. The most important fact is that the Mediterranean Sea is not in sight; and as the heights of Nebo and of the chief tops of the western watershed are now certainly known within four or five feet, it is possible to say with certainty that the Great Sea is invisible from Nebo, because it is hidden throughout by the western watershed of Judea and Samaria.[55] We had the advantage of being familiar with every hill-top in sight, and, moreover, saw the view in clear weather.
Mount Nebo is a site fixed beyond dispute. It retains the name Neba, which applies to the highest knoll on a long spur running out west from the plateau between Heshbon and Medeba. As already noted, there are traces of a ring of dolmens round the knoll, and it is curious that none of these particular examples are mentioned in any previous account of the site, as far as I can find. Lower down on the ridge is the ruin Siaghah, preserving the name Seath, which stands instead of Nebo in the Targum of Onkelos. To the north are the “Springs of Moses,” of which we have perhaps an early account in the sixth century. Antoninus the pilgrim says that certain hot springs called “Baths of Moses,” where lepers were cleansed, existed east of Jordan.[56] The plateau close to the Nebo knoll is called “Field of Zophim” in the Bible, and the name, I think, still survives close by in the Tal’at es Sufa, or “Ascent of Zoph,” on the north side of the spur. The view from the knoll or from the ruin of Siaghah is much the same. It cannot compare with the panorama from Hermon, and there are indeed several places east of Jordan which command a finer view; but Nebo is the nearest mountain to Shittim in the Jordan Valley, from which an extensive view is visible.