OUTLINE OF PALESTINE’S ARCHÆOLOGICAL HISTORY

The Early Stone Age. The Late Stone Age. The Amorites. The Canaanites. Egyptian Domination: Thothmes III. Palestine in the El-Amarna Letters. Seti I. Ramses II. Merneptah. Ramses III. The Philistines. The Hebrews. Philistine Civilization. The Hebrew Kingdoms. The Exile and After: The Samaritans. Alexander the Great and his successors. The Maccabees. The AsmonÆans. The Coming of Rome: The Herods. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. Later History.

1. The Early Stone Age.—Palestine appears to have been inhabited at a very remote period. Scholars divide the races of prehistoric men, who used stone implements, into two classes—PalÆolithic and Neolithic. PalÆolithic men did not shape their stone implements. If they chanced to find a stone shaped like an axe, they used it as such; if they found a long, thin one with a sharp edge, they used it for a knife. Neolithic man had learned to shape his stone tools. He could make knives for himself out of flint and form other tools from stone. The earliest inhabitants of Palestine belonged to the palÆolithic period. Unshaped stone implements have been found in many parts of the country. They have been picked up in the maritime plain, in still larger numbers on the elevated land south of Jerusalem, and again to the south of Amman, the Biblical Rabbah Ammon, on the east of the Jordan. The Assumptionist Fathers of Notre Dame de France at Jerusalem have a fine collection of flint implements in their Museum.

These palÆolithic men lived in caves in which they left traces of their occupation. Several of these caves in Phoenicia have been explored by PÈre Zumoffen, of the Catholic University of St. Joseph, Beirut.[71] It has been estimated that these cave-dwellers may have been in Palestine as early as 10,000 B. C.

2. The Late Stone Age.—Of neolithic men in Palestine much more is known. This knowledge comes in part from the numerous cromlechs, menhirs, dolmens, and “gilgals” which are scattered over eastern Palestine. A cromlech is a heap of stones roughly resembling a pyramid;[72] a menhir is a group of unhewn stones so set in the earth as to stand upright like columns;[73] a dolmen consists of a large unhewn stone which rests on two others which separate it from the earth;[74] and a “gilgal” is a group of menhirs set in a circle.[73] These monuments are the remains of men of the stone age who dwelt here before the dawn of history. They were probably erected by some of those peoples whom the Hebrews called Rephaim[75] or “shades”—people who, having lived long before, were dead at the time of the Hebrew occupation.

Similar monuments of the stone age have been found in Japan, India, Persia, the Caucasus, the Crimea, Bulgaria; also in Tripoli,[76] Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Malta, southern Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, the Belearic Isles, Spain, Portugal, France, the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the German shores of the Baltic. Some scholars hold that all these monuments were made by one race of men, who migrated from country to country. As the monuments are not found at very great distances from the sea, the migrations are supposed to have followed the sea coasts.[77] Others scout the idea of a migration over such long distances at such an early epoch of the world’s history, and believe that the fashion of making such monuments was adopted from people to people by imitation. Be this as it may, these monuments seem to have been in Egypt and Palestine before the Semites and Hamites developed into the Egyptians, Amorites, and Hebrews, for they were adopted by them as the “pillars” which are so often denounced in the Old Testament, and in Egypt were gradually shaped and prolonged into the obelisks.

Of the men of this stone age the excavations have furnished us with some further information. At Gezer the native rock below all the cities was found to contain caves,[78] some natural and some artificial, which had formed the dwellings of men of the stone age. They, like men today, were lazy. If one found a cave that would protect him from heat, cold, and rain, he would occupy it and save himself the trouble of making one. But there were not enough caves to go around, so some of the men of ancient Gezer cut caves for themselves out of the soft limestone rock. It must have been a difficult task with the stone implements at their disposal, but they accomplished it, sometimes cutting stairs by which to descend into them. One such cave seems to have been used by them as a temple. In it were found a quantity of pig bones, which were apparently the remains of their sacrifices. If they offered the pig in sacrifice, they were certainly not Semitic, for Semites abhorred swine. These early men sometimes adorned the sides of their dwellings by scratching pictures on the walls. Several pictures of cattle were found. One cow seemed to have knobs on her horns to keep her from goring! One drawing represented a stag that was being killed with a bow and arrow.[79] These early men burned their dead, and one of the caves in the eastern end of the hill was used as their crematory. Steps in the rock led down to its entrance. The cave itself was 31 feet long, 24 feet 6 inches wide, and the height varied from 2 to 5 feet. Near one end a hole had been cut to the upper air to act as a flue. Below this the fires that burned their dead had been kindled; cinders and charred bones of these far-off men were found as grim tokens of their funeral rites. Shortly after these bones were found the anatomist, Prof. Alexander Macalister, of Cambridge University, father of the excavator, visited the camp at Gezer and made a study of the bones. He found that they represented a non-Semitic race. The peculiar modifications of the bones caused by the squatting so universally practised by Semites were absent. The men whose bones these were could not have been more than 5 feet 6 inches in height, and many of the women must have been as short as 5 feet 3 inches. A pottery head found in one of the caves, which may be a rude portrait of the type of face seen in Gezer in this period, has a sloping forehead, which afforded little brain-space, and a prominent lower jaw. These people used flint knives, crushed their grain in hollow stones with rounded stones, employed a variety of stone implements, and made pottery of a rude type, which will be described in a later chapter.

