The Biblical Archaeologist - Vol.54, N.2

64 Pages·1991·19.3 MB·English

by  American Schools of Oriental Research

bical Arcaeoloist
AP ublicatioonf t heA mericaSnc hoolos f OrientaRl esearch Volum5e4 Numbe2r June1 991
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The Via
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Bib lical Archaeologist
A Publication of the American Schools of Oriental Research Volume 54 Number 2 June 1991
Page7 6
The Via Maris in Literarya nd CartographicS ources 64
Barry J.B eitzel
Many prominent archaeologists and scholars believe that the via maris
(way of the sea) of antiquity was an ancient highway that arched across the
Fertile Crescent and ultimately linked Mesopotamia and Egypt. However,
this assertion rests on many claims and beliefs that are not factual. Evidence
now shows that the via maris was a road that linked the town of
Acco/
Ptolemais/Acre, a port city on the Mediterranean, with Capernaum, situated
on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, on a generally east-west axis.
Desolation and RestorationT: he Impacto f a Biblical Concepto n
Near EasternA rchaeology 76
Neil Asher Silberman
When archaeologists began exploring the Middle East in search of tangible
evidence supporting the biblical story in the nineteenth century, many
Page9 7 were shocked at the degraded modem civilization in the region. They
became convinced that the contemporary state of affairs in the Holy Land
was a literal fulfillment of prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Their
archaeological work was influenced by their views of restoration.
The Church of Saint Anne 88
Folda
laroslav
Historical accounts as early as the sixth century C.E.c laim that the Virgin
Mary and her mother, Saint Anne, were born in Sepphoris, a small village
about 5 miles northwest of Nazareth in the hills of Galilee. A Crusader
church was built here and apparently dedicated to Anna during the twelfth
century C.E.T he Church of Saint Anne was presumably built over the site
where Anna lived with her husband, Saint Joachim, and Mary.
BAG uidet o Artifacts
Microartifactsa nd the Studyo f Ancient Societies 97
Arlene Miller Rosen
Artifacts like amphorae, terracottas, inscribed bowls and structural remains
garner much attention from archaeologists, who learn much about the
history of a particular site and era from these relics. Often overlooked,
however, are microartifacts, or pebble- and sand-sized artifactual remains.
Microartifacts are a great source of information about building functions,
the delineation of activity areas and the processes involved in site formation.
The ElusiveS amaritanT hmple 104
Robert T Anderson
It is widely believed that Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim
Page1 10 during the second century B.C.E. However, archaeologists have yet to turn up
any indisputable evidence for such a temple. Add to this a surprising lack of
historical documentation, and there is continuing sentiment that the
temple never existed.
Arti-FACTSN: ews, Notes, and Reportsf romt he Institutes 108
QumranU pdate 108
Introducingt he Authors 62
Book Reviews 113
On the cover: This 1702 Dutch map is a copy of Nicolaus Visscher'sL atin map, a detail of
which appearso n page 64. Courtesyo f the EranL aorC artographicC ollection, Jewish
National and University LibraryJ, erusalem.O n the back: Acco, the Mediterraneanp ort
which is the western terminus of the via maris.
Introducing JaroslavF olda is professor of the history of art at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has
researched the art and architecture of the Crusaders in
the Authors
the Holy Land with annual visits to the Near East from
1973 to 1988. In 1974-75, Dr. Foldar eceived a National
Endowment for the Humanities grant for independent
researchw hile in residence at the W.E Albright Institute
of Archaeological Research. He is currently writing a
study on Crusader Art, the first volume of which will
cover the period from 1099 to 1187.
Arlene Miller Rosen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Weiz-
mann Institute of Science in Rehovot,I srael.S he received
her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Chicago in 1985. Her research expertise
includes geoarchaeology and microbotanical analyses,
and she is the author of Cities of Clay: The Geoarchae-
ology of Tells (University of Chicago Press, 1986). Dr.
Rosen has participated in fieldwork in Central America
and North Africa as well as the Middle East.
