AIRAQ AL-AMIR: The Architecture of the Tobiads 9781841717579, 9781407330013

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Summary
Introduction and Acknowledgements
LIST OF FIGURES
ABBREVIATIONS
CHAPTER 1. The Setting and its Buildings
CHAPTER 2. Enter Josephus Flavius, Historian
CHAPTER 3. Enter Zenon, factotum of Appolonios
CHAPTER 4. The Early Tobiads
CHAPTER 5. Dating and Redating Josephus
CHAPTER 6. The Maccabean References
CHAPTER 7. Final Dating and the Tobiad Saga
CHAPTER 8. Early Explorations
CHAPTER 9. The Lapp Expeditions
CHAPTER 10. The Qasr al-Abd as described by the French Team
CHAPTER 11. The Tobiad Lexicon
CHAPTER 12. Further Names, Places and Folktales
CHAPTER 13. The Bestiary Revisited
CHAPTER 14. The Qasr al-Abd, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
CHAPTER 15. The First Floor of the Qasr as described by the FrenchTeam
CHAPTER 16. Other Buildings and Sites at Airaq
CHAPTER 17. Destruction, End of the Tobiads
CHAPTER 18. Later Occupation
CHAPTER 19. Collapse of the Qasr
CHAPTER 20. End of the Estate in Summary
CHAPTER 21. Conclusion
Appendix
REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

Citation preview

BAR S1544 2006  ROSENBERG  AIRAQ AL-AMIR

AIRAQ AL-AMIR The Architecture of the Tobiads

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

BAR International Series 1544 9 781841 717579

B A R

2006

AIRAQ AL-AMIR

AIRAQ AL-AMIR The Architecture of the Tobiads

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

BAR International Series 1544 2006

ISBN 9781841717579 paperback ISBN 9781407330013 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841717579 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

The Qasr al-Abd, South and West Elevations

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AIRAQ AL-AMIR, the Architecture of the Tobiads Contents

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Summary

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Introduction & Acknowledgments

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List of Figures (Drawings & Photographs)

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Abbreviations

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Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Chapter 4: Chapter 5: Chapter 6: Chapter 7: Chapter 8: Chapter 9: Chapter 10: Chapter 11: Chapter 12: Chapter 13: Chapter 14: Chapter 15: Chapter 16: Chapter 17: Chapter 18: Chapter 19: Chapter 20: Chapter 21:

1 13 17 21 32 40 49 56 76 90 102 114 118 135 163 167 194 198 206 213 217

The Setting and the Buildings Enter Josephus Flavius, Historian Enter Zenon, factotum of Appolonios The Early Tobiads Dating and Redating Josephus The Maccabean References Final Dating and the Tobiad Saga Early Explorations The Lapp Expeditions The Qasr al-Abd as described by the French Team The Tobiad Lexicon Further Names, Places and Folk Tales The Bestiary revisited The Qasr, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? The First Floor of the Qasr, by the French Team Other Buildings and Sites at Airaq Destruction, end of the Tobiads Later Occupation Collapse of the Qasr End of the Estate, in Summary Conclusion

Appendix: Analysis of Rock Samples by G. Roberts

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References & Bibliography

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Summary This study attempts to give a comprehensive picture of the estate of the Tobiad family at Tyros in the territory of Ammon. The site is some 20km. west-south-west of present-day Amman, capital of Jordan, and is now called Airaq al-Amir (fig.1). Details of the estate are known from the mid-third century to the mid-second century BCE from literary and archaeological sources. Biblical sources mention the Tobiad family in this area from the fifth century BCE and archaeological sources trace the use of the site from the Iron Age into the Byzantine period, though not always by the Tobiad family.

Fig. 1, Location Map

We examine the literary sources such as the book of Nehemiah, the Zenon papyri of the third century BCE, the two Books of Maccabees and an account in the Antiquities of Josephus Flavius. The dating of the Tobiad Estate suggested by Josephus is confused and contradicted by the facts on the ground; we examine the various theories to resolve the problem and conclude that the young Tobiad Hyrcanus spent over twenty years in the early second century BCE at Airaq al-Amir to remodel it as an Hellenistic complex.

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We look at the history of the rediscovery of the site in the nineteenth century, its partial excavation in the sixties of the twentieth century and the restoration of the principal building, the Qasr al-Abd in the ten years up to 1987. The identity of the Qasr has been a matter of prolonged controversy, being variously identified as a temple, a palace or a country house (château). We examine how its massive stonework can have been constructed and, based on its location, its architectural form and its bizarre animal decoration, we conclude that it was planned to be the mausoleum of the Tobiad family, though never taken into use as such. The other parts of the estate, some dating from an earlier period, were remodelled in the Hellenistic style to form a complex integral with the Qasr al-Abd. The estate includes natural and artificial caves with two inscriptions of the name TOBYAH. There is consensus on the reading but not on their dating, which we examine in detail. We suggest that the name Tobyah has a geographical basis linked to the biblical “land of Tob”. We conclude (contra Josephus) that the estate came to an end during the Maccabaean Revolt and we examine the role that earthquakes and structural subsidence played in the collapse of the Qasr al-Abd. The Tobiad family played an important role in the history of Judaea over a period of more than three hundred years and the study will examine them in the context of their estate at Tyros, during the turmoil of the Hellenistic phase of Jewish history.

