Notes of a Journey Through Hauran, with Inscriptions found by the Way

May last, wit.h a company of friends, I made a journey from Tiberias through Hauran to Damascus.:My chief objects were to revisit Gadara, to see Tbdar and Abila of the Decapolis, and to ~xamine the supposed sites of 'Ashteroth ~arnaim, on Tell e1-' Ash'ary and Tell 'Ashtarah.The following are my notes by the way.They are partly a record of the changes apparent since ~y last journey in 1891, partly an account of some new inscript ions which we had the good fortune to find, including an important monument of Sety I ,of Egypt, in Tell esh-Shihab, and par~ly some evidence as to '.Ashteroth ~arnaim.I.-FRO:rtI GADARATO TELII ESH-SHIHAB.On May 1st we struck our tents at Semak, at the south end of the Lake of Galilee, and after a visit to the neighbouring ruins of Kerak (Tarichero P), on the west bank of the Jordan, we rode to the hot baths of Hammi, in the gorge of the Yarmuk below Mul}es (Gadara).We reached these, not br the usual road up the course of.the Yarmuk, but across the spurs of the J aulan plateau to the north.The spurs hold one or two clusters of ruins-of small villages and a tower.They are bare and waterless, but in a few of the depressions on their surface are small, poor fields, cultivated to-day by the inhabitants of Fi~.The view down the Jordan valley is magnificent: the eye follows the .course of the Yarmuk fl"Omits issue from the hills to its junction with the Jordan.We reached the Hammi at 12.40.It was the end of June when I visited these famous baths in 1891, and then they were being used by only a few Arabs.But on this visit, in the season for the baths, the peninsula on which they lie ,vas alive with patients and their attendants, chiefly Jp,ws, with some Turkish officials froln Irbid, ~nd one army colonel.Tents and booths of branches clustered round the hotter springs.We had to wait our turn for entering the large pool -on the north-west; in this

Ancient history · Archaeology · African history and culture analysis · Ancient Near East History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · History

• Yeno'am

  Nadav Na’aman•Tel Aviv•1977

  Add to list