The city of Gezer in this cave-dwelling period was surrounded by a unique wall or rampart.[80] This consisted of a stone wall about 6 feet high and 2 feet thick, on the outer side of which was a rampart of packed earth about 6 feet 6 inches at the base and sloping toward the top. This bank of earth was protected by a covering of small stones about 8 inches in depth. This rampart never could have been of much value in warfare, and was, perhaps, meant as a protection against incursions of wild animals.

In the hillsides around Gezer there are many caves which were probably human habitations during this period, but as they have been open during many centuries, traces of their early occupation have long since been destroyed. At Beit Jibrin, six or eight hours to the south of Gezer, there are also many caves in the rock, numbers of which are artificial. At various periods these have been employed as residences. It is altogether probable that the use of some of them goes back to the time of the cave-dwellers of Gezer.

Mr. Macalister has suggested a connection between these cave-dwellers of Gezer and the Biblical Horites,[81] since Horite means “cave-dweller.” In the Bible the Horites are said to have dwelt to the east of the Jordan, and more especially in Edom (Gen. 14:6; 36:20, 21, 29; Deut. 2:12, 22). It seems probable that the reason why the Bible places them all beyond Jordan is that the cave-dwellers had disappeared from western Palestine centuries before the Hebrews came, while to the east of the Jordan they lingered on until displaced by those who were more nearly contemporary with the Hebrews. On the west of the Jordan megalithic monuments were probably once numerous, since traces of them still survive in Galilee and JudÆa,[82] but later divergent civilizations have removed most of them. In the time of Amos one of these “gilgals” was used by the Hebrews as a place of worship, of which the prophet did not approve.[83]

It seems probable that there was a settlement of these cave-dwellers at Jerusalem. The excavations of Capt. Parker brought to light an extensive system of caves around the Virgin’s Fountain, Ain Sitti Miriam, as the Arabs call it, which is the Biblical Gihon.[84] These caves are far below the present surface of the ground. It was found, too, that there would be no spring at this point at all, if some early men had not walled up the natural channel in the rock down which the water originally ran. These men, judging by the fragments of pottery and the depth of the dÉbris, belonged to about the same period as the cave-dwellers of Gezer. They apparently settled at this point because of the water, and one of the caves may have been a sanctuary to their god. A new vista is thus added to the history of that city, which was later the scene of so much Biblical life.

From various archÆological considerations Mr. Macalister estimated that the diminutive cave-dwelling men lived at Gezer for about 500 years, from 3000 to 2500 B. C., when they were displaced by a Semitic people.

3. The Amorites.—We are accustomed to call this Semitic people Amorites, and it is probable that this is right. About 2800 B. C., under a great king named Sargon,[85] a city of Babylonia called Uru, or Amurru,[86] and Agade conquered all of Babylonia. The dynasty founded by Sargon was Semitic and ruled Babylonia for 197 years.[87] Even before Sargon conquered Babylonia, Lugalzaggisi, King of Erech, had penetrated to the Mediterranean coast. Sargon and two of his successors, Naram-Sin and Shargali-sharri, carried their conquests to the Mediterranean lands. A seal of the last-mentioned king was found in Cyprus. It is probable that the coming of the Amorites began in the north with the conquests of these kings. To the east of the Lebanon the Princeton expedition found stone structures similar to Babylonian Ziggurats, which they attribute to the Amorites, and hold to indicate the prevalence of Babylonian influence in this region. It is probable that the Amorites slowly worked southward, occupying different cities as they went. Mr. Macalister’s estimate that they reached Gezer about 2500 B. C. is not, therefore, unreasonable, though they may have arrived there a century earlier than that. This was the beginning of that long intercourse with Babylonia which resulted in the employment of the Babylonian language and script for the purpose of expressing written thought in Palestine long after the Egyptians had conquered the country. This intercourse was the more natural because the Semites who came to Palestine were of the same race as those who were dominant in Babylonia.

Meantime, the Egyptians had begun to take notice of Palestine. Uni, an officer of Pepi I of the sixth Egyptian dynasty, relates that he crossed the sea in ships to the back of the height of the ridge north of the “sand-dwellers” and punished the inhabitants.[88] This refers to the coast of Palestine in the neighborhood of the Philistine cities or Gezer. The time was between 2600 and 2570 B. C. Egypt was at this time only anxious to make her own borders secure; she had no desire to occupy this Asiatic land.

