Among the statements of mediipval travellers there are two remarkable ones. (1.) Brocardus (cir. .X.I). 1290), the author of the Desrnplio Terra- Siincl(r, the standard "Handbook to Palestine" of the Middle Apes, the work of an able and intelligent resilient in the countrv, states (c. vii) that "live leagues (leura-) to the south of Jericho is the city Segor. situated l>eneath the mountain of Engaddi. between which moinitnin and the Dead Sea is llie statue of salt." True, he confesses that all his efforts to visit the spot had been frustrated by the Saracens; but the passage hears marks of the greatest desire to obtain correct information, and he must have nearly approached the place, because he saw
ZOAR
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ZOBA
with his own eyes the " pyramids" which covered the " wells of bitumen," which he supposes to have been those of the vale of Siddim. This is in curious agree- ment with the connection between Engedi and Zoar implied in Jerome's Itino-m-j/ of Faidd. (2.) The state- ment of Thietmar (A.D. 12173 •* even more singular. It is contained in the lltli and 12tli chapters of his Pe- 7-egrinatio (ed. Laurent, Hamburg, 1857). After visit- ing Jericho and Gilgal, he arrives at the " fords of Jor- dan" (xi, 20), where Israel crossed and where Christ was baptized, and where then, as now, the pilgrims bathed (22). Crossing this ford (33), he arrives at "the field and the s])ot where the Lord ovcrtlirew Sodoni and (iomorrah." After a descri|)tion of the lake come the following words: "On the shore of this lake, about a mile {^td miliare) from the spot at which the Lord was baptized, is the statue of salt into which Lot's wife was turned" (47). "Hence I came from the lake of Sodom and Gomorrah, and arrived at Segor, where Lot took refuge after the overthrow of Sodom ; which is now called in the Syrian tongue Zora, but in Latin the City of Palms. In the mountain hard by this Lot sin- ned with his daughters (xii, 1-3). After this I passed the vineyard of Benjamin (V) and of Ivigaddi. . . . Next I came into the land of Moab and to the mountain in which was the cave where David hid, . . . leaving oil my left hand Sethim (Shittim), where the children of Israel tarried. ... At last I came to the plains of Moab, which abound in cattle and grain. ... A plain country, deligbtfuUy covered with herbage, but without either woods or single trees; hardly even a twig or shrub (4^15). . . . After this I came to the torrent Jabbok" (xiv, 1).
Zoar is very distinctly mentioned by the Crusading historians. Fulclier {Ges/a jDei, p. 405, quoted by Rau- mer, p. 239) states that, '• having encircled {i/iruto) the southern part of the lake on the road from Hebron to Petra, we found there a large village which was said to be Segor, in a charming situation, and abounding with dates. Here we began to enter the mountains of Arabia." The palms are mentioned also by William of Tyre (xxii, 30) as being so abundant as to cause the place to be called Villa Palmarum, and Palmer (i. e. probably Puiimier). Abulfeda (cir. A.D. 1320) does not S]>ecify its position more nearly than that it was adjacent to the lake ai'd the Ghor, but he testifies to its then importance by calling the lake after it — Bah- retzeghor (see, too, Ibn-Idris, in Keland, p. 272). The natural inference from the descri|3lion of Fulcher is that Segor lay in the Wady Kerak, the ordinary road, then and now, from the south of the Dead Sea to the eastern highlands. The conjecture of Irby and Man- gles (June l,and see May 9), that the extensive ruins which they found in the lower part of this Wady were those of Zoar, is therefore probabh' accurate. The name Dra\i or Dera'ah, which they, Poole {Geogr. Journ. xxvi, 63), and Burckhardt (July 15), give to the valley, may even without violence be accepted as a corruption of Zoar. The ruins have likewise been described by De Saulcy {Join-ney, i, 307).
M. de Saulcy himself, however, places Zoar in the Wady Zuweiruh, the pass leading from Hebron to the Dead Sea. But the names Zuweirah and Zoar are not nearly so similar in the originals as they are in their Western forms, and there is the fatal obstacle to the proposal that it places Zoar on the west of the lake, away from what appears to have been the original cradle of Moab and Ammon. If we are to look for Zoar in this neighborhood, it would surely be better to place it at the Tell um-Zoghal, the latter part of which name is almost literally the same as the Hebrew Zoar. The proximity of this name and that of Usdum, so like Sodom, and the presence of the salt mountain — to this day splitting off in pillars which show a rude resem- blance to the human form — are certainly remarkable facts. — Smith; Kitto. Other writers locate Zoar in the plain at the northern end of the Dead Sea. An in-
superable objection to this is that in that case Lot must have crossed the Jordan in his tlighl ; for Sodom was on the west side of the plain, and Zoar on the east. Mr. Birch (in tlie Quar.Stat^emeiit of the " Palest. Explor. Fund," Jan. 1879, p. 15 sq.) is conlidcnt tliat the name and site are those o( Tell es-Shfigih; at the foot of Wady Hesban; but his argmnents lack weigiit. Tristram's attempt {Land of Moab, p. 343) to identify Zoar with Ziara on Mount Nebo is based upon an error as to the latter name, which is properly Siaijhah ; the position on a mountain, moreover, is preposterous. For the differ- ent views held regarding the site of Zoar, see Kobinson, Bibl. nes. ii, 517; Belaud, Palcest. p. I0G4; De Saulcy, Tracek, i, 481 ; Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 3G0 ; Bi- bliothecu Sacra, 18G8, p. 136 sq. See Sodom.