Neil Asher Silberman,a member of the editorial boardo f
Biblical Archaeologist, has participatedi n excavationsi n
Jerusalem and Akko. In addition to his many magazine
articles, he wrote Digging for God & Country:A rchae-
ology, Exploration, and the Secret Strugglef or the Holy
Land (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982) and Between Past and
Present:A rchaeology, Ideology, and Nationalism in the
ModernM iddle East (HenryH olt, 1989).H e is currently
researchinga biographyo f the late Yigael Yadin,a noted
archaeologist.
BarryJ . Beitzel is Associate Academic Dean and Profes-
sor of Old Testament and Semitic Languagesa t Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. Following
theological training at Fuller Theological Seminary,
Beitzel earned his Ph.D. from Dropsie University in
Philadelphia.H is publications include articles in a broad
range of journals, from Iraq to Biblical Archaeology
Review, and he is the author of The MoodyAtlas of Bible
Lands, published in 1985. His interest in the history of
biblical mapmaking has taken him to the Library of
Congress, where he is involved in research leading to a
publication titled Maps of the Bible Lands:C artobibliog-
raphy of Printed Maps in the Collection of the Library of
Congress.
Robert T. Anderson is Professor of Religious Studies at
Michigan State University. He has previously served as
president of the Midwest American Academy of Religion
and of the Central Michigan American Institute of Ar-
chaeology. In addition to articles on Samaritan Studies in
journals, books and encyclopedias, Dr. Anderson is the
author of Studies in Samaritan Manuscripts and Arti-
facts (American Schools of Oriental Research, 1978).
62 Biblical Archaeologist, June 1991
Ebla The of
Reign
ThutmoseI V
A NewL ooka t
History
GiovanniP ettinato BetsyM . Bryan
translatebdy C . FaithR ichardson
"ThutmosIeV w asa significanrtu ler
Fort housandos f yearst he ruinsl ay whosea chievemenths aven ot been
buriedb eneatht he sandsi n northern properlayp preciatebde causet he data
SyriaC. apitaol f a once-flourishing on hiss hortr eigna res cattereda nd
empirew hosev erye xistencew as difficultt o interpre-ta nd BetsyM .
unknownto the worldt, he Bryanh asb roughht imf ullyi nto the
cityo f Eblaw asa m thxroidvienrgnc e ntero f lighto f historyH. ert horoughness,
traded uringt he BronzeA gea nda for- criticasl kill,a ndi nterpretivset rengths
midablep oliticapl owerI. tse xploration havep roduceda formatt hat willb e fol-
bya rchaeologisltesd t o the sensational lowedb yo thers.T heR eigno f Thurmose
findo f a royala rchivet hat held 16,000 IVa pproachehsi storyin its fullest
tabletsi nscribedw itha n unknown sensea ndc oversa spectso f royald eifica-
cuneiformla nguageD. ecipheredb y tion,t he royalf amilyt,h e roleo f royal
GiovanniP ettinatot, heset ablets womena, ndt he complexb ureaucracy
tell a storyt hat is obligingh istorians of Egypt.-" DavidO 'ConnorU, niver-
to rewritet he historyo f the ancient sityo f Pennsylvania
NearE ast.
hardcover
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THE ILLUSTRATED THE NEW ATLAS OF A DICTIONARY OF
ATLAS OF AFRICAN HISTORY RELIGIOUS& SPIRITUAL
JERUSALEM G.S.PF. reeman-Grenville QUOTATIONS
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Introduction by Eric Meyers ma apnrdo vteixdteu alp icturewo fi t5h,0 00 presentso ver 300 briefq uotations
"This is the firstt rulyh istoricala tlas yearso f Africanh istory...a n excellent under 177 ltuo pic headngs. Typicallya,
dmeovdoetemd s sipteec oiff Jicearlulyst aol tehme. a..ncociveenrots va enrd vinetrryos dpuecctifioicnt ao npdic osv/teirmveiep werf oiord ths.eT shee ftrhoem Ko tnoh rean OnO,tl lhdde aa nnd d a NNbreeoqw au Tdo st eeasltteeacomtnioe nnsabt sany nd d
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text is basedo n recentf indingsa nd is - RBB/Booklist vides world-widec overageu.n..Tw hsoeprr erkpo t-i cs
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eographdicoaglm ians tinent publications from the classical
Near Easterna nd biblical and medieval periods.