Again, between 2300 and 2200 B. C., a fresh migration of Semites, apparently also of the Amorite branch, invaded Babylonia and in time made the city of Babylon the head of a great empire. This race furnished the first dynasty of Babylon, which ruled from 2210 to 1924 B. C. Its greatest king, Hammurapi,[89] who gave to Babylonia a code of laws in the vernacular language,[90] conquered the “west land,” which means the Mediterranean coast. It was probably under his successor, Shamsu-iluna, but certainly under one of the kings of this period, that a man in Sippar, in leasing a wagon for a year, stipulated that it should not be driven to the Mediterranean coast, because, apparently, travel between that coast and northern Babylonia was so frequent.[91] In this same period there lived in Babylonia an Abraham, the records of some of whose business documents have come down to us.[92] We also find there men who bore the names Yagubilu (Jacobel) and Yashubilu (Josephel), and one who was called simply Yagub, or Jacob. Palestinian evidence from a later time leads us to believe that men bearing all these names migrated during this period to Palestine and gave their names to cities which they either built or occupied.[93]

Egyptians also came to Palestine during this period. The tale of Sinuhe[94] relates the adventures of a man who fled to Palestine in the year 1970 B. C., and who reached the land of Kedem, or the East, which apparently lay to the east of the Jordan.[95] It is referred to several times in the old Testament. (See Gen. 29:1; Judges 6:3, 33; 7:12; 8:10; Job 1:3, etc.) Sinuhe there entered the service of an Amorite chieftain, Ammienshi, married his eldest daughter, became ruler of a portion of his land, and lived there for many years. He finally returned to Egypt and wrote an account of his adventures. This region was also called by Sinuhe and other Egyptians Upper Retenu, a name which they also applied to all the higher parts of Syria and Palestine. Retenu is philologically equivalent to Lotan (Gen. 36:20, 22, 29; 1 Chron. 1:38, 39) and Lot (Gen. 11:27; 12:4, etc.). When Sinuhe arrived in Kedem he found other Egyptians already there. Ammienshi was well acquainted with Egyptians. There was apparently considerable trade with Egypt at this time. Men from Palestine often went there for this purpose. Such traders are pictured on an Egyptian tomb of this period. Trade with Egypt is also shown to have existed by the discovery of Egyptian scarabs of the time of the Middle Kingdom in the excavation of Gezer, Jericho, Taanach, and Megiddo. As Egypt was nearer and commerce with it easier, its art affected the art of Palestine during this period more than did the art of Babylon, although the people were akin to the Babylonians. In the reign of Sesostris III, 1887-1849 B. C., the Egyptian king sent an expedition into Palestine, and captured a place, called in Egyptian Sekmem, which is thought by some to be a misspelling of Shechem.[96] This expedition probably stimulated Egyptian influence in the country, though the Egyptians established no permanent control over the land at this time.

When the Amorites occupied Palestinian cities they at once erected fortifications. The inmost of the three walls of Gezer is their work. It was a wall about 13 feet in thickness, in which were towers 41 feet long and 24 feet thick and about 90 feet apart. It contained at least two gates.[97] At Megiddo the city was surrounded by a wall, parts of which were made of brick,[98] while at Jericho the older of the walls of the central citadel dates from this time.[99]

4. The Canaanites.—Between 1800 and 1750 B. C. a migration occurred which greatly disturbed all western Asia. There moved into Babylonia from the east a people called Kassites. They conquered Babylonia and established a dynasty which reigned for 576 years.[100] Coincident with this movement into Babylonia there was a migration across the whole of Asia to the westward, which caused an invasion of Egypt and the establishment of the Hyksos dynasties there.[101] As pointed out previously,[102] it is possible that this movement, in so far as the leadership of the invasion of Egypt was concerned, was Hittite. In any event, however, many Semites were involved in it, as the Semitic names in the Egyptian Delta at this time prove. It is customary to assume that it was in connection with this migration that the Canaanites came into Palestine. This cannot, in the present state of our knowledge, be clearly proved, but such evidence as we have points in this direction. There began at this time a new period of culture at Gezer, which is quite distinguishable from that which had preceded. This indicates the coming of new influences. Moreover, there was apparently an augmentation of the population of Palestine at this time. New cities were founded at Tell el-Hesy and Tell es-Safi,[103] and elsewhere. We thus feel sure that there was an increase of population and, when next our written sources reveal to us the location of the nations, the Canaanites were dwelling in Phoenicia. The Egyptian scribes of a later time called the entire western part of Syria and Palestine “The Canaan.”[104] Probably, therefore, the Canaanites settled along the sea coast. We, therefore, infer that they came into this region at this time. With the coming of an increased population, the Amorites appear to have been in part subjugated and absorbed, and in part forced into narrower limits. A powerful group of them maintained their integrity in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher and in the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains, where they afterward formed a kingdom. Another group of them survived to the east of the Jordan, where they maintained a kingdom until overthrown by the Hebrews. (See Num. 21 and Deut. 1-3.)

After the coming of the Canaanites our information concerning the history of Palestine fails us for nearly three hundred years. All that we know of the history of the country is what can be inferred from the accumulated dÉbris of the “second Semitic” strata of the different mounds that have been excavated. During these centuries Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos, whose course was run, and under the great eighteenth dynasty the Hyksos were expelled, chased into Asia, and the conquest of Asia undertaken.

5. Egyptian Domination.—Ahmose I, 1580-1557 B. C., besieged Sharuhen (Josh. 19:6) in southern Palestine for six years and captured it, while both Amenophis I and Thothmes I between 1557 and 1501 B. C. made raids through Palestine and Syria to the Euphrates. Of their deeds in Palestine no records have survived.

