Brugscli asserts that Ramses II. transferred his court 10 Zoan, strengthened its fortifications and founded a new temple city ; that the place was called Pi liamessu, the city of Ramses, and that the new Pharaoh who ' knew not Joseph ' can lie no other than Ramses II. {Egypt under the
Pharaohs, ii, 94, 96, 99). These statements if accepted go far towards locating the children of Israel at the time of their departure. But Egypt- ologists do not agree in inturpreting the monu- mental evidence. In the articles PlTHOM and Ramese-S will be found the opinions of Naville and others who are not prepared .j .tdopt Brugsch's identification. This at least may be said of the site now occupied by San. Its posi- tion on the Nile, in or near to what was the land of Goshen, its known antiquity and import- ance, mark it out as a residence of the Ph.iraohs and a probable dwelling-place of Israel in bondage.
A. T. Chapman.
ZOAR (lys, -il'is; LXX usually Z-qyup, but Gn 13'» 7joyopa, 3eT 48** Zoyop ; Vulg. always iScijor ; Jos Zoapa and Zoup). — The name of one of tlie 'cities of the Plain ' (or Oval ; Heb. Kikkar : see Plain, 4), near the Dead Sea, mentioned in Gn 13'° 14-- ' (where its former name is said to have been Held vh^), 19" (where its name is explained, by a popular etymology, as signifying ' littleness,' and it is said to have been spared, on account of its smallncss, at the time when the other ' cities of the Kikkar ' were destroyed), vv.^^- "', Dt 34' (in Moses' view from Pisgah : ' and the Kikkar, the plain Ibikah ; Plain, 3] of Jericho, as far as Zo'ar'j, and as a city of Moab, Is 15», Jer 48'' (read'piob. with LXX [di'a77ei\oTe els Zoyopa], Ew., Graf, al. 'make a cry to be heard unto Zo'ar), v.**.
These are all the biblical notices of Zo'ar. Though no place V)earing the name is at present known, it is, however, mentioned repeatedly by post-bibl. writers, down to the Middle Ages, as an important place lying at the S. end of the Dead Sea. Jos. says that it was still called Zoup in his day {Ant. I. xi. 4), and states that the Dead Sea extended — as the context implies, from Jericho — for 580 stadia ' as far as Zoara [m^'xP' Zoapu;-] of Arabia' (BJ Vf. viii. 4). Euseb. {Ononi. 201) says that the Dead Sea lay between Jericho and Zoora ; and states (231, s.v. CaXa) that it had a Roman garrison, and that the bals.am and the palm still grew there, testifying to the ancient fertility of the locality. Ptolemy (v. 17. 5) speaks of it as be- longing to Arabia Petrtea ; Stepli. of Byz. calls it a Ku)fi7} fieydXi) ij <l>poi'pLov ; in the ecclesiastical Notitiw it is mentioned as an episcopal see in Pal.-ustina Tertia, which was represented at the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451 (Reland, Palwst. 215, 217, 223, '220, 1005 ; cf. '230). Under the name Zughar (Zughar, Sughar, .Sukar) it is often men- tioned by the mediaeval Arabic geographers (see Tuch, Genciis -, '280 f. ; or, more fully, Guy le Strange, Pal. under the Moslems, 1890, 286-9U) as situated one degree S. of Jericho (Abul-feda), at the 'end of the Dead Sea,' in a hot and unhealthy vallej', but nevertheless an important commercial centre, capital of the province of esh-SheiAh or Edom (p. 39), a station on the great trade route between the Gulf of 'Akabah and Jericho, two daj's' journey from the latter place, and famous for its dates and indigo (cf. IIGIlL 500 f.).* From its proximity to Zo'ar, the Dead Sea is often called by these writers the ' Lake of Zughar.' The Crusaders also mention 'Segor' (cf. the Vulg. above) as pleas- antly situated, with many ii.iliii trees, so tliat it was even called by them ' \illa I'.Uniarum ' and 'Palmer' (cf. Knob, on (!n 19-''''-^ [fuller than DUlm.l ; Rob. BliP ii. 517-9).
As regards the precise position of Zo'ar, it was argued by Robinson {I.e.) that the notices of Jos. and Eus. , though they implied that Zo'ar was near the S. end of the Dead Sea, did not neces.sarily fix it at that end ; and that as Jerome (on Is 15°) .says
• Le strange shows very clearly that Merrill (K(U1 of Jord. 233) in iu errur in tayinic that the Arah. geo);ruphcra [lac« * Zughar at the H. end of the yea.
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ZOAR
ZOAR
thai, Luhith was between Areopolis and Zo'ar, the most natural site for it would be (see the maps) at cl-Mezra'a, in the midst of a verdant stretch of woodland and pasture-ground beliinil the barren promontory el-Lisaii, just where tlie Wady Kerak, Mowing down from above the old citadel of Kerak, fertilizes the soil on the E. side of the Dead Sea.* The same site was adopted by Tuch (I.e. 281 f.). Wetzstein, however, in an iniiiortant Excursus on Zo'ar at the end of Uelitzsch's Genesis* (1872), p. 564 If., pointed out that it was not consistent with the data : the media;val Zo'ar was one of the six stations on the usual caravan - route from Aila (Elath) by Hebron to Jerus. : it was two days' journey from Aila to Ghamr el-'Arabah, two more to Zo'ar, and two more to Hebron : el-Mezra'a, as a glance at the map will at once show, is entirely out of tlie line of this route (for Tuch was in error in supposing that it passed along the E. side of the Dead Sea and crossed the Jordan by Jericho ; no road is possible along the E. side of the Sea) ; nor would the steep and narrow W. Kerak be, as 'Tuch supposed, a practicable route for Baldwin's army to take when marching to the relief of Kerak, for a handful of men could have ettectually barred its progress (cf. Tristram, Moab, 65, 67-9, esp. 68). Pulclierius, moreover, accompanied Baldwin on an expedition from Jerus. to Petra, passing Hebron and Zo'ar on the way ; but again, if Zo ar was at elMezra'a, it would have taken them strangely out of their course. Accordingly Wetzstein sup- poses with great plausibility that Zo'ar lay near the S.E. corner of the Dead Sea, in the verdant and tropically-wooded oasis, some 6 miles long by 1-3 broad (see Tristram's Map, and pp. 329 f., 333 f., Moab, 46 f., 50-52; Rob. ii. 113; Grove in Smith, DB iii. 1182, § 26; Gautier, Autour de la Mer Morte, 1901, p. 52 f.), fertilized by the waters of the Wady el- Ansa (' the W. of the sand-wells'), flowing down from the S.E., and called now, from the high and smooth sandstone-range risin" up behind it, the GhSr es-Sdfiijeh ('the Hollow of the Smooth (cliti)'). And an Arabic authority (Dim- ashki, c. 1300), ap. le Strange (p. 292), expressly places Zughar here. In the curious mosaic map of Pal., also, discovered in 1896 in a ba.silica at Mcdebali in Moab, and belonging probably to the 5tli or Gth cent. A.D., BAAAK [LXX for Beld] H KAI ZOOPA, with a palm-tree beside it, is placed clearly at the S.E. corner of the Dead Sea.t