studies are often dis- However,R itter himself was
covered to rest on the merely echoing the sentiment of
most tenuous of foundations, occa- Quaresmius and offered the follow-
sionally even resting on false knowl- ing quotation from the Frenchmana s
edge. Take,f or example, the case of his only support for the equation: "via
the via maris. About 100 years ago, maris publica quedam via est, qua
German archaeologist Gottlieb venitur ex Assyria ad mare mediter-
Schumacher equated the via maris raneum"( "thev ia maris is a kind of
(way of the sea) of antiquity with the public [high]wayt hat is traversed
Syro-Palestinians ector of the pre- from Assyria to the Mediterranean
eminent international transportation Sea") (1850: 271).' As part of his
artery that arched across the Fertile defense, Schumacher cited Ritter's
Crescent and ultimately linked an-
The cient Mesopotamia and Egypt. In his
report of a survey conducted for the
German Society for the Exploration
Via
Marits of the Holy Land, Schumacher dis-
cussed the location of a number of
ifi roads that transsected the Golan.
One of these roads extended south-
iterary west from Damascus, swept across
the upper Golan past the town of
and Kuneitra,c rossed the JordanR iver at
the Bridgeo f Jacob'sD aughters (Jisr
Banat el-YaCquiabn) d approachedH a-
zor before it veered south towardst he
Sources Sea of Galilee and eventually arrived
at the Mediterranean.S chumacher
had asserted that it was "known in
byB arryJB. eitzel antiquity and the middle ages as the
'via maris,'b ecause it connected
The gap between the mountains of Upper
An enlargeds ection of a copperplatee ngraving, Damascus with the sea .. ." (1888: Galilee (left background)a nd the Golan
colored by hand, in which Nicolaus Visscher 62-63). However,C harles Druitt Heights (right background)c reated by the
has depicted the territoriala llocations of questioned this because both the Jordanr iveri s shown. In the foreground,t he
Itisartaeesl 'bse 1t2w tereibne tsh. eT mhiasj mora tpr acnlesaprolryt daitfifoenra ernte-r y, equation itself and the claim of aritv tehrea nsadm the ep mlaoced earsn t hber i"dBgerc idrogseos f t Jhaec Joobr'ds an
Via in Egyptumd ucens ("the[ high]way which Middle Ages precedents were un- Daughters,"a s described in historical litera-
leads to Egypt),t hat ran diagonally from the documented assertions made by ture.T he road comes fromM egiddoa nd Hazor
northwest cornero f the Sea of Galilee (Mare Schumacher. from the left, passes over the Jordan,a nd
Galilaeae) past Megiddo (Mageddo)a t upper wends its way across the Golan Heights in
left, and the Via maris, which stretched from In his published reply to Druitt, the direction of the oasis of Damascus.
Ptolemais, on the Mediterraneans horeline, Schumacher conceded (1889:7 8-79)
to Capernaum( Capharnaum)i, mmediately that he was merely following the quotation of Quaresmius (Schu-
iwnegs tth oef ttrhieb mal oaulltoht mofe tnhtes Joof rAdsahner ri v(Aers.eT r7)a anvder s- opinion of Carl Ritter and Franciscus macher 1889: 78).
Naphtali (Nephthalim), the Via maris is Quaresmius. Ritter was a renowned Subsequentp ublications overt he
depictedp assing the towns of Sior,B ethlehem, nineteenth-century scholar from past century have only perpetuated
Abdon, Nephthalim, Azanoth-Thabora nd
Bethsaida before arrivinga t Capernaum. Berlin who is commonly credited this viewpoint and elevated it to ver-
Despite tentative locations suggested for with co-founding the modern geo- itable dogma. Through the writings
Bethlehem, Abdon and Azanoth-Thabor graphical discipline. Quaresmius of countless eminent authorities
i(mBeptohsssaibidlea i tso a dlteoligneetahteer wm iitshlo acnayte dde)g, irte ies o f was a French Minorite who lived in (Smith 1894: 279; Thomsen 1917:
certainty the actual course the Via maris Jerusalem from 1619 to 1652 and 33-34; Abel 1938: 219; Mazar 1990:
might have taken. This map originally ap- edited a massive and influential two- 8, 233, 282; Fischer 1896: 248; Aha-
peared in 1659 and is oriented to the west.