(1) Thothmes III.—It is not until the reign of Thothmes III that detailed information begins. Between 1478 and 1447 B. C. this king made no less than seventeen expeditions into Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria. At the beginning of his reign this country was dotted with petty kingdoms; before its close he had so thoroughly amalgamated it with Egypt that it remained an integral part of the Egyptian dominion for 100 years. Before his death Thothmes inscribed on the walls of the temple of Amon at Thebes a list of the places in Asia which he had conquered. Many of these were in Palestine and in Syria, and we learn in this way what towns were already places of importance a century or two before the Hebrew conquest. Among places that are mentioned in the Old Testament he names[105] Kedesh (Josh. 19:37), Megiddo, Lebonah (Judges 21:19), Addar (Josh. 15:3), two different cities named Abel; see Judges 7:22 (which mentions one situated in the Jordan valley), and 2 Sam. 20:14 (which refers to one near Dan), Damascus, Hammath[106] (Josh. 19:35), situated on the Sea of Galilee (where there are still hot springs), Beeroth (Josh. 9:17), Sharon, Tob (Judges 11:3, 5), Kanah (Josh. 19:28), Ashtaroth (Deut. 1:4; Josh. 9:20), Makkedah (Josh. 15:41), Laish (Judges 18:7, 18), Hazor (Josh. 11:1; Judges 4:2), Chinneroth (Josh. 11:2), Shunem (Josh. 19:18; 1 Sam. 28:41; 2 Kings 4:8), Achshaph (Josh. 11:1), Taanach, Ibleam (Josh. 17:11; Judges 1:27), Ijon (1 Kings 15:20), Accho, Anaharath (Josh. 19:19), Ophra (Judges 6:11), Joppa, Gath, Lod (Neh. 7:37) or Lydda (Acts 9:32), Ono (1 Chron. 8:12), Aphik (1 Sam. 4:1), Migdol, Ephes-dammim (1 Sam. 17:1), Rakkath (Josh. 19:35), Gerar (Gen. 20:1, etc.), Rabbith (Josh. 19:20), Namaah (Josh. 15:41), Rehob (Josh. 19:28), Edrei (Deut. 1:4; Josh. 12:4), Daiban (Neh. 11:25), Bethshean (Josh. 17:11), Beth-anoth (Josh. 15:59), Helkath (Josh. 19:25), Geba (Josh. 18:24), Zererah (Judges 7:22), and Zephath (Judges 1:17). In addition to these towns which are mentioned in the Bible, the list of Thothmes III contains many other names which we cannot yet identify. Among these are the names of two cities, Josephel and Jacobel, which are discussed in Part II, p. 300. These names, as already noted, are the same as the names of two Babylonian Amorites of the time of the first dynasty. It seems probable that two important Amorites had migrated to Palestine and had either founded new cities, or had been men of such consequence that their names were attached to cities previously in existence. A parallel to this is found in the name of Abu Gosh. He was a sheik of the nineteenth century, but his name displaced the name of the village previously called Karyet el-Ineb, between Jaffa and Jerusalem, and it is now called Abu Gosh. Conjectures differ as to the part of Palestine in which the cities Jacobel and Josephel were situated. We have in reality no certain clue as to this.

It is probable also that something similar had occurred in the case of Abraham. It has been pointed out previously that Abraham is known to have been a Babylonian name at the time of the first Babylonian dynasty. The Biblical records tell of the coming of Abraham from Mesopotamia (Gen. 11:31-12:5), and the inscriptions of Sheshonk, the Biblical Shishak, tell us some centuries later of the existence of a place, apparently in southern Judah, called “The Field of Abram.” See Part II, p. 360.

(2) Palestine in the El-Amarna Letters.—During the 100 years of Egyptian supremacy in Palestine which Thothmes III inaugurated, the fortifications of certain strategic cities were greatly strengthened. At Gezer, for example, an entirely new wall was built. This was the “outer” wall of Mr. Macalister’s classification, a substantial structure fourteen feet wide, which completely encircled the city. This massive wall remained the city’s defence down to the Babylonian Exile.