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Introduction and Acknowledgements On my first short visit to Airaq al-Amir in 1998, I was so entranced by the magic of the site that I wished to investigate it further and especially its major monument, the Qasr. Much work has been done at Airaq alAmir but much remains to be done. In particular one looks for a comprehensive analysis of all the extant remains, in the context of the family owners, the Tobiad family, and in the light of the Hellenistic period, when the estate was at its peak. Throughout this study we refer to the modern site of Tyros (the name used by Josephus) in the local name spelt as Airaq al-Amir, but when quoting direct from other works, I use their spelling of the name. There has been very considerable variation of this spelling over the last 140 years and the reasons for my choice are given below in Chap.12 (p.115). On the question of the transliteration of Arabic names it may be appropriate to quote T.E. Lawrence in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. “Arabic names are spelt anyhow, to prevent my appearing an adherent of one of the existing systems of transliteration” (1935, 664, also 25-26). There is a considerable literature on the subject of Airaq al-Amir. Many of the early explorers left a description of the site and made a careful examination of the ruins. Their accounts, especially those of de Saulcy and Conder, are of historical interest, and of value in recording certain remains no longer visible. The records of the Butler expedition, undertaken over the short period of 6 days in 1904, provide valuable architectural and epigraphic evidence, even if some of their overall conclusions that, for instance, the Qasr al-Abd was a temple, are no longer accepted. The archaeological evidence of the Lapp expeditions of 1961-1962 has not been bettered but it was unfortunately restricted in scope and Lapp was never able to resume further work on the site as he had hoped to do. Lapp’s work was corroborated by the later French expedition under Ernest Will and François Larché, but they concentrated on the reconstruction of the Qasr more than on research and excavation. They were frustrated in their attempts to excavate the Village Tel, as Lapp had been, by problems of site ownership; and again their declared wish to investigate other areas of the estate was never, at least to date, achieved. On the archaeological side, therefore, certain problems, some rather basic, remain unresolved. On the literary front, the account of Tobiah the Ammonite in the Book of Nehemiah has received numerous interpretations by scholars such as Mazar, McCown and Williamson, particularly concerning his epithet “the servant”. Finality has not been reached on that subject and we suggest that linking it to a geographical context such as “the Land of Tob” helps to explain the Biblical term.

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The evidence of the Zenon papyri, presented by Tcherikover and Fuks, gives a clear picture of the estate run by Toubias in the Birta of Ammanitis. There is little dispute that he is a descendant of Tobiah the Ammonite, but whether he is the father or great-grandfather of Josephus’s “Joseph, son of Tobias” is in some doubt. The dating of Josephus’s romantic Tobiad Saga is indeed a major problem, which is not helped by Josephus’s own reference to what seem to be a number of different rulers of Egypt, all called Ptolemy. The matter has been much raked over in the past and more recently by historians, such as Daniel Schwartz, Dov Gera, Jonathan Goldstein, and by archaeologist Fawzy Zayadine. We try to resolve the matter by reference to the architectural work of Hyrcanus, son of Joseph, at Airaq al-Amir, in the course of which we examine all the various theories and find them wanting in one way or another. The end of the estate is also inaccurately described by Josephus, though many authorities accept his claim that Hyrcanus committed suicide at the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes. This looks like a convenient ending by Josephus to the Tobiad Saga, but we find that evidence from the Book of Maccabees goes another way. Josephus gives a pretty accurate description of the Tobiad Estate, but has caused considerable discussion by his reference to the major monument (the Qasr al-Abd) as a Baris or fortified castle. As the building is clearly not defensible, being located in a hollow and built with large windowlike openings, scholars like Butler, Lapp, Will and Gera go into considerable discussion on the meaning of this “Baris”. We conclude that Josephus’s Baris is a term for the estate as a whole, including the Qasr and the Village Tel, which was fortified. The greatest controversy has, however, centred on the function of the Qasr. Some of the early explorers saw it as a temple and later researchers such as Butler and Lapp tended to side with them. Others, more careful, did not commit themselves or referred to it as a palace or country mansion. The near-final word was pronounced by Will and Larché, who concluded that it was the château of Hyrcanus, and could not be anything else. A later view by Netzer agrees with this conclusion and sees it as a luxurious palace used by Hyrcanus to entertain his favourite guests. However, on the evidence of its megalithic architecture and other features, we disagree with these ideas and designate the monumental building to have been intended to be the Mausoleum of the Tobiad family. Although never put into use, the animal sculptures around the building give it a very special aura, which can be more readily associated with a tomb than with any other function. No comprehensive study exists of the eagles, lions and panthers of the Qasr, but comparisons were made by Queyrel on behalf of the Will and Larché volume. He emphasizes the royal and Dionysis-related symbolism of the animals in question, but does not acknowledge their basic funerary overtones. We bring examples from a variety of sources, mainly from Greece and Asia Minor, indicating the strong relationship of the animals to tomb