Reprintedc ourtesy of the EranL aor Carto- volume work on the history of Pales- roni 1966: 10-11, 14-15; 1967: 41-42;
graphic Collection, Jewish National and tine, which included the collection Wildberger1 972: 364, 373), Schu-
University Library( Jerusalem). and assessment of significant, per- macher's equation has become so
Biblical Archaeologist, June 1991 65
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~.iC-,ST_, ;~,..r.(cid:127) :-.5 .(cid:127)Lci.-- u -,c , 8.. =z,..1,-,:t? -"4s-'-2(cid:127)- .,(cid:127)' (cid:127)TJI.,cD ..(cid:127)-t'.'#(cid:127)- (cid:127) . ~' ,& - Z ?-. - -t.s,-. tl.~ .e..(cid:127) . ~ -3~-.-,.-a~sA ,.(cid:127), (cid:127) . .~i-.T, ,,~. ,._., "~rP, sk_~(cid:127)(cid:127) (cid:127)k-l- ~ .~.~ .(cid:127);~ .i.. ~(cid:127) .Zr, ~C . ?,g.. .(cid:127) . ,&. -. ..a....I (cid:127)-". (cid:127)f-.P~ r t VI. (cid:127)-,(cid:127)i 7 .I,. ".(cid:127)...(cid:127)(cid:127).(cid:127)R. . . .",... t.f C (cid:127)(cid:127) .(cid:127)-T.e - .-Mr.- -T G,A(cid:127) A__T3(cid:127) ,(cid:127):- -,r Z (cid:127)..r.-C e0;r%7F/Z ..t ? _ef \4 s( -c k ;x\:_ ,." . 'G wi_,.l?,lt -2(cid:127)_(cid:127)(cid:127)..-(cid:127) "--A(cid:127)(cid:127)-(cid:127) . o (cid:127) "L T_.-,(cid:127)a.Zri/: L,~ . -"s E yzF~---l .la"l (cid:127) dI,~ ,:(cid:127) - :(cid:127) j c.-- '."T, ,-3x ' a..- '. , ._.? +-.: (cid:127) "*i (cid:127) ,' "j-y(cid:127);- r"(cid:127) t(cid:127)(cid:127) ,0" - I ,. ". ." ' :.?:' (cid:127)-a' -IX,.._ -.-r. '-4 - G t-.a".'-o .,-; l, , r,;-o ,.(cid:127)..(cid:127)-,,(cid:127). _ -. -.(cid:127) ". .' .-.(cid:127) ... 1I- ?.
.:_-a ..i~ :1 ,-, , 5(cid:127) -_ ., (cid:127)~ _,ir(cid:127)"5j "r ,-..7.- . ... T ..
,Sasu -: do~
JCC7 iGenesareth
'....
-.-..-
T
'e
t ~ __
, GAL?--_"A.2-- L -' AS, D I> Gttkxnxixs4$ -.L4w- . RE3(cid:127) .W. (cid:127) " . .' - -4 -
"- CIO~e_ (cid:127)e. ? , ." ,- ' 4-(cid:127) --(cid:127) / "(cid:127)-_-_-. ~a-
-- " - ,~c't ., / , . -..- .r
~z~i~l~i~~
~ic~
.le
Publications ~Y~?$' _: -e ?-L ?
over
~e
LY --
- ~T=1.C;;4 __
the past century -,r -r I ., t Q, ~-i.Y. ~~s :b
:~ ~1~i~~-.~s_ ?- crC. r
have perpetuated -? -r? .-icI~
'Ar? lts: ~C~I~C: -. .3 ?C
?6?-"
this misinterpretation C "C 37. ~,.., i
?? ~~3-,
~- ~YzC
and elevated it to ?-? r, t?i ,?
I -z ~?, ?c~;
i
veritable dogma. r h
~? ~ ;1 A~f-; ~2~
~?-u, rrt L
r
t r
prevalent in scholarly and popular z
traditions that contemporaryl iterary ;i
or cartographicw orks almost uni- -I r.~~r i~ Cr~l z r r -- ??L;- -?
versally treat it as an established fact Picturedh ere is the dominant and heavily fortified upperc ity of Hazor in the foreground,
and proceed from it axiomatically. aligning the road. Tot he northwest of the upperc ity is the largera rea of Hazor'sl ower city.