From the El-Amarna letters we gain another glimpse of Palestine about a hundred years after the death of Thothmes III. The Biblical cities which are mentioned in these letters are Accho (Judges 1:31), Ashkelon, Arvad (Ezek. 27:8), Aroer (Num. 32:34), Ashtaroth (Deut. 1:4, etc.), Gebal (Ezek. 27:9), Gezer (Josh. 10:33, 1 Kings 9:15, etc.), Gath, Gaza, Jerusalem, Joppa, Keilah (1 Sam. 23:1), Lachish (Josh. 10:3, etc.), Megiddo, Sidon, Tyre, Shechem, Sharon, Taanach, and Zorah (Judges 13:2). One city, called in these letters Beth-Ninib, is, in all probability, Bethshemesh (Josh. 15:10, etc.). Many other towns are mentioned in the letters, but as they are not mentioned in the Bible they are not enumerated here. These letters were written just as the Egyptian dominion in Asia was breaking up, owing to the fact that King Amenophis IV was much more deeply interested in religious reform than in politics.[107] The disintegration of the empire produced great disorder. The power which Egypt had exerted in the past made the Asiatics still fear to come out openly against her, but the correspondence shows that several petty states were plotting against one another, frequently encroaching upon one another, and yet all the time professing to be loyal to Egypt. The largest number of these states were in the north in Phoenicia. The principal states were the city kingdoms of Gebal, Beirut, Tyre, Jerusalem, and the Amorites.[108] Jerusalem at this time ruled a considerable territory,[109] but its history will be discussed connectedly in a future chapter.[110] The kings of the Amorites during this period were Ebed-Ashera and Aziru. While these small kingdoms of Palestine and Phoenicia were contending with one another, and the king of Egypt was giving no attention to them, the land was invaded from the north by the Hittites under the great King Subbiluliuma,[111] who gradually conquered the Amorites and the Orontes Valley. It was at the same time invaded from the east by the Habiri, who were probably the Hebrews.[112]

With this movement of peoples there came into the west a third wave of Semitic migration, the AramÆan. We hear nothing of the Aramaic-speaking peoples in earlier time, but about 1300 B. C. they are mentioned by both Shalmaneser I, of Assyria, and Ramses II, of Egypt, as though they were in Syria and Palestine. In later time they formed the basis of the population from the east of the Euphrates to the Mediterranean coast and southward to Damascus. In Deut. 26:5 Israelites are told to say “A wandering AramÆan was my father” (R. V., margin). The reference seems to be to Jacob, though possibly Abraham is intended. In either case, it shows that the Hebrews recognized that there was an AramÆan strain in their ancestry. Perhaps the Habiri were AramÆans, or were allied with AramÆans.

At all events, in the struggles that ensued, little by little all allegiance to Egypt was thrown off by the Palestinians. Letters to Egypt ceased to be written, our sources fail us, and for more than forty years we can only conjecture what was happening in Palestine.

(3) Seti I.—With the accession of Seti I of the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty, who ruled from 1313 to 1292 B. C., some knowledge of events in Palestine begins once more to come to us. Seti in his first year entered Asia, captured an unnamed walled town on the border of the desert, pushed northward and took the towns in the Plain of Jezreel, crossed the Jordan and conquered cities in the Hauran, where he set up a pillar, discovered there a few years since by Principal George Adam Smith; he then turned west and conquered a city on the slopes of the Lebanon mountains.[113] This campaign regained for Egypt all of Palestine and southern Phoenicia. In his third year Seti was again in Asia. On this campaign he overthrew the kingdom of the Amorites in northern Galilee. They occupied the city of Kedesh in Naphtali (Josh. 19:37). This city Seti besieged and took.

(4) Ramses II.—Thus at the beginning of the reign of Ramses II, who ruled from 1292-1225 B. C., all Palestine was subject to Egypt. The practical defeat of Ramses by the Hittites at Kadesh on the Orontes in his fifth year, however, caused all Palestine to revolt, and Ramses was compelled to undertake the reconquest of the land. This he accomplished between his fifth and eighth years, beginning with the Philistine cities and overrunning the whole country to the Hauran, where he set up a pillar, as his father had previously done.[114] So far as we know, Palestine remained quietly under the rule of Ramses during the remainder of his long reign.

Ramses II, like Thothmes III, left on record a long list of cities conquered by him in Asia. Of these the following are Palestinian towns mentioned in the Bible:[115] Hammath (Josh. 19:35), Beth-shean (Josh. 17:11), Beth-anath (Josh. 19:38), and Hadasha (Josh. 15:37). Pella, a town in the Jordan valley not mentioned in the Bible, also occurs in his list, and there is also a possible mention of Jacobel in a corrupted form.

(5) Merneptah.—After the accession of Merneptah, the successor of Ramses II, a rebellion broke out. This was about 1223 B. C. Merneptah put down the rebellion, but in the struggle caused by it, he was compelled to reduce Gezer by siege. It was on this campaign that he came into contact with Israel and defeated her.[116] Some think the Israelites whom he mentioned were those who more than a century and a quarter before had been battling against Jerusalem; others, that they were those who had just escaped from Egypt.

The reign of Merneptah was followed by some years of unstable government in Egypt, but this does not appear to have been a sufficiently long period for great changes to occur in Palestine. Order was restored in Egypt by Setnakht about 1200 B. C., and his son and successor, Ramses III, 1198-1167 B. C., reasserted his sovereignty over Palestine and Phoenicia.

(6) Ramses III.—Ramses III found himself confronted with a peculiar situation. The Egyptian Delta and the coasts of Palestine were invaded by hordes of people from over the sea. As early as the reign of Ramses II the Egyptians had employed men from the island of Sardinia as mercenaries; there must then have been intercourse with distant islands across the sea.