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architecture. Their symbolic connections to the after-life are also brought out by sources such as Cumont and Goodenough, though we do not rely to any great extent on their work, which some authorities consider to be exaggerated in their allusions to the next world. In fact, our main point is the similarity of the Qasr, in its grand monumentality, to the tomb architecture of Ionia, particularly on the Lycian coast. Will and Larché, Neilsen, and Kutbay claim the relationship of the Qasr to work at Alexandria but we also see clear parallels with the Hellenistic architecture of Lycia, southern Turkey, which came under the jurisdiction of the Ptolemies at this time. On the technical side, this study attempts to explain how it was possible to bring massive stone monoliths, weighing some 30 tonnes and more, from the quarry to the site, a matter not considered by Will and Larché who were themselves unable to restore certain of the larger elements of the construction, even with modern lifting equipment. (Larche has now considered this matter in more detail in the subsequent Vol. II of the French Team, see FL, 126). We also consider the technical aspects of the collapse of the Qasr and conclude that, beside the possible effect of earthquake action, the stonework of the Qasr shows substantial evidence of differential settlement due to variable ground conditions. The question of earthquake action is examined by reference to the works of Amiran, Ambreyses, and El-Isa, a matter not mentioned in detail by other researchers. In the course of investigations on site new features, not mentioned in the literature, became apparent, such as the southern entry to the Village Tel, the Iron-Age fortlet, the hillside Fountainhead Basin, the northern burial cave, the relationship of the Qasr to its quarry and evidence of its collapse. These investigations were undertaken in the years 2000 and 2001 and finally in early 2006. My work has been helped enormously by the generous assistance and encouragement of many people, in particular by Professor Mark Geller of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department of University College London. My thanks are also due to Dr. Gerald Roberts of Birkbeck and University College, who advised me on geological matters and wrote the Appendix. In Israel I had helpful talks with (in alphabetical order): Prof. Dan Barag (Hebrew University), Dr. Gabriel Barkai (Bar-Ilan University), Dr. Dov Gera (Ben Gurion University), Dr. Seymour Gitin (Albright Institute of Archaeology), Prof. Ehud Netzer (Hebrew University), Prof. Daniel Schwartz (Hebrew University) and Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber (Bar-Ilan University). In London I met with Michael Brett (architect to the Lapp expedition), and Peter Parr (Institute of Archaeology), who had both worked at Airaq al-Amir with Paul Lapp. I had the privilege of consulting Dr. Nancy Lapp, widow of Paul Lapp, in Pittsburgh, USA in June 2002. In Egypt I

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spoke to François Larché (co-author of Will and Larché 1991) and in Jordan with Dr. Pierre Bikai (American Centre of Oriental Research) who accommodated me on my visits to Amman. With me on some of my site visits were my daughter Yardenna Alexandre (Israel Antiquities Authority) and my son Jeremy Rosenberg (Albright Institute); and Michael Zimmerman of Brown University accompanied me on my last visit in 2006. I thank all three of them for their help and advice. I must also record my thanks to the staff of the County archivist of Dorset County Council, who gave me helpful access to the papers of William Bankes of Kingston Lacy, the first explorer to identify the ruins of Tyros. I would like to acknowledge the many happy occasions I spent with Abu Omar, who runs the small kiosk by the Qasr, and the times we had together drinking tea with nana in the shade of his tented terrace. To all of them my grateful thanks. But particular gratitude must be reserved for my wife Marion, who has helped me greatly in the production of this manuscript and guided me throughout with her patience and quiet wisdom.

SGR, Jerusalem, 2006

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LIST OF FIGURES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

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Location Map The Cliffs Plan of Airaq al-Amir Doric Entablature at Square Building Projecting Head of double-bodied Lion Panther fountains, a: west, b: east Eagle carving at Qasr Dovecote block Sketch Plan of Spring and Fountainhead Basin Fountainhead Basin, cornice and entablature Cave Doorway Qasr South Façade Map of main routes in Antiquity TOBYAH Inscription 1 (East) TOBYAH Inscription 2 (West) French Map of 1690 Plan of Palisades Map of Caspin-Tyros Route Sketch of Qasr by Bankes Plan by de Saulcy Expedition Cippi lined up at Qasr North Façade by Butler Reconstruction of Qasr by Brett Lion Carving at Monumental Gate Monumental Gateway Reconstruction Marissa Necropolis Panther Lion rainwater gargoyle (protome) Lioness and Cub at Qasr Lioness body with “garland” Ptolemaic Coin from Alexandria Schedule of Royal Aramaic Inscriptions Table of Scripts by Vincent Cilicia Inscription from KK Rebated Architrave to Doorway of Cave Tombs at Limyra Sketch of Ceremonial Entrance Praeneste (Palestrina) Mosaic Detail Rockfall Break at Cliff face Plaster to East Reservoir Lion at Halicarnassus Mausoleum Cnidos Tomb Lion Lion from Ring of Nestor Maresha Necropolis Eagles Leopards at Uvda valley Alexander Sarcophagus, the Panther Hunt

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v 1 3 4 6 6,7 7 9 10 10 11 12 18 21 22 31 44 46 57 62 67 68 81 85 86 94 96 97 99 100 105 106 108 109 110 112 112 113 119 122 123 124 127 129 131

