Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
On reaching the base of the hills where the Wady Kelt debouches into the
Jordan Valley, we find ourselves in the immediate presence of four
ancient sites. Three of these are the sites of three different Jerichos,
and one is the site of Gilgal. It is certain that the Jewish, the Roman,
and the Byzantine Crusaders' Jericho occupied three different positions.
The first has been identified with tolerable certainty as having existed
where mounds of rubble mark its site, near the spring called in old
times the Fountain of Elijah, and known now as the Ain es-Sultan. This
was the Jericho of Joshua, and these mounds of rubble may contain the
débris of the identical walls which fell to the sound of his trumpet. We
pitched our tents at the beautiful and copious spring which must have
supplied the old town with water, so as to have an opportunity of
examining the neighbourhood at our leisure. The spring comes out beneath
the mound on the east, and has on the west a wall of small masonry in
hard cement. In this wall there is a small semicircular niche, probably
intended to hold a statue of the genius of the spring. The reservoir
from which the water gushes forth is about twenty by forty feet, and,
though shallow, forms a delightful bath, with temperature slightly
tepid. The high tumuli behind had been excavated by Sir Charles Warren,
and I examined the traces of his cuttings. The mounds are formed for the
most part of a light yellow clay, which, on being touched, crumbles into
an impalpable powder. In some cases no strata could be discerned in the
clay, in others, layers of brick, stone, and mortar were clearly
visible. In another large mound, a little to the south, graves were
found six feet below the surface. All these except one were of sun-dried
brick. Bones appeared to have been thrown into these after the
decomposition of the bodies. Altogether Sir Charles Warren dug trenches
through no fewer than eight of the mounds, which form a conspicuous
feature in the plain in which the ancient cities of Jericho were
situated, as they stand to a height of about sixty feet above it; and
the result at which he arrived was that they are formed by the gradual
crumbling away of great towers or castles of sun-burned brick. Although
in some cases shafts were sunk to a depth of forty feet, nothing was
found except pottery jars, stone mortars for grinding corn, and broken
glass. In one were found, eight feet below the surface, the remains of a
large amphora, the neck, handles, and base of which were entire, and
which must have stood about five feet high. Sir Charles Warren's working
party consisted of one hundred and seventy-four men, and he thoroughly
exhausted the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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