6. The Philistines.—Now, however, hordes of Sicilians, Danaoi, Peleset (Philistines), Thekel, and many other tribes came from over the sea. These tribes came in part from islands, such as Sicily and Crete, and in part from the coasts of Asia Minor. Ramses III was compelled to fight with them, both in the Delta and in Phoenicia. On the walls of his temple at Medinet Habu he has left us pictures of the Philistines. A remarkable inscribed disc was found a few years since at PhÆstos in Crete. It is printed with a sort of movable type, and each character is a pictograph or hieroglyph. Prof. Macalister has shown that it is, in all probability, a contract tablet.[117] When the tablet was first published Eduard Meyer pointed out[118] that a frequently recurring sign, which is apparently the determinative for “man” or “person,” has the same sort of upstanding hair as the Philistines pictured by Ramses III on the walls of Medinet Habu. This tablet, accordingly, was written by Philistines or their near kindred. In this view there is general agreement among scholars. Amos declared that the Lord brought the Philistines from Caphtor (Amos 9:7). If this disc was written in Crete, it would follow that Caphtor was Crete. It is thought possible by some that the disc was written in Asia Minor, whence it was carried to Crete; in that case Caphtor would be a name for Asia Minor.[119] At all events, this inscription makes it clear that the Philistines came from over the sea, and that their point of departure was either Crete or Asia Minor. Ramses III reveals to us through his inscriptions the Philistines in the act of migrating into Palestine. With them were the Thekel, who afterward were absorbed by the Philistines; (see Figs. 36 and 38).

In his struggle with these tribes Ramses III was compelled to carry the war into Asia, where he overcame and defeated them. In commemoration of this event he has left a list of places which he conquered in Asia. Most of them, so far as they can be identified, were further north than Palestine, but the following are names of places mentioned in the Bible:[120] Seir (Gen. 14:6, etc.), Caineh (Amos 6:2), or Calno (Isa. 10:9), Tyre, Carchemish, Beth-Dagon (Josh. 15:41), Kir-Bezek, probably the same as Bezek (Judges 1:5), Hadashah (Josh. 15:37), Ardon (1 Chron. 2:18), Beer (cf. Num. 21:16), Senir (Deut. 3:9), Zobebah (1 Chron. 4:8), Gether (Gen. 10:23), and Ar (Num. 21:15; Isa. 15:1, etc.).

After Ramses III the Egyptian empire became too weak to interfere in Palestinian affairs. In the chronology followed by many scholars today it was about this time that the Hebrews completed their conquest of the country and the age of the Judges began.

7. The Hebrews.—On their way into Palestine the Hebrews, as already noted, invaded and conquered a kingdom of the Amorites which lay to the east of the Jordan and had its capital at Heshbon. (See Num. 21:21 and Deut. 1:4, etc.). This kingdom was a survival of the ancient Amorite occupation of the land. The Amorites composing it had not been absorbed or displaced by more recent pre-Hebrew invaders.

It is stated in Judges 1:27-36 that there were a number of cities from which the Israelites did not, at the time of their conquest, drive out the inhabitants. The principal excavations in Palestine have had to do with cities which were not conquered by Hebrews at this time—Taanach, Megiddo, and Gezer. We are told in Josh. 10:33 that when Horam, King of Gezer, came to the aid of the king of Lachish, Joshua “smote him and his people till he left none remaining.” As nothing is said of the capture of Gezer, this must refer only to the force which went to the aid of Lachish. This view is confirmed by the fact that in the time of David, Gezer was in the hands of the Philistines. (See 1 Chron. 20:4.) Gezer did not come into the hands of the Hebrews until the time of Solomon, when Solomon’s Egyptian father-in-law conquered it and gave it to him. Mr. Macalister found evidence that at about this time there was a considerable increase of the population of Gezer, which seems to confirm the statement of Judges 1:29 that Canaanites and Israelites dwelt together there. This evidence consisted in the crowding together of houses, so that, as many new ones were built, they became smaller. New houses also encroached upon the land of the “high place.”[121] There was evidently an increase of the population such as an influx of Hebrews would account for. Evidence of Hebrew conquest seems also to have come to light in the capture and burning of Jericho[122] and Bethshemesh,[123] which the excavations have revealed.

8. Philistine Civilization.—The next source of information which archÆology furnishes us concerning Palestine is the report of Wenamon, translated in Part II, p. 352, ff. Wenamon visited Dor and Gebal about 1100 B. C. He found a king of the Thekel established in Dor, so that the Philistines were probably by this time established in the whole maritime plain.

With the coming of the Philistines into Palestine, new influences were introduced into the country. These are most apparent in the pottery that has come down to us. (See Chapter VIII.) The Philistines, whether they came from Crete or from the coasts of the Ægean Sea, had been influenced by those higher forms of art which were in later times developed into the superb Greek forms. Just at the time when history tells us the Philistines came into Palestine, we begin to find in its mounds the remains of a more ornate pottery.

9. The Hebrew Kingdoms.—As the Philistines filled the maritime plain, and began to push into the hill country, the Israelites formed a kingdom by which to oppose them. The kingdom of Saul accomplished little, but that of David, which began about 1000 B. C., overcame the Philistines and all other peoples adjacent to the Hebrews and established an Israelitish empire.[124] This was possible because just at that time both Egypt and Assyria were weak. Before the end of the reign of Solomon this empire began to disintegrate (1 Kings 11:14-25), and at his death, about 937 B. C., it faded entirely away and the kingdom was divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The history of these kingdoms is given in outline in the Bible and is probably familiar to every reader of this book.