List of Figures (cont.) 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

King Faisal and pet Leopard Side Elevation (east) of Qasr Ground floor plan of Qasr Upper floor plan of Qasr Nereid Monument, Xanthos Triclinium at Palmyra Plan of Collapsed Qasr Stair recesses of Qasr Bedrock at stair Base Loophole window of Qasr Cippus in wall Transportation of Megaliths Scaffold Tower for lifting Masonry Qasr south Façade showing Cubit dimensions Mausolea at Halicarnassus, Belevi and Cnidos Human Figure in Qasr “window” Figure at Altar of Athena at Priene Reconstruction View by Larché Top stone course of Dyke The Dyke, corner Stones Section through Dyke Dyke, cut and fill Diagram Monumental Gate Entablature of Monumental Gate Entablature at Square Building Square Building, walls, columns & cornice Terrace by Square Building Axes of Qasr, Gate & Square Building Square Building Reconstruction Rockface at Cave Mangers in Cave Stables Columbarium niches at Ed Deir Pigeons on local Roof Sentry Box to Village Tel Southern gateway to Village Tel Village Tel northern Entry Village Tel, reused Masonry Fortlet, view from Village Tel Sketch Plan of Fortlet Fountainhead Basin Sketch Plan of northern Cave Stonework Fracture at east Fountain South corner, East wall, early photograph

132 136 137 138 140 142 147 148 148 149 150 152 153 157 158 160 160 165 168 168 170 170 171 172 173 173 174 174 176 177 179 181 182 185 186 187 187 188 189 190 192 207 208

Note: All drawings and all photographs, unless otherwise credited, were drawn and taken by the author.

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ABBREVIATIONS ADAJ. Ant. ASOR. AASOR. AV. B. BASOR. BCE BDB. bk. c. CE cf. chap. Chron. CIS. Dan. EB. ed. et al. Ezek. ff. fig. fl. FL Gen. IA. IEJ. IFAPO. ill. Isa. J. Jer. JPS. Kgs. KK LXX. M. Macc. n. NEAEHL. NEB. Neh.

Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan Jewish Antiquities (Josephus, trans. R. Marcus, Loeb Classical Library, 1943) American Schools of Oriental Research Annual of ASOR Authorised Version (Bible translation) Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) Bulletin of ASOR Before the Common Era Brown, Driver, Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford, 1953 book circa (about) Common Era compare chapter Chronicles (Hebrew Bible) Corpus Inscriptiorum Semiticorum Daniel (Bible) Early Bronze Age editor(s), edited et alia (and others) Ezekiel (Hebrew Bible) following (pages) figure(s) flourished Larché, F. ‘Iraq al-Amir: le Château du Tobiade Hyrcan, Vol.II, Beyrouth, 2005. Genesis (Hebrew Bible) Iron Age Israel Exploration Journal Institut Français de l’Archéologie du Proche Orient illustration Isaiah (Hebrew Bible) Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi) Jeremiah (Hebrew Bible) Jewish Publication Society (Bible translation) Kings (Hebrew Bible) Kesegek Kojn or Kesegek Keoyew, Cilicia Septuagint (Greek translation of Bible) Mishnah (trans. H. Danby. Oxford University Press, 1933) Maccabees (Apocrypha) note New Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. E. Stern. Carta, Jerusalem, 1993 New English Bible (translation) Nehemiah (Hebrew Bible)

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no. Numb. PEF. (Q). p.c. pl. Prof. ref. Sam. SPCK. SHAJ. trans. Vol. War. WL.

number Numbers (Hebrew Bible) Palestine Exploration Fund (Quarterly) personal communication plate(s) Professor reference(s) Samuel (Hebrew Bible) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan translation, translated by Volume The Jewish War (Josephus, trans. H. St.J. Thackeray, Loeb Classical Library, 1927) Will & Larché, ‘Iraq al-Amir, le Château du Tobiade Hyrcan. Geuthner, Paris 1991

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CHAPTER 1.

The Setting and its Buildings

The site of Airaq al-Amir is unusual, like an oasis in a landscape of bald mountains. It is green throughout the year thanks to a plentiful flow of water from the cliffs, down across the terraced fields and into the Wadi esSir below. The area is clearly bounded by limestone cliffs to the north and west, and by the deeply channelled Wadi to the east and south. Within this rhomboid-shaped greenery stand several remarkable ancient ruins. The site is so strangely attractive that it drove the normally succinct and scientific Claude Regnier Conder, of the Royal Engineers, to express the following lyrical description: “Leaving Amman …(we) descended into the deep valley called W di es Sir, the scenery in this … presents a striking contrast to that of the (bare brown) plateau. Clear brooks are running between lawns of turf, or breaking in falls over high precipices, hung with brambles, and green with fern; thick oak woods of most English character climb the slopes, and here and there crown a white chalk-cliff. Further down are yellow, red and purple sandstones, the peaks and narrow ridges of the marl just over the Jordan plains, broad wolds, dotted with trees and with dark Arab encampments, and the deep ravines … in which the murmur of the stream is heard, but its course concealed by the tall caves, or by the dusky oleander bushes, blushing with ruddy blossom” (Conder 1885, 168).

