Drawn by Boudier, from a pencil sketch by Lortet.
Here, behind a screen of woods and mountain, the enemy would concentrate his forces and prepare resolutely to meet the attack. If the invader succeeded in overcoming resistance at this point, the country lay open to him as far as the Orontes; nay, often even to the Euphrates. The position was too important for its defence to have been neglected. A range of forts, Ibleâm, Taanach, and Megiddo,* drawn like a barrier across the line of advance, protected its southern face, and beyond these a series of strongholds and villages followed one another at intervals in the bends of the valleys or on the heights, such as Shunem, Kasuna, Anaharath, the two Aphuls, Cana, and other places which we find mentioned on the triumphal lists, but of which, up to the present, the sites have not been fixed.
* Megiddo, the “Legio” of the Roman period, has been
identified since Robinson’s time with Khurbet-Lejûn, and
more especially with the little mound known by the name of
Tell-el-Mutesallim. Conder proposed to place its site more
to the east, in the valley of the Jordan, at Khurbet-el-
Mujeddah.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Lortet.
From this point the conqueror had a choice of three routes. One ran in an oblique direction to the west, and struck the Mediterranean near Acre, leaving on the left the promontory of Carmel, with the sacred town, Rosh-Qodshu, planted on its slope.