Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
At Kurâwa we found also a rock-cut sepulchre, with a classic façade,
rivalling any of those at Jerusalem, and apparently to be attributed to
the first or second century of the Christian era; yet, on this fine
monument, there is not a single letter of inscription to tell the names
of its former occupants. These are but single instances of the large
number of interesting discoveries, in central Palestine, which are
stored up in the memoir of the map.
On the 3rd of June we moved again south, and crossed the most difficult
valley we had yet encountered. It was nearly a thousand feet deep, and
only a narrow goat-walk led down its precipitous sides, above which
hangs the fine ruin called Deir Kŭl’ah, the “Convent Castle.”
This valley forms the boundary between Judea and Samaria, and runs into
the plain near Râs el ’Ain. We were obliged to follow its course
westward for some distance before it became possible to take the
pack-animals up the other side.
Our new camp at Rentîs was in more open ground, and but little remained
to be done in order to join on to the old limits of the Survey on the
south. A hole in the work was, however, here left in the plain which
weather forbade our attempting to fill in, and, as nearly all our horses
were laid up with sore-back and lameness, the summer rest, which we had
now earned, came none too soon to save the party from demoralisation.
Two places of great interest came within our district from the Rentîs
camp, namely, Tibneh, in the hills to the east, and Râs el ’Ain to the
west: the first supposed by some to represent Timnath Heres, the
burial-place of Joshua; the second, Antipatris, built by Herod the
Great.
Tibneh is a ruined site on one of the great Roman roads from Lydda and
Râs el ’Ain to Jerusalem. A mound, or Tell, stands on the south bank of
a deep valley, surrounded with desolate mountains; by it, a clear spring
issues from a cave; to the south-west is a beautiful oak-tree, the
largest I saw in Palestine, called by the natives Sheikh et Teim, “the
Chief, the Servant of God.” South of the Tell, the hillside is hollowed
out with many tombs, most of which are choked up. One of these has a
porch with two rude pilasters, and along the façade are over two hundred
niches for lamps; the trailing boughs of the bushes above hang down
picturesquely, and half cover the entrance. Within there are fifteen
Kokim, or graves, and through the central one it is possible to creep
into a second chamber, with only a single Koka. Other tombs exist
farther east, one having a sculptured façade; but the tomb described is
the one popularly supposed to be that of Joshua.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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