It is, as he describes it, a veritable paradise. First to be noticed are the natural features. The cliffs rise sheer from the sloping plateau in a double tier of caves to a crest, which then slopes northwards in a more gentle incline (fig.2). On that slope there is a feeder spring, which sinks into the mountain, and then discharges at the foot of the cliffs in several positions. The caves are partly natural and partly artificial and there are galleries and ramps giving access to the cave mouths on two levels. Some of the caves have artificially cut facades in the manner of Nabatean tomb chambers, and two of them have a single-name inscription in large clear square script next to an artificially cut doorway.

Fig. 2, The Cliffs at Airaq al-Amir

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The water, which issues from the foot of the caves, is diverted in several directions. One branch leads to a small hillock or Tel that is only 200 to 300m. south of the cliffs. It is the site of today’s village with an ugly new mosque, a craft centre and several private houses. There are many signs of ancient stonework on the surface, in ancient walls, in reconstructed walls, or reused in the new buildings. A second branch of the water, or set of branches, turns south-west and irrigates the main fields of the village, which are set out to slope gently southwards towards the Wadi. The fields stop long before the Wadi, at a rough retaining wall beyond which the land is not worked as the water has by now been dispersed.

The third branch follows the base of the cliffs westwards before turning south down towards a small ruin set against a large artificial terrace. Much of the water irrigates the large terrace but some of it carries on past the small building and into a river-bed, now mainly dried up, that leads down to the fields north of a large monument, called the Qasr al-Abd. When in the past the water flowed in this dry bed it would have filled the shallow basin around the monument and have been retained at the south end by a massive Dyke and retaining wall of earth built at the same time as the monument (fig.3).

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Fig. 3, Diagrammatic Plan of Airaq al-Amir Below the retaining bank, to the south, lie more fields laid out in terraces and watered by the overflow from the retained “lake” above. These fields again slope down to the Wadi es-Sir, that lies in a gorge some 60m. below. The Wadi flows south for only a few kilometres and then joins the Wadi Kefrein that leads from Amman right down to the River Jordan, joining it just north of the Dead Sea. The oldest visible remains of buildings are on the Tel, which now houses the village. Excavations here have been very limited. Paul Lapp excavated part of one building that he called the Plastered Building because of its wall 3

surfaces, and which he dated in part to Iron Age II (see p.77). It lies on the outer west side of the present built up area, behind the Craft Centre. On the other side, behind the modern mosque, lies an Iron Age doorway, with threshold, jambs and part of adjoining walls, that was the entry to a complex of rooms joining up with the Plastered Building and others further south. At the south end there are remains of a circuit wall, a stepped entrance and a “sentry box” (see p.185). The plan of these buildings on the village Tel is unclear but they will have formed a complex which could have been the earliest seat of the Tobiad family. The recent French team have only conducted preliminary excavations on this part of the site and it appears that further work is not possible due to a dispute over property rights between families of the village (Larché, p.c. Feb. 2001). Well below the caves and to the west of the site, at the end of a descending roadway, is a small ruin on the west side of a large artificial terrace. The remains measure about 7m. by 7m. in plan and were thus designated the Square Building by Howard Butler (see p.72). Fragments of stonework lie alongside the shallow remains (fig. 4); the pieces of Doric entablature with regular triglyphs link this building in date and style with similar pieces of entablature found at the upper spring and in great quantity at the Qasr. The purpose of this little building is unclear and will be discussed below (pp.172-175).

Fig. 4, Section of Doric Entablature at Square Building (see also fig. 70) From the Square Building one catches a first view of the Qasr al-Abd. The view is straight to the northern (main) entrance portico and suggests that there was a direct link from this little building to the Qasr, the most 4

impressive ruin on the site. The Square Building lies well above the Qasr by some twenty metres and between the two there are low-lying fields, far below the level of the Square Building and even below the Qasr by two or three metres. This area may have been deliberately lowered in antiquity and designed to be flooded to form a lake around the Qasr, as will be explained below (pp.143-145). We come then to the Qasr al-Abd itself. This is a splendid monument that has been resurrected by a French team over a period of ten years from 1976. The Qasr al-Abd, “Castle of the Servant”, has always been the centrepiece of the site and the building that attracted most attention in the past, even in its highly ruined state. It is constructed of massive monoliths in its lower courses and measures about 19m. by 38m. in plan. As restored, it stands nearly two storeys high and in its original state would have been even higher, standing to a height of about 15m. to the eaves. The purpose of the building has been unclear and in the early days of its discovery was often considered to be a temple, but this is no longer the accepted view. We discuss this fully in Chap. 14 (pp.135ff.). The isolated siting of the monument, its grandeur of scale, its audacious construction and its quite massive building blocks, would be worthy of a world-class temple; but such details as the site of an altar, a suitable hekhal or prayer hall and an appropriate cella or naos are all missing. The building boasted at least two storeys with remains of one stair and suggestion of another in place. The ground floor plan is discernable and there is clear evidence of an upper storey but little remains of the upper construction or its floor plan. Whether or not the upper storey was partly open to the sky (hypaethral) is a matter of conjecture; and whether there was access to a flat roof to serve as an observation terrace is also not known. Curiously the building is double-sided. The entrance is clearly from a portico at the north end, but this is mirrored by another portico or opisthodomos at the south, which is “blind”, except for a small doorway into the presumed second staircase. The Qasr has several unique features. It is adorned by two animal fountains at ground level, symmetrically placed on the east and west facades, not far from the north end. Additionally there are at first floor level a group of four lions in a banded frieze at each of the four corners. Each group consists of two corner lions, followed on every side by a lioness sheltering one or perhaps two cubs. The two corner lions have two separate bodies but with a single joint head projecting from the corner like a gargoyle. The effect is both impressive and bizarre (fig.5). The lower fountains are also of feline form, probably representing panthers (fig.6). At the topmost level, at each corner, there were eagles perched in front of each column capital, and probably also additional eagles at the end of each loggia (over the porticoes), at the north and south ends. The form of these eagles is difficult 5

