Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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