Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

In returning to camp we passed through the luxuriant vineyards of the supposed Vale of Eshcol, carefully enclosed between dry-stone walls. The grapes, mellowed by the autumn mists, were in full beauty; the rich amber-green foliage covered the whole of the open valley; beyond was a stone town, and a fortress gleaming with a recent coating of whitewash, having a tall minaret above. A barren hill and a few grey olives rose behind. Such was our first view of Hebron, the ancient city which, as the Bible tells us, “was built seven years before Zoan (or Tanis) in Egypt” (Num. xiii. 22).

The results of the fuller acquaintance which we gained with the town, in three subsequent visits of several days’ duration, may here be gathered up. Hebron is a long stone town on the western slope of a bare terraced hill; it extends along the valley, and the main part reaches about 700 yards north and south, including the Mosque Quarter, and the Quarter of the Gate of the Corner. On the north is a separate suburb, named from the mosque of ’Aly Bukka, who died in 670 A.H.; on the south also, and west of the road, is another small suburb. The Haram stands above the middle of the main Quarter. The Sultan’s Pool—a large well-built reservoir, occupies part of the valley. West of the city is an open green below the Quarantine, surrounded by hills which are covered with olives.

The contrast between Hebron and Bethlehem has been already noticed; the town has a dead-alive appearance, and the sullen looks of the Moslem fanatics contrast with the officious eagerness of the Bethlehem Christians. There are some 17,000 Moslems in Hebron, according to the Governor’s account; and about 600 Jews are tolerated in the Quarter of the Corner Gate. The town is the centre of commerce for the southern Arabs, who bring their wool and camel’s-hair to its market. It has also a sort of trade in glass ornaments and in leather water-buckets, but the bustle and stir of Bethlehem are not found in its streets; the inhabitants seem wrapped in contemplation of the tombs of their forefathers, and boast that no pagan Frank has yet desecrated the holy shrines with his presence, or built his house in the town.

The place of chief interest in Hebron is the Cave of Machpelah containing the tombs of the Patriarchs. There seems no reason to doubt the genuine character of the site now surrounded by the Haram, and here again we have that valuable consent of traditions—Jewish, Christian, and Moslem, which seems to distinguish the true sites, from those less genuine concerning which two or more discordant traditions have arisen.

Only two trustworthy witnesses—Dean Stanley and Mr. Fergusson—have had the opportunity of describing the interior of this sanctuary; and it seems very doubtful if any living being has ever descended into the mysterious cavern beneath the floor since the Moslem conquest of Palestine; nor will it be possible to explore this cave so long as the Moslems have possession of the place, unless unexpected changes occur in their religious feelings. One curious story was, however, told me. It is said that when Ibrahim Pacha threatened the town, the inhabitants carried their property to the cave for safety. If this be true the area must be considerable, and the iron door on the north-west, mentioned by Captain Warren, may perhaps be the same iron door mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela as leading into the cave in the twelfth century.

The surrounding wall is one of the mysteries of Palestine, and a monument inferior only to the Temple Enclosure, which it resembles in style. It measures about 112 feet east and west, by 198 feet north and south, and has eight pilasters on the short sides, and sixteen oh the long, resembling those which I found, as before noticed, at the north-west corner of the Jerusalem Haram. The stones also are scarcely inferior in dimensions, and one is said to be thirty-eight feet long, and three and a half feet high; they are all drafted with the real Jewish draft, broad, shallow, and beautifully cut, as at Jerusalem. Judging from the similarity of style, one is led to ascribe the building to the Herodian period—a view supported by Mr. Fergusson in his able paper on the subject, his opinion being based on historical grounds.

Josephus speaks of monuments of the Patriarchs as existing in his day (B. J. iv. 9, 7), but is silent as to the enclosure. Had it, however, existed in the Old Testament times, we should surely find some record of its origin in the Bible; nor does it seem likely that it was built later than Herod’s time, for the earliest Christian pilgrim in 333 A.D. found it already standing.

The great walls are surmounted by two high white minarets on the south-east and north-west. The southern portion of the area is occupied by a Gothic twelfth-century building, presumably a church; the nave has a pointed roof and clerestory windows, the aisles are lower and their roofs rest against the fortress wall. Within are the cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca, supposed to stand above their true graves in the cavern. Outside the building, in separate chambers, are the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, flanking the entrance. On the north side of the open court Jacob and Leah have similar cenotaphs, covered, like the rest, with richly embroidered green cloths. A modern building is erected against the western fortress wall on the exterior. This is called the Tomb of Joseph, whose bones are said, by Josephus, to have been removed hither from Shechem—a story no doubt due to Jewish jealousy of the shrine at Shechem, which was in the hands of the Samaritans.

Cenotaphs like those in the present building are mentioned as early as 700 A.D. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela states, however, that Jews were able in his days to descend, through an iron door, into the cavern, which was in three compartments, and where the real tombs were shown. The twelfth-century writers, in describing the fortress, which they quaintly name the “Castle of St. Abraham,” also call the cavern Spelunca Duplex, “the double cave”—a title probably derived from the Hebrew Machpelah, signifying “the place divided”: Sir John Maundeville, in 1322, states that one chamber was above the other.

An idea appears to have existed at an early period that Hebron was not originally built on its present site, but on the hill north-west of the modern town. Arculphus mentions this in 700 A.D., and Marino Sanuto in the fourteenth century says the same, both apparently referring to ancient ruins then visible in the direction of the present site of Abraham’s Oak. There are traces of the same theory in the writings of many intermediate visitors, and the Bible narrative itself seems to require a position opposite the Haram, if the true Machpelah be beneath that enclosure, for the cave was not in Hebron, but in a field “before Mamre—the same is Hebron” (Gen. xxiii. 19). Thus, though a new city may have grown up around the sacred tombs, even in Jewish times, the original Hebron, Mamre, or Kirjath-Arba of Abraham, must have had a different site; and it may be noted, that the principal springs, and many of the rock-cut tombs dating from the Jewish period, are now found north-west of Hebron.