Palestine

by C. R. Conder

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.