Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

It was by the “fountain which is in Jezreel” that Saul pitched before the fatal battle of Gilboa. The Philistines removed from Shunem to Aphek, and, according to Josephus, to Rangan. Perhaps these are the modern Fukû’a and ’Arrâneh, in which case the strong position of Jezreel was turned on the south-west, where it is most assailable, and the doomed monarch was hemmed in between the enemy on the south and the precipices of the mountain on the north.

On the 28th of September we left the Jenîn camp, where we suffered from the east wind and the great heat, to find a retreat in the western hills above the Great Plain, at the modern village of Umm el Fahm.

The large and flourishing stone village above us was built within the present century, and is called Umm el Fahm, “Mother of Charcoal.” It is perched on the slope of a high, conical, wooded hill, called from the little chapel on the top Sheikh Iskander, or “Chief Alexander.” The Kadi of the village, an amusing little native, who could read and write, told us many legends of this saint. He was identified apparently with Alexander the Great, for he was said to have had two ram’s horns, and also seemingly with Melchisedek, as he was reported to have had a meeting with Abraham in the valley.

This district was almost entirely unknown in 1872; the cone is a volcanic crater, and small volcanic outbreaks exist west of it, and also at the edge of the Great Plain on the east. The range is covered with thickets of lentisk and spurge laurel, and on the western slopes is an open wood of good-sized oaks; but on the north a broad valley called Wâdy ’Arah, divides this range from a plateau of white chalk called “the Breezy Land” (Belâd er Rûhah), bare of trees and reaching to Carmel. The thickets of Sheikh Iskander reach southwards almost to the plain of Dothan; the Yahmûr or roebuck gives its name to one of the valleys in this region, and every kind of game abounds.

On the western edge of the Great Plain there are three famous sites, Taanach, Legio, and Jokneam, concerning which a few words may be said.

The ruined site of Lejjûn is the Roman Legio, a town mentioned as a military station, and an important place in the fourth century. On the maps it will be found marked as the ancient Megiddo, but this is only an instance of the very slender basis on which conclusions as to the positions of important places in Palestine have been somehow founded. There is nothing definite in the Bible as to the position of Megiddo. It is often mentioned with Taanach, the site of which, with its name unchanged, exists about four miles south of Lejjûn; but it also occurs in connection with Jezreel, and with Bethshean, east of the Great Plain. In the time of Jerome Megiddo was unknown, though the Great Plain was apparently then supposed to be the Valley of Megiddon. Dr. Robinson, in suggesting the Lejjûn site, appears to have been influenced by the Crusading chronicles, which he, as a rule, condemns. Marino Sanuto, in 1321 A.D., places Megiddo at a town which he calls Sububa, and shows it on his map as on the west side of the plain. This is evidently the present Ezbûba, a mud village two miles north of Taanach, and three miles and a quarter south-east of Lejjûn. But Crusading topography is unfortunately more remarkable than reliable, and we seek in vain for further confirmation. Dr. Robinson has relied on Jerome’s comment on a passage in Zechariah (xii. 11), “As the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the Valley of Megiddon,” concerning which St. Jerome says that Hadad Rimmon was a town afterwards called Maximianopolis in the Valley of Megiddon; and this place we learn from the Bordeaux Pilgrim was ten miles from Jezreel on the road to Cæsarea. This distance evidently points to Rummâneh south of Lejjûn, seven and a quarter English miles from Jezreel. But we are still no nearer to the satisfactory fixing of Megiddo, for we have to depend on Jerome, first for the fact of Hadad Rimmon being a town at all (a fact disputed by many authorities who make it the name of an idol); secondly, for the town, if it was one, being the same as Maximianopolis. Supposing these premises both to be granted, it still does not follow that the town Megiddo was west of the Plain of Megiddo; nor, if it were, does it follow that it was at Lejjûn.

Such is the flimsy chain of argument which has been considered sufficient to fix the site. When we discover that there is a large ruin between Jezreel and Bethshean, which still bears the name Mujedd’a, a name which occurs in no other part of Palestine, these arguments cannot be considered worth weighing against so important an indication; and the new site, as will afterwards be seen, seems perhaps to fit better the few requirements for the ancient Megiddo.

Lejjûn was indeed once a large town, with a fine water supply from a beautiful spring, but Legio appears to have been the chief town of this part of Palestine, and to it the ruins are plainly to be ascribed, the distance from Taanach fitting with that given by Jerome.

North of Lejjûn the Great Wâdy el Milh runs down from the white plateau of the “Breezy Land,” which it separates from the southern end of Carmel. Here at the mouth stands a huge Tell or mound called Keimûn, on which are remains of a little Byzantine chapel, and of a small fort erected by the famous native chief Dhahr el ’Amr. The Samaritans have a curious legend connected with this site. According to them Joshua was challenged by the giants, and enclosed here with his army in seven walls of iron. A dove carried his message thence to Nabih, king of the tribes east of Jordan, who came to his assistance. The magic walls fell down, and the King of Persia, Shobek, was transfixed by an arrow which nailed him on his horse to the ground.

The present name is a slight modification of the ancient Jokneam of Carmel, but the Crusaders seem to have been puzzled by it, and transformed Keimûn into Cain Mons, or Mount Cain, whence arose the curious legend that Cain was here slain with an arrow by Lamech, which they supposed to be the murder referred to in the Song of Lamech (Gen. iv. 23). The chapel no doubt shows the spot once held to be the site of the death of Cain, but the derivation of the name was as fanciful as that of Haifa from Cephas or from Caiaphas the high-priest.