to assess as the remains are badly weathered and the figures are no longer in place (fig.7).

Fig. 5, Projecting Head of double-bodied Lion at south-west corner of Qasr

Fig. 6a, Panther Fountain, west side

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Fig. 6b, Panther Fountain, east side

Fig. 7, Remains of Eagle Carving set up at Qasr This remarkable array of animal sculptures gives the Qasr a rather unusual air of strangeness and of paganism. Together with its uncertain use and monolithic construction, it has given the building an air of mystery that has attracted considerable scholarly attention. However the Qasr is not to be considered in isolation as it is of a piece with the other structures on the site. To the east of the Qasr lie the ruins of a large gateway, similar in construction to the main building. Its building blocks are not as massive as 7

those of the Qasr but the masonry is impressive and incorporates lion sculptures similar to but different from those of the Qasr. One curiosity of this Monumental Gateway, as it is called, is that it does not connect to a wall of equal impressiveness on either side. There is no sign of jointing of masonry between the gate and adjoining work and in fact the walls on either side are both low and crudely constructed. The stonework details of the gateway date it exactly to that of the Qasr but it in no way relates in position or orientation to the main building. It stands in splendid isolation (see fig.3), which presents us with a further enigma. Besides the main structures we should mention at least four further elements of building that appear on site; these are the “Dovecote”, the Fountainhead Basin on the hillside, the Burial Cave, and the Dyke or retaining bank to the “lake”. The Dovecote consists of an enormous block of stone standing at an oblique angle at the west end of the cliffs and at a short distance from them (fig.8). Its main point of interest is the size of the monolith and the fact that it must have formed part of the cliff face at some time in the distant past. It looks like a piece of masonry left behind when the cliffs were eroded or when large pieces of limestone had been removed from the mountainside. This is of particular interest as it seems that similar large monoliths were cut off the face and removed to build the Qasr. The Dovecote consists of a grid of recesses roughly cut into only the eastern face of the stone. It has parallels with similar rock-cut dovecotes elsewhere, though these are usually sited in internal locations (see pp.180-182).

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Fig. 8, Dovecote Block showing 26 niches The Fountainhead Basin or upper spring is located on the hillside about 200m. above the upper road (see figs.3 and 9). It was obviously prized by the early inhabitants and may indeed have been the main reason for the original location of the estate. The water from the spring has been partly diverted into the basin but most of it first sinks underground and reissues at the foot of the cliffs some 150m. away and 60m. below. To see water appear on the mountain, then disappear into the ground and reappear again so far away gives a kind of supernatural air to this essential element. The developers of the site at the time of the Qasr obviously saw fit to celebrate this miracle and seem to have built a little basin and perhaps a shrine around the source, using exactly the same elements of Doric entablature and triglyph (see fig.10) as appear on the Qasr and on the little Square Building, as we have said. At present the basin has been covered and protected by the French Team who were in the process of investigating this little construction

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(and have now abandoned it), so we cannot describe it further, but suffice it to say that the architectural remnants suggest that it was indeed contemporary with the Qasr and the other Hellenistic elements of the site.

Fig. 9, Sketch Plan of Fountainhead Basin

Fig. 10, Fountainhead Basin, pieces of cornice and entablature Above the hillside spring lies a natural burial cave. It has been extended internally to provide for several shallow loculae (kokhim) around a central

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preparation area (see fig.86). In style it is similar to the Hasmonean period burial caves of the Sanhedria district in Jerusalem but it has no ornamental façade, just a plain doorway of a later period, formed by field stones infilling the natural opening (fig.11). This cave seems to be the only one of its kind in the immediate area and is conveniently located above the hillside spring that is the natural source of water to the area. It would appear that the cave could have been used for a special burial, perhaps an important one in this prime location (see p.191).

Fig. 11, Doorway to cave, north-west of Fountainhead Basin To the south of the Qasr lies a plateau of open ground, about three metres below the level of the Qasr, which is retained by a vast embankment running first for a length of some 200m. in a straight line from west to east and then turning northwards in one angle after another at the east (see fig.3). After the second turn it runs northwards straight to the western pilaster of the Monumental Gate. In this way it is clearly an element planned to delineate the boundary of the estate on this side of the gateway, besides its function as a Dyke to hold back the waters of the potential lake. The Dyke or embankment is faced on its south side by a rough cyclopean wall of imposing strength and appearance. In places it is stepped in section and it holds back a most formidable accumulation of earth-fill that has been calculated at hundreds of thousands of cubic metres. Its construction must have required the participation of a massive workforce employed over many months or even years. It was in its way a tremendous remodelling of the landscape, one that could retain a large body of water but, one asks, to what purpose? The Dyke was crowned with a walkway for its full length of nearly 400m. that gave, towards the north side, an unprecedentedly fine 11

view of the south façade of the Qasr and its lions (fig.12). It was a view in the flesh, so to speak, as well as one that would be mirrored in the waters of the lake planned to be retained by the Dyke.

