¢ Cf. Brugsch, Deutsche Revue, ix. 850 ff.
Gaza, Ascalon, Jamnia, Joppa, and Czsarea.* The other road is called in the OT ‘the way_to
Shur’ (Gn 167, 1S 15”). The researches of F. W.
Holland have shown that it deviated from the
caravan road from Beersheba, and ran north from
Jebel Yelek, then by Jebel Mughara, and finally
over undulating ground to Isma‘tliya.t See, fur-
ther, art. SHUR in vol. iv.
(c) On the northern frontier of Palestine there were three entrances to the country. These marked the connexion not only with Syria but also with the Euphrates lands, Assyria and Baby- lonia, for any direct communication with the latter through the waterless Syrian desert was difficult. We shall look first at the points of entrance, and then at the routes which converged upon them. i
The first entrance is the road along the Mediter- ranean coast, leading from Beirut by Zidon to Tyre and on to the south. Somewhat to the. north of Beirut it was blocked by a rocky pro- jection at the Nahr el-Kalb, but even in pre- Israelite times this obstacle had been overcome, for among the figures cut on the rocky wall, at the spot where the course of the road is hewn past the rock, is that of Ramses 11.—a circumstance which throws an interesting light upon the conditions of communication in these early times.—The second entrance was the Merj ‘Ayydén, into which de- bouched the road leading from Riblah (2 K 23” 258 20) through the valley between Lebanon and Antilibanus.—The third starting-point was Da- mascus, from which several roads led to the west and the south. One ran along the foot of Hermon to Dan, whence the traveller could reach Zidon, Tyre, and Galilee (see below). Another ran in a S:W. direction past e-Kunétra in Golan, and struck the Jordan at the spot where afterwards the Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters was built. We shall presently describe more fully how from this point it traversed Western Galilee and led by one branch to Acco and by another to the Plain of Jezreel. By means of its further continuation along the Mediterranean coast it formed the prin- cipal connexion between Damascus, with its hin- terland, and Egypt. In the Middle Ages it was called Via Maris, and there is a strong proba- bility that it is to be identified with the road that bears the corresponding name o°7 473 (derekh hayyam, ‘way of the sea’) in Is 91. _ Besides this there was still another road from Damascus through the trans-Jordanic territory, which crossed the Jordan at Bethshean, and thence led to the Plain of Jezreel or into the hill-country of Samaria.
Having now learned what were the points of entrance to North Palestine, we must notice briefly the roads leading thence to Syria and the Euphrates lands, for the Israelites had not infrequently the misfortune to see armies ad- vancing against them along these roads, or had themselves to tread them as deported captives. The oldest principal line of communication be- tween North Palestine and the Euphrates lands contrived to avoid the desert by a long circuitous route through Syria, passing Riblah (2 K 23% 258 2), Hamath, Emesa, and Aleppo, and along the Upper Euphrates till in the fertile Belikh Valley it reached the city of Harran, where the roads from Armenia and Babylonia met. This was probably the route chosen, for instance, by Pharalneene (2 K 239), who was met by Nebu- chadrezzar at Carchemish. It was doubtless along the same road that the Assyrian kings advanced
* Jos. BJ 1v. xi. 5. Regarding the ancient Egyptian fortresses on this road, see W. Max Miiller, Asien wu. Europa, 134.
+ Proceedings of Royal Geog. Soc. xxii. 455f.; Trumbull, Kadesh Barnea, 349f.; Guthe, ZDPV viii. 217. ¢ Schumacher, PH FSt, 1889, p. 78f.; G. A. Smith, HGHL 426f.
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN OT)
ROADS AND TRAVEL
(IN OT) 371
on their expeditions of conquest.* From Harran a road led direct to Nineveh, while Babylonia could be reached through the Mesopotamian Plain. At a later period Thapsacus was a favourite crossing-place. It was here, for example, that the younger Cyrus and Alexander the Great crossed the Euphrates. This brought one nearer to the desert on the west of the river, but it was still possible to keep on the edge of the cultured land. In the Roman period, on the other hand, a much frequented route was the shorter road from Damascus by way of Palmyra and a number of water stations in the desert to the spot where the Chaboras joins the Euphrates.}+ It is possible, however, that in much earlier times this desert road had a predecessor. H. Winckler+ seeks to show that as early as the 14th cent. B.c. the Baby- lonian king KadaSman-harba, finding the old road through N. Mesopotamia closed against him by the extension of the sway of Assyria, caused water stations to be established in the desert, in order that he might have a direct road from Babylon to Damascus after his conquest of the Suti who lived in this desert. The circumstance that Pal- myra is first mentioned towards the close of the pre-Christian period is of course no argument against this view, for a water station may very well have existed there prior to the building of the famous city. Which of these roads was followed by the exiles on their way back from Babylon cannot be determined with certainty. The descriptions in Is 40! 4314t 49° presuppose that a desert has to be traversed by the returning company. We may also recall the circumstance that those who accompanied Zerubbabel took with them, according to Ezr 2°, not only horses and mules and asses, but 4385 camels, and that those who returned with Ezra were exposed to danger from ‘liers in wait’ (Ezr 8"). But this will suit equally well a journey through the mostly unpeopled N. Mesopotamia, and does not point of necessity to a course through the desert proper. According to Berosus (ap. Jos. c. Apion. 1. 19), Nebuchadrezzar, after he had cleared Syria of the Egyptian troops, being in- formed of his father’s death set off for Babylon by forced marches through the desert. At the same time he left instructions with his generals to conduct the Jewish, Phoenician, and other prisoners of war, along with the baggage of the army, thither. In this latter instance, evidently, the way round about the desert was to be fol- lowed.