These kingdoms, frequently at war with each other, were first invaded by Sheshonk (Shishak) of Egypt (1 Kings 14:25), who made them his vassals (see Part II, p. 359, f.), and in later centuries were made subject to Assyria. Israel suffered this fate first in 842 B. C., and Judah in 732. On account of her rebellions, the kingdom of Israel was overthrown by Assyria in the year 722 B. C. After Assyria became weak, Judah was made subject to Egypt in 608 B. C., but passed under the sway of Babylon in the year 604. Because she repeatedly rebelled against Babylon, the prominent JudÆans were carried captive partly in 597 B. C. and partly in 586, and in the year last mentioned Jerusalem was overthrown and its temple destroyed.

Excavations have brought to light much evidence as to the houses, high places, and the mode of life of this time,[125] as well as evidence of how Shishak fought against Rehoboam, Shalmaneser III against Ahab and Jehu, Tiglath-pileser IV against Menahem and Pekah, Shalmaneser V and Sargon against Hoshea, and Sennacherib against Judah. It has also told us much about Nebuchadrezzar.[126]

10. The Exile and After.—The Babylonian Exile was brought by Cyrus to a possible end in 538 B. C. This is also illuminated by that which exploration has brought to light.[127] The temple was rebuilt through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah during the years 520-517 B. C. In 444 B. C. Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, as related in Neh. 1-7. Thus under the Persian empire Judah was re-established. It consisted of a little country around Jerusalem; it was poor and weak, but was aided by money sent from Babylonia by Jews who were still resident there.

(1) The Samaritans.—In the neighborhood of Samaria was a people who were descended in part from Hebrews whom Sargon did not carry away and in part from the Gentiles whom he brought in. These people worshiped Jehovah. (See 2 Kings 17:24-34.) When the little Jewish state had been re-established at Jerusalem, they wished to participate in Jewish worship and to be recognized as good Jews. Since they were not of pure Hebrew descent, the Jews would not permit this, so they at last desisted, built a temple to Jehovah on Mount Gerizim (see John 4:20), and became a large and flourishing sect.[128] They based their worship on the Pentateuch, and were so much like the Jews that there was constant friction between them. This friction is reflected in Luke 9:51-54, John 4:9, and in many passages of the Talmud. It was this sect that occupied Samaria in the time of Christ and made it in his day a distinct division of the country.

(2) Alexander the Great and His Successors.—In 332 B. C. Palestine passed from Persian rule to that of Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 it came under the rule of his general, Ptolemy Lagi, who ultimately became king of Egypt. Later, 220-198 B. C., there was a struggle for the possession of Palestine between the descendants of Ptolemy and the house of Seleucus, another general of Alexander, who had established a kingdom with its capital at Antioch. During these wars the Jews suffered greatly. Finally the Seleucid king won, and Palestine passed definitely under the control of Syria. With the coming of Alexander new cultural influences had entered Palestine from the Hellenic world, and down to 168 B. C. such influences were eagerly welcomed by a portion of the Jews.

(3) The Maccabees.—In that year, however, Antiochus IV undertook to forcibly Hellenize the Jews and to blot out their religion. This the more faithful Jews resented, and a great revolt ensued. This revolt had as its first successful general Judas, son of Mattathias, who, because of his victories, was surnamed makkab, or the Hammer; it is, therefore, known as the MaccabÆan revolt. With varying fortunes the struggle dragged on for 25 years.[129] It finally succeeded because of civil wars in Syria. On account of these each faction favored the Jews, and Syria became continually weaker. In 143 B. C. the Jews once more achieved their independence under Simon, brother of Judas, whom they ordained should be Prince and High Priest forever.[130](4) The AsmonÆans.—The attaining of independence was accompanied by a great wave of racial and religious enthusiasm. Not since the days of Ahaz, in 733 B. C., had Judah been free of foreign domination. At the beginning of the reign of Simon, it was still but a small territory around Jerusalem. Hebron and all to the south of it was in the hands of the Edomites, who three centuries before had been driven out of Edom by the NabathÆans Simon began to enlarge their territory. He won Gezer and Joppa. John Hyrcanus, his son and successor, 135-105 B. C., conquered the Edomites, and compelled them to become Jews; he also conquered and destroyed Samaria in 109 B. C. He began the conquest of Galilee. His son, Aristobulus I 105-104 B. C., assumed the title of king. A regal dynasty was thus founded, which is known as the AsmonÆan or HasmonÆan dynasty, i. e., the “Simonites” or descendants of Simon.

Alexander JannÆus, 104-79 B. C., completed the conquest of Galilee and the region to the east of the Jordan, and extended the bounds of the kingdom of the AsmonÆans to practically the same limits as those of the kingdom of David. The Galileans were also Judaized, as the Edomites had been. This period of Jewish prosperity continued to 69 B. C. Through it all, in spite of the religious zeal of the Jews, Hellenic influences made themselves felt in many aspects of the country’s life.