Fig. 12, South Façade of Qasr, note projecting lion head at left, southwest corner One sees, therefore, that the site of Airaq al-Amir consists of a number of distinctive elements grouped together to make one rather unusual estate. It was the base of the Tobiad family, whose history, and that of the estate itself, will be examined in the literary sources.

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CHAPTER 2.

Enter Josephus Flavius, Historian

We are conspicuously fortunate in having a literary description of the wonders of this site, this Jewish estate in Transjordan. Without the benefit of the Romano-Jewish historian Joseph ben Matthias (c.38-c.100 CE), commonly known as Josephus Flavius, we would not be able to guess at the inhabitants of this unusual complex, except for the clue given by the inscription of TOBYAH at the entrances to two of the caves. In Antiquities XII, 154–236, Josephus tells us the rather full story of two generations of the Tobiad family, Joseph and his son Hyrcanus. The story is in two longish sections interrupted by a short piece about the death of Areios, the king of Sparta (XII, 225–227). The fact that the story is in two parts leads to certain complications, and furthermore, Josephus refers to the reigns of different Ptolemaic Pharaohs, which leads to even more complications. At the beginning (XII, 154) the story is set in the reign of the Ptolemy who married Cleopatra I, daughter of Antiochus III, so this must be Ptolemy V Epiphanes who reigned from 204–180 BCE. However a few paragraphs later (XII, 158) the text refers only to Ptolemy and the variant adds “Euergetes, who was the father of Philopator”. This would mean Ptolemy III Euergetes who reigned from 246–222 BCE (see R. Marcus 1943, 82, note c). This discrepancy is discussed below (pp.32 ff.). In fact this story by Josephus seems to include so much speculation and contradiction that it was dismissed by the 19th Century commentator Wellhausen, in 1878, as “unhistoric, though not completely worthless” (1921, 231). However two relatively recent events have served to give Josephus’s account a very considerable degree of credibility. These were the rediscovery of Airaq al–Amir in 1818 (although the site only became widely known much later) and the discovery of the Zenon Papyri in 1915 (see p.17ff.). Let us first take the description of the site given by Josephus. He mentions several elements of building and several specific names, which we can summarise as follows: a) Hyrcanus, son of Joseph, retreats to “the country across the river Jordan” and settles there and gives up his intention of returning to Jerusalem (Ant. XII, 222 & 229). b) There he built “a strong fortress (Baris) which was constructed entirely of white marble up to the very roof, and had beasts of gigantic size carved on it, and he enclosed it with a wide and deep moat” (230).

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c) He cut the mountain rock “and made caves many stades in length; then he made chambers in it, some for banqueting and others for sleeping and living and he let into it an abundance of running water” (231). d) He made the cave entrances narrow “for the sake of safety, in order to avoid the danger of being besieged and taken by his brothers” (232). e) He also built “enclosures (aulas) remarkable for their size and adorned them with vast parks (paradeisois)”. And he named the place Tyre or Tyros (233). f) The place is “between Arabia and Judaea ………not far from Essebonitis. And he ruled over those parts for seven years, during all the time that Seleucus reigned over Asia” (233-4). These words of Josephus made it possible to identify the site and also to confirm the accuracy of his descriptions. This is not a circular argument but confirmation of what looked, at first glance, like a rather romantic depiction. There is little doubt that Josephus is describing Airaq al-Amir, though he does not know that name. He says that Hyrcanus called the place Tyros, which can be related to the Tsir element in the present name of the Wadi esSir, as pointed out by many of its explorers. Tyros, Tyre, Tsir and so on, all imply an element of rock or rockiness (tsur, in Hebrew) and the name fits the cliff of rocks that forms the northern element of the site (see p.1). The largest building on the site is well described as of white stone (though it is not marble) with carved beasts of gigantic size, and enclosed with a wide moat. The one discordant note is that Josephus describes it as a Baris or fortified building, such as a castle or fortress, which it plainly is not. It has large openings all round and no defensible walls or crenellated roof. The socalled moat is really a shallow lake (if it existed at all) and there is no sign of a fortified bridge or guarded entry. The building is not sited on a hillock or strategic mound so the description of it as a Baris is curious and will be discussed further below (pp.116-117). Josephus rightly describes the caves as extensive, having chambers and doorways, and with plenty of running water, all items still visible today. However he does not know of the carved facades or the two TOBYAH inscriptions, or at least does not mention them. The caves were certainly for sleeping, living and even banqueting, as he says, and probably also for stabling animals. His description of the location is also useful, but not very precise. Essebonitis is Heshbon (Numb. 21:27) which is about 14 km. south of Airaq al-Amir and slightly nearer to it than Rabbat Ammon (Amman), the other major site in the vicinity. It would have been quite difficult to describe the

