Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine

by Laurence Oliphant

The itineraries of the pilgrims and early travellers are scarcely less perplexing. They are generally careful to record the distances between the various places they visit, but rarely with accuracy. Their remarks, however, are naïve and amusing. I have just been reading the journal of a certain Antoninus, the Martyr, who travelled in Palestine about the year A.D. 530. Writing of Tyre, he says:

“The city of Tyre contains influential men; the life there is very wicked; the luxury such as cannot be described. There are public brothels, and silk and other kinds of clothing are woven.”

We do not altogether see the connection in this last sentence. Going on, he remarks:

“Thence we came to Ptolemais (the modern Acre), a respectable city, where we found good monasteries. Opposite Ptolemais, six miles off, is a city which is named Sycaminus, under Mount Carmel. A mile from Sycaminus are the hamlets of the Samaritans, and above the hamlets, a mile and a half away, is the Monastery of Heliseus (or Elijah), the prophet, at the place where the woman met him whose child he raised from the dead. On Mount Carmel is found a stone, of small size and round, which, when struck, rings because it is solid. This is the virtue of the stone—if it be hung on to a woman, or to any animal, they will never miscarry. About six or seven miles off is the city of Porphyrion.”

Now there are as many mistakes as there are sentences in this quaint account by the holy man. It is a matter of dispute which are the ruins of Sycaminus. Two ruins claim that honor, and one of these it undoubtedly is. They are only two miles apart, but the nearest is thirteen miles from Acre, instead of six, and the other fifteen. A mile from Sycaminus, he says, are the hamlets of the Samaritans. These have been identified beyond all doubt as a ruin called Kefr es Samir, two miles and a half beyond one of the abovementioned ruins, and four miles and a half beyond the other. The Monastery of Heliseus, the prophet, “a mile and a half away,” I have described in a former letter. It is the picturesque gorge and ruin called Ain Siah, but the place where Elijah met the woman of Sarepta was, if we are to believe the Bible, “at the gate of that city,” at least fifty miles distant from Carmel. There is no doubt as to its site, between Tyre and Sidon. As to “the stone of small size, which, when struck, rings because it is solid,” it happens to ring because it is hollow. I have an interesting collection of these geodes, found near Ain Siah, their peculiar shapes having given rise to the legend that they were melons and other fruits which the proprietor refused the prophet when he was hungry, and which the latter therefore blasted with petrifaction. And then comes the final statement about the unhappy Porphyrion, which he puts six miles off, thus probably identifying it with Athlit, and making confusion worse confounded. First we have the Jerusalem Itinerary, distinctly placing it to the north of Sidon, a position confirmed by other authorities; then we have William of Tyre identifying it with Haifa, and now we have Antoninus putting it six miles off.

I will not inflict upon you all my reasons for coming to the conclusion that the ruin at Tell el-Samak, the Mound of the Fish already alluded to, is the site of Sycaminum, though I doubt whether a larger population did not inhabit the city two miles nearer Haifa, where the porphyry fragments abound. To judge by the fine carvings at both places, they must have been wealthy as well as populous, and their most prosperous period was in all probability during the first three or four centuries of our era. The coins which I have found so far are of that epoch. Exploring the ruins of what must have been the upper tower of Sycaminus, distant about four hundred yards from the Fish Mound, and two hundred feet above it, a few days ago, I came upon a cistern with four circular apertures. Upon being let down into it I found it was seventy feet long, hewn out of the solid rock, twenty feet broad, and twelve feet high from the débris at the bottom, but in reality much deeper. The roof was supported by three columns, four feet square, also hewn from the living rock. The cement was still in some places perfect, and the cistern must have been capable of containing a vast supply of water. It was about fifteen yards from an angle of a wall composed of rubble, from which the ashlar had been removed, about four feet thick, and still standing in places to a height of four feet. In others the foundations of this wall were easily traceable. As the whole ruin seems to have escaped the observation of the Palestine Exploration Survey, I measured it, and found the east wall to be one hundred and twelve yards long, the south wall sixty-five, the west wall seventy, and an intersecting wall forty. I could find no traces of a north wall. It was probably a fortress, which was supplied by the cistern already mentioned. In the neighborhood were some fine rock-cut tombs, two with six loculi, each in a good state of preservation. I also picked up a piece of white marble on which was an inscription in early Arabic characters, but only the word “Allah” and two or three more letters remained on the fragment.

At Kefr Lam, the crusaders' Capernaum, which I had occasion recently to visit, I discovered two very remarkable vaults, each forty feet long by twelve broad and seven high. The roof was supported by five arches, each arch composed of a single stone four feet broad, on the top of which huge flat stones had been laid. I have never seen any constructions like these vaults, and think they probably dated from a very ancient period. In the immediate neighborhood the peasantry had recently opened an ancient well, thirty-five feet deep, the water being approached by a flight of steps round two sides of the well, the shaft of which was about thirty feet square. There were no fewer than seventeen handsome rock-cut tombs in the neighborhood of the village, and I regretted that I had not time to prolong my investigations, as I feel convinced that the vicinity would repay examination. As it is, I have obtained from the villagers several good specimens of terra-cotta lamps, two curious alabaster saucers, some coins, and other antiquities.

[THE SEA OF GALILEE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST.]

Haifa, Dec. 26.—In reading the works of Dr. Kitto and other writers who have endeavoured to present a picture of the manners and customs of the population which inhabited Palestine in ancient times, I have been much struck by the erroneous impressions which the descriptions of those writers are calculated to convey in many important respects. This has arisen from the fact that while they have portrayed, with tolerable accuracy, the rude civilization of the original inhabitants and the subsequent civilization grafted upon it by their Jewish conquerors, they have left out of consideration the changes worked upon, and the modifications introduced into, the social conditions thus produced by that still higher and later civilization which resulted from Greek and Roman invasions. Thus while they carefully trace back the habits of the modern fellahin, and show that they differ slightly from those of the peasantry of the country in the time of Christ, and invoke the testimony of modern Bedouins as evidence of a mode of life which has undergone no perceptible alteration since the days of Abraham, they leave out of account altogether that magnificent Roman and Byzantine civilization, traces of which still exist in such abundance as to astound the traveller with its splendor and its richness, but which has passed away like a dream, leaving nothing behind but the coarse barbarism which has succeeded it, and which is almost identical in character with what it supplanted. Hence it is that these writers have found those resemblances between the modern and ancient manners and customs of the inhabitants of this country by which they were so much struck, and which they have given to the public as furnishing an accurate picture of what ancient Palestine was like.

We are so much in the habit of confining our interest in this country to its history before the time of Christ that it will probably strike many with surprise to learn that the most flourishing epoch of its history was subsequent to that time; that never before had the arts and sciences reached so high a pitch; that never before had its population been so wealthy and luxurious, its architecture so grand, its commerce so flourishing, and its civilization generally so advanced. It is true it had lost its independence, and was only a Roman province, but it is just because it was one, and not a Jewish kingdom, that our impression of its actual condition at the time of Christ is apt to be so erroneous.