Denis Baly's (1974:9 6) succinct ob- Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy of Richard Cleave, RohrP roductions.
servation is an example: "The major
highways, or mesilloth, ran from Mediterranean,w ith Capernaum, tion of Isaiah 9:1 [Hebrew8 :23b]i n
situated on the north shore of the the Vulgate,w hile the Hebrew
north to south of the country [of
Canaan],f ollowing the main lines of Sea of Galilee, on a generally east- phraseology (derekh ayyam) occurs
west axis. Moreover,t here exists a here and also in Ezekiel 41:12a nd
relief. Easily preeminent was the
TrunkR oad, connecting Egyptw ith sthtrei kteinstgilmy ocnloys eo fc aorrtr aelnadti loitne braettwureee n t1h Ke ipnhgrsa 1s8e: i4s 3a.t3I b ne Issta aiamhb aingdu o1u Ks,i anngds
the northern Levant,a nd from there
concerning just when via maris was in Ezekiel it definitely cannot mean
with either Anatolia or Mesopotamia.
first used to denote a road in Canaan, a roadway.T he citation in Ezekiel
Called by Isaiah 'the way of the sea'
further supporting this theory. is embedded in a description of the
(Isa.9 :1),a nd for this reason known
new temple. The prophet declares
by many scholars as Via Maris, it is
Evidence from Literature that "the enclosing wall that was
the great artery,a s it were, of the
The Latin expression via maris ulti- facing the temple yardo n the west
Levant."W ith few exceptions, it now
mately derives from Jerome'sr endi- side (i.e. direk hayyam) was 70 cubits
passes for fact that the via maris was
the roadwayt hat stretched between
the cities of Damascus, Kuneitra,
Hazor, Megiddo and Gaza. Moreover,
many modern authorities repeat
Schumacher'sa ssertion that such an
equation can be traced back into the
Middle Ages (Baedeker1 891, 1912;
Abel 1938;A haroni 1966, 1967;W ild-
berger 1972;B arth 1977).H owever,
this equation is scarcely 100 years
old in cartographict radition2a nd is
not even attested in literary sources
prior to the nineteenth century.
I believe that when the via
maris or an equivalent expression is
found on earlier maps or in manu-
scripts that purportt o identify a dis-
tinct roadwayw ithin Canaan, the The volcanic cone of the Horns of Hattin is visible in the foreground.B eyond the planted
terminology consistently designated fields lies the sharp cleavage of Arbel Pass, throughw hich ran one brancho f the Great Trunk
a road that linked the town of Road en route to Hazor,D amascus and Mesopotamia.J ust beyond the pass lies the northern
Acco/
Ptolemais/Acre,a port city on the segment of the Sea of Galilee.
66 Biblical Archaeologist, June 1991
broad"( italics added).H ere, the This is an enlargeds ection of a map titled inverted order)o ccurs in the LXX,i n
phrase clearly cannot mean a route "TerraeS anctae."N otice how the viamaris an unrelatedp assageo f the Apocrypha
of any kind. trans jordaneme xtends inland from the (Wisdomo f Solomon 14:3,w here
The terminology is imprecise in MediterraneanS ea (darka rea at bottom), just Noah's lack of seamanship is de-
north (left) of Acco (Achon),a s far as the north
1 Kings 18, which reads:" Andh e side of the Sea of Galilee (mare tiberiadis), at scribed),6i n the New Testament
[Elijah]s aid to his servant, 'Go up Capernaum( Cafarnaum).A lthough Nicolaus (Matthew 4:14-16, where the evange-
now, and look toward the sea (i.e. Germanus copied this map directly from a list applies the Isaiah passage to
1320 Sanuto-Vesconteo riginal preparedt o
direk yam)' " (italics added).I t could convince Pope JohnX XII that he should Jesus'm ove from Nazareth to Caper-
be arguedt hat Elijah was instructing undertake another crusade, the one innova- naum by the sea), and in five passages
his servant to look "towardt he sea" tion not on the original is Germanus'addition from classical literature that either
of the via maris. The orientation of this map
(i.e. westward)o r to look at "thew ay is to the east, and it was first published in recite or comment on the Bible:
of the sea"( although here the lexeme 1474. Reprintedc ourtesy of the Biblioteca once in Athanasius' Theology
yam is anarthrous).H owever,f rom Apostolica Vaticana( Rome). (Migne 1857b:6 87-88, citing Isaiah
the vantage point of Elijah's 9:1),t hree places in Euse-
servant atop Mount Carmel ' bius' Ecclesiastical History
\ ,
(verse4 2), who is asked to 1U"t~ Wd~ (Migne 1857a:7 11-12, cit-
observe any clouds that b~ .........r ing Isaiah 9:1 in his Psalms