11. The Coming of Rome.—On the death of Queen Alexandra in 69 B. C., her sons, John Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, both aspired to the supreme power, and till 63 B. C. civil war ensued. In 65 B. C. the Romans had terminated the independence of Syria and made it a Roman province. In 63 B. C. both the Jewish brothers appealed to Pompey, who had come to Damascus. Aristobulus, however, acted treacherously, and Pompey marched upon Jerusalem and took it by siege. Jewish independence was thus forever lost, and Palestine passed under the yoke of Rome. Down to 37 B. C. the country experienced many vicissitudes, as the struggles of the Roman triumvirs were reflected in it. These vicissitudes culminated in the year 40 B. C., when Orodes I, King of Parthia, captured Jerusalem and placed Antigonus, a son of Aristobulus II, on the throne. Antigonus was king and a vassal of Parthia for three years.

(1) The Herods.—In 37 B. C. Herod the Great, whose father had served under the Romans, by the aid of a Roman army furnished him by Mark Antony, drove Antigonous out and began his notable reign. Herod was a man of great energy, an Edomite by descent, whose ancestors had become Jews by compulsion. While professedly a Jew, he was deeply enamored of the GrÆco-Roman culture. He wrung taxes from the people in order to beautify Palestine with cities and temples built on Hellenic models. He rebuilt, among other undertakings, the Jewish temple at Jerusalem and the city of Samaria. This last he named Sebaste, the Greek for Augusta, naming it in honor of the Emperor Augustus. He built a heathen temple there, surrounded the city with a colonnaded street, many of the columns of which are still standing, and otherwise adorned it. He built for himself a palace at Jericho, and another on the top of a hill to the southeast of Bethlehem, today called Gebel Fureidis; (see Figs. 31 and 39).

Upon his death, in 4 B. C., his kingdom was divided, Archelaus receiving Judah and Samaria; Antipas, Galilee and PerÆa, and Philip, Iturea and Trachonitis. None of his sons was permitted by the Romans to be called king, but all bore the title of “tetrarch.” The rule of Archelaus proved so unbearable that in 6 A. D. Augustus banished him to Gaul and placed JudÆa and Samaria under Procurators, who were responsible to the Proconsuls of the province of Syria. Pontius Pilate was the fifth of these Procurators. After the death of Herod Antipas in 39 A. D., the Emperor Caligula made Herod Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great, king of the dominions over which that monarch had ruled. Agrippa assumed control in 41 and ruled till his death in 44 A. D. His death is described in Acts 12:23. After his death the whole country was governed by Procurators.

(2) The Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D.—Roman rule was always distasteful to the Jews, and as the years passed they became more and more restive. These smouldering fires broke into the flame of open rebellion in the year 66 A. D., and after four years of terrible warfare Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 70 A. D. The temple, also razed to the ground, has never been rebuilt. The country about Jerusalem was peopled by some of the poorer of the peasantry, and the tenth Roman legion remained in the city for a long time to keep order in that region.

12. Later History.—In 132 A. D., in the reign of Hadrian, a man called Bar Chocaba, or the “Son of the Star,” came forward, claiming to be the Messiah, and headed a Jewish revolt. So fiercely did the Jews fight that the insurrection was not quelled by Rome until 135 A. D. When it was finally put down, Hadrian determined to blot the name of Jerusalem from the map. He rebuilt Jerusalem, making it a Roman colony, named it Ælia Capitolina, and built a temple to Jupiter on the spot where the temple of Jehovah had formerly stood. No Jew was permitted to come near the city. Jerusalem as built by Hadrian continued until the time of Constantine, and the form thus imposed upon it lasted much longer.

When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, both he and his mother began to take an interest in the Holy City and the Holy Land. Other Christians followed them. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built, and the temple of Jupiter built by Hadrian was turned into a Christian church. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land began, and monasteries, churches, and bishoprics in time sprang up over all the country. Thus for three hundred years the influences which were felt in Palestine emanated from Byzantium or Constantinople. In 615 A. D. the land was overrun by Chosroes II of Persia, who captured Jerusalem and destroyed many of its churches. The Persians held it until 628, when the Byzantine kings regained it. The control of Jerusalem by the Christians was, however, of short duration, for in 636 Palestine was captured by the Mohammedans, and with the exception of 89 years has ever since been under Mohammedan control.[131] During these long centuries the country was ruled by the Caliphs of Medina, Damascus, and Bagdad; by the Buvide Sultans, the Fatimite Caliphs of Egypt, and the Seljuk Turks. The cruelties inflicted by these last rulers upon Christians led to the Crusades, the first of which established the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,[132] which continued from 1099 to 1188 A. D. This kingdom, organized on the feudal basis then existing in western Europe, extended over all of Palestine and Syria, including Antioch, and for nearly half the time, Edessa beyond the Euphrates. Its existence marks an epoch in the archÆology of the country.

Since the fall of this Latin kingdom, Palestine has remained under Moslem control. First the Eyyubide Sultans of Egypt, then the Mamelukes of that same land held sway. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks captured it, and have since inflicted their misrule upon it. What fortunes the great war now raging may bring to this land of sacred associations, we await with intense interest.