=The Central Road and Its Cross-Roads in the South.= The third great northern highway was connected with Egypt and the south by the way of Beersheba. It followed close to the watershed of central Judah, along the line of the present carriage-road from Hebron to Jerusalem. It ran past Bethzur and Beth-zecharias, famous in Maccabean warfare. From Bethzur an important highway deflected to the northwest, following the Wady es-Sur and the eastern side of the Shephelah, or Lowlands, as far as the Valley of Ajalon on the borders of the Philistine Plain. From Jerusalem several roads ran through the valleys to the west and northwest, connecting with the highways on the Plain of Sharon. Of these the chief went northwest past Gibeon, down the deep descent of the upper and lower Beth-horons to Joppa. Another ran still farther to the northwest to Gophna, to join the second great highway at Antipatris. =In the North.= The main highway continued directly north from Jerusalem to Shechem. Then turning a little to the northwest it passed through the city of Samaria over the open plains to Ibleam, where it joined the eastern branch of the famous Way of the Sea, which led past the northwestern end of the Sea of Galilee to Damascus. Opposite Mount Gerizim a branch of the central road turned northeast and ran through Thebez, Bethshean, and the western side of the Sea of Galilee. An extension of the central highway ran north over central Galilee through the valley of Merj Ayun to the great valley between the Lebanons and Anti-Lebanons. Thence this central highway continued through Riblah and Hamath, crossing the upper Euphrates at Carchemish. Turning eastward at this point it ran through northern Mesopotamia past Harran and across the level plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates to Nineveh and Babylon. It was along this broad highway that the Assyrian and Babylonian conquerors repeatedly advanced against Palestine and later carried away Hebrew captives from both northern and southern Israel.