might arise out of the commentary; Heikel 1913:
Mediterranean( verse4 4), a 423, citing Matthew 4:14-
roadwaye xtending between 16 in his Apologetics;
Megiddo and Hazor would Ziegler 1975: 411, in his
be out of the purview, for -7 - ,.t Isaiah commentary), and
the servant is looking in one time in JohnC hrysos-
precisely the opposite ...... tom's Sacred History
direction.' erL~ 5 (Migne 1859: 217, in his
The meaning is also Matthew commentary). In
* * r
elusive in the Isaiah pas- none of these citations did
sage. Here the prophet de- the author attempt to iden-
clares: "Int he former time tify any particular roadway
he [God]b rought the land ~~w*-. r with the via maris of bib-
of Zebulun and the land of '% lical tradition.
Naphtali into contempt, Aside from this, how-
but in the latter time he ~CJ ever, neither the precise via
will make glorious the way maris expression nor its
of the sea (i.e. derek hay- P + correspondingp hraseology
yam), the land beyond the in any other language is
Jordan,G alilee of the na- .i *- J~~p ~ found in any context even
tions" (italics added).W hile marginally related to a
the general thrust of this roadwayw ithin Canaan
passage appearst o be offer- until the late thirteenth
ing consolation to Galilean tribes mentaries (Meshel 1973: 164;K och century. The expression is not at-
who had experienced the trauma 1978: 277).5T herefore, an assess- tested at all in other classical writings,
and degradationo f Assyrian domina- ment of the biblical data leads to except for a few isolated references
tion or deportation (compare2 Kings uncertain geographicalc onclusions, to the Red Sea event (fore xample
15:29),t he immediate context is too but one may at least aver that the Josephus,A ntiquities of the Jews
ambiguous to determine if a specific via maris equation of Schumacher 3.86.3-4; Vulgate and/or LXXi n
road is envisaged or, if so, where it finds no unequivocal, compelling Numbers 14:25a nd2 1:4;D euteronomy
should be located. support in the Bible. 1:40 and 2:1;W isdom of Solomon
Commentatorsh ave traditionally Beyond this, the equivalent ex- 19:7;I saiah 51:10).T his phraseology
construed the phraseology in one of pression is found in the Vulgatea nd in does not otherwise appeari n the
three ways: a compass point (i.e. Jerome'sI saiah commentary (Migne ante-Nicene or post-Nicene fathers
westward);a road that leads to the 1845: 124), although in the latter and is not found on any Roman mile-
Mediterranean;a nd a road that leads case Jeromei ncluded no discussion stone or inscription in the Near
to the Sea of Galilee, which is the of a particular roadway.T he Greek East7 It is non-existent among early
conclusion of most modern com- counterpart (thaldsses hod6s: in an Christian pilgrim treatises or Roman
Biblical Archaeologist, June 1991 67
itineraries (Cuntz 1929; Fraipont Shown here is an enlargeds ection of a map of work became the linchpin in the ar-
1965; Radke 1973)a nd its Arabic the Holy Land. the original displays terrain guments made by the scholars who
equivalent (al-tariqa l-bdhri)i s not from the mountains of Lebanon to Egypta nd follow Schumacher'sv ia maris equa-
the Nile River.T his map delineates a number
extant in the vast writings of Arab of roads and road names, including the Via tion and in their contention that
geographersb etween the seventh Jezreela nd Via vallis (bottom right). Notice such an equation can be traced to the
and twelfth centuries, which takes the road that extends from the north side of Middle Ages. Not only is Quares-
the Sea of Galilee (top center)d iagonally to
in all the Islamic itineraries through the southwest that bears the title Via quae e mius' work the oldest volume cited
the land of Palestine.8I t is also un- Syria Ducit in Aegyptum( "the[ high]wayo ut by proponents of the Schumacher
attested among Crusaderl iterature, of Syria which leads to Egypt")I. t is the main tradition, it is also the only named
transportationa rteryj oining Damascus and
and it does not occur in the writing Megiddo (Magi-, at the very edge of the lower source whose publication date is
of the early Mamluke period before right);o n the original this road continues even remotely close to the Middle
the thirteenth century. south pastAphek and Gaza and ends in Egypt. Ages and could theoretically support
On the other hand, observe the via maris
Uncertainties still remain that extending from the coast line at Ptolemais that contention.
