Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
It projects out into the sea, and on the flat rocks at its base, over
which the waves break in stormy weather, there is a large circular bath
excavated by the Romans, about twenty feet in circumference, with a
channel cut through the rock, which admits the rising tide. All round
this mound are fragments of columns, carved capitals, and blocks of
polished marble, some of the lightest of which I have carried away; but
it is upon the unknown contents of the mound itself that my imagination
is prone to speculate. On the left of the road are caverns and rock-cut
tombs, some containing the remains of loculi; and the surface of the
smooth limestone rock leaves traces of ancient steps, and cuttings,
showing that in old times the hand of man had been actively employed
upon it. I had often examined these, and thought I had reached their
limit, when, pushing my exploration farther up the steep hillside a few
days ago, through the low brush by which it is covered, I unexpectedly
came upon a plateau eight or ten acres in area, and about two hundred
feet above the level of the sea, covered with the débris of ancient
ruins. It was evidently the upper part of the old city of Sycaminum, and
commanded a magnificent view of the coast-line southward, and of what
was formerly the lower town, which has heretofore been supposed to be
all that there was of the city.
This upper town, from its cool and delightful position, was probably the
residence of the wealthier inhabitants; here, too, were fragments of
marble columns and carved capitals, and conspicuous among them two
gigantic old olive millstones, one about eight feet in diameter and two
feet thick, and the other of less diameter, but of more than three feet
in thickness. There were, moreover, many rock tombs with loculi, the
foundations of ancient walls of immense thickness, and here and there
fragments of the wall itself standing, in one place to a height of about
five feet. But the most interesting find was a triangular piece of
marble, on which was an inscription in a character which may possibly be
ancient Syriac. It is certainly not Greek, Roman, or Hebrew, though at
the first glance I thought it was the former. Unfortunately, the stone
has been cut since the inscription was engraved, and there are only a
few letters of each word, one below the other, but it was evidently
originally a long one, consisting of many lines. I also discovered here
a cistern, with four circular apertures; causing myself to be lowered
into it, I found it to be seventy feet long, supported by four pillars
hewn from the living rock, lined with cement, and twenty feet high, from
the débris with which it was partially choked. Altogether the place is
well worth a fuller and more careful investigation, which I hope to give
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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