[107] ‘Le Khan dit de Nebi-Younés a été depuis longtemps identifié avec Porphyreon.
‘Les dunes paraissent cacher des constructions antiques.
‘Quand je passai à Neby-Younés on venait d’ouvrir une de ces dunes, pour en tirer des pierres de construction. On voyait éventrées de jolies chambres, peintes présentant des animaux, des paons affrontés, sous de petits arceaux peints très ornés rappelant la disposition des canons qu’on trouve en tête des beaux évangeliaires Byzantins.
‘Il est évident qu’il y eut vers cet endroit une ville assez importante dont la floraison paraît avoir eu lieu surtout à l’époque Chrétienne.’—‘Mission de Phénicie dirigée,’ par M. Ernest Renan (Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1854), p. 510.
Khaifa, a small town at the foot of Mount Carmel. ‘Some have held Khaifa to be Sycaminos, and others Porphyreon. There seems to be some grounds for its identity with Sycaminos, but none for its being Porphyreon, nor Gath Hefer (Josh. xix. 13), as Benjamin of Tudela has tried to prove.’—‘Journey in Syria and Palestine in 1851-2,’ by C. W. M. Van de Velde (8vo., 1854), vol. i., p. 289.
‘All that is left of the ancient town of Porphyreon is a single granite column, with a sarcophagus. A Phœnician site has been replaced by a few tamarisks beside a Moslem well.’—Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement, 1874, p. 199.
‘The Crusaders called Haifa (at the foot of Carmel) Porphyreon. The real town of this name, which was derived from the purple of the Murex there caught, was eight Roman miles from Sidon towards the north, and just south of the river Tamyras (Nahr Damûr).’—Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement, 1876, p. 188.
[108] Acre (Ptolemais). ‘There are many fragments of Crusading masonry in the town. A small chapel near the sea, of this nature, has been identified with the Church of St. Andrew. There are also remains of the Hospital of the Knights of St. John and Church of St. John. Apian (given p. 163 of the ‘Memoirs’) dated 1291 contains notes of many churches and monasteries, but nothing referring to St. Sergius’ house.’—‘Palestine Exploration Memoirs,’ vol. i., pp. 160-167.
[109] ‘A large city of Syria, on the Orontes, called Pella by Seleucus Nicator, who fortified and enlarged it. In the Crusading times it bore the name of Tamieh—now Kŭlat el Medîk. There are large remains of ancient ruins.’—Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Geography.’ (L.)
[110] This is the celebrated Daphne (now Beit El Ma), near Antioch (Theopolia). (W.)