arise from the nature of this evidence, (Acco, bottom), eastward to Capernaum But a look at the original 1639
and due caution is warrantedi n of- (Capharnaum).T he via maris extends beyond publication of Quaresmius reveals
Capernaumt o Corazim( Chorazin[ mis-
fering any kind of broadh istorical located on map]) where it divides into two that Ritter'sa nd Schumacher'sq uo-
analysis at this point. Nevertheless, roads. Christian von Adrichom is the author/ tation of the French scholar is en-
given the voluminous body and wide cartographero f this map, which was originally tirely contrived; only by extracting
published in 1584 and is oriented to the east.
range of literature available to this Reprintedc ourtesy of the Eran LaorC arto- and radically rearrangingi solated
investigation, such a massive, sweep- graphic Collection, Jewish National and words and phrases of three separate
ing gap in the attestation of this University Library( Jerusalem). scholars cited on the page in question
phraseologyc annot be inter- can the "quotation"a scribed
preted solely as a result of ?o,, D''6"41- 4-= to Quaresmius be made to
the physical destruction of 0 89 , . .~?I exist! The folio in Quares-
evidence, nor can it be rea- mius' work that Ritter and
sonably attributed to the Schumacher cite is the
mere consequence of the -alTc f r c cncrAc only folio in either volume,
accident of archaeological V according to the subject
Cpod-
discovery. index, where Quaresmius
The via maris expres- . A discusses the via maris.
sion does not recur until 0 \t' Quaresmius't ext may have
after the Crusaderp eriod, left ,,~ LSAW undergone a second edition
when Burchardo f Mount that could have contained
Zion (1283)d escribesa Trans- the quotation in question,
jordanianr oad that ran be- 0 C ISA A A but that is highly unlikely;
tween Kedar/Gamlaa nd and in any event, the vol-
)IgbLQ
Capernaum (Stewart1 896: AS C6.26 ume was certainly only
29- 30). It is subsequently QWW ? hjl i~ published once in 1639,
found in the writings of, which is the date cited by
among many, CardinalC a- Ritter and Schumacher.
jetan (1532:f olio 11),W olf- k S Also, the text and accom-
h ?T PLA
gangM usculus (1548:5 5-57), panying map make clear
Christian von Adrichom the fact that Quaresmius
4L
(1584:115a ndo n threem aps), (b\ 9a~~ A-L%: Ar? rv defined the via maris in ac-
~o e
JohannP iscator (1612:1 17), cordance with his sources
Cornelius a Lapide (1625: (i.e. for him it was a road
226- 27), Cornelius Jansen connecting Acco and Ca-
(1639: 50-51), Quaresmius pernaum).A t no point does
(1639:f olio 19 and map), he depict or speak of the
Hugo Grotius (1644:2 81) 3, via maris as a roadwayt hat
and Campegius Vitringa followed a course past
(1724:2 33-34). In every case, however, the towns of Acco and Capernaum. Damascus, Kuneitra,H azor and
where one of these authors seeks to In this regard,i t is necessary to Megiddo, or any alternative course.
delineate or define a roadway,i t is take another look at the writing of On these facts rest my claim that
without exception a road that joined Quaresmius. As noted earlier, this the quote is contrived.
68 Biblical Archaeologist, June 1991