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location precisely, as the site is remote and was probably not on any highway or well-known route in the time of Josephus. Josephus also talks of aulas (enclosures) and “vast parks”. In both cases the meanings are ambiguous. The term aula, buildings or halls around a courtyard, may refer to the buildings on the Village Tel, which could have been in the form of large rooms around an open atrium. But no building now on site fits that term. As for the vast parks or paradeisois, that would fit a general description of the site with its well-watered terraces and lush plants. The term paradeisos is an oriental one and used by the Septuagint to describe the Garden of Eden (Liddell & Scott 1963, 521). It is the description of a place devoted to beauty and pleasure and not one given to fortification and defence as previously implied by the term Baris or fortress. The word paradeisos was brought from Persia by the Greeks “to indicate the hunting garden or enclosure” (Momigliano 1975, 126). It is used by the author of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 2:5) in the form pardesim, meaning “orchards” or “parks”, and Momigliano considers that the book of Kohelet is of the Hellenistic period (1975, 79). We may note that the Persian garden “paradise”, generally called bustan, is always enclosed by a high defensive wall, to protect it, and above all to define it as a well-watered sanctuary and to give it boundaries against the encroaching desert. It may be in this sense that Josephus manages to capture the spirit of the place in this word paradeisos, and then tries to temper it with the idea of a Baris, implying a fortified place. Although Josephus considered Tyros to be the creation of Hyrcanus, his use of the term paradeisos, implying something of a Persian standard of luxury, would be correct, seeing that the estate went back to “Tobias, the Ammonite, the servant” (Neh. 2:10) of the Persian Period. From all these details it would appear that Josephus had full knowledge of the generalities of the place but not the sort of exact knowledge that comes from having seen it for himself. He also ascribes the development of the whole site to Hyrcanus, as if he was the one to found it and exploit it, summing this up in saying that it was Hyrcanus who gave it the name Tyros. This bias suggests that Josephus was relying on a source in whose mind Hyrcanus had been the one to found and build this little empire in the wilds of Transjordan. But on the basis of the Zenon papyri we must determine otherwise (see p.19) Amongst all the romantic embellishments in his story of Hyrcanus, we have to mention one most curious element recorded by Josephus. While his father, Joseph, the tax farmer, was visiting Alexandria and feasting with his Ptolemaic masters, he saw and fell in love with one of the dancing girls that provided entertainment for the diners (Ant. XII, 187). Joseph was on the point of satisfying his desire with the girl, when his brother Solymius stepped in and brought his daughter, in place of the dancing girl, to Joseph’s bed. The drunken Joseph did not notice the change and went on to fall in love with his niece and eventually, after several encounters, to marry her, 15

after his brother had revealed to him her real identity. And it was by her that he had a son called Hyrcanus (XII, 189). This serves to explain how Joseph came to have his youngest son by another woman (wife?) but one wonders who the real mother was. Perhaps it was the dancer and Josephus attempts to sanitise the scandal, but if so, why does he mention the dancer at all? If it really was the niece, why bring in the story of the dancing girl? It would seem that the first case is more likely, it really was the dancing girl, and Josephus found a way to make the birth of Hyrcanus more presentable, without completely suppressing the dancer. To our mind this is important for an assessment of the possible Vorlage used by Josephus for the Tobiad Saga. We shall discuss this, and the matter of dating Josephus’s account of Hyrcanus, below (see pp. 49-55) but first we have to examine Hyrcanus’s predecessors at Tyros.

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CHAPTER 3.

Enter Zenon, factotum of Appolonios

In 259 BCE Zenon undertook a journey through Coele-Syria (Palestine) on behalf of his master Appolonios. It was in the 27th year of the reign of Appolonios’s master Ptolemy II Philadelphos, Pharaoh of Egypt (285-246 BCE). About forty documents relating to Zenon’s journey have survived (Tcherikover & Fuks 1957, 115). They were found in the Fayum in 1915, and several of them relate to Zenon’s visit to Toubias “in the land of Toubias” in Transjordan. Zenon’s party reached his residence after passing from Abila and Surabit (1957, 121, Document 2A) and they drew up a document (of sale) in “the Birta (stronghold) of Ammanitis” (1957, 120, Document 1). Ammanitis is the area of or around Amman and we can take it that its Birta is the administrative centre. These indications of locality all point to Airaq al-Amir as Tcherikover indicates (1957, 116). Toubais is equivalent to the TOBYAH inscription at the doors of two of the caves, as we have mentioned above; Surabit is a Greek version of tsur bayit (Heb. rock house, perhaps “house in the rock”) and the Birta of Ammanitis would be the stronghold (Baris in Greek) near Amman. Three of these terms (excepting only Surabit) are equivalent to those used by Josephus. There can be little doubt therefore that Zenon visited Toubias, Hyrcanus’s grandfather or a more distant ancestor, at Airaq al-Amir, then called Tsur, Tyros or Tsurabit. It is perhaps significant that Zenon uses the name Toubias as that of the owner as well as that of the land itself. Tcherikover schedules the papyri that refer to the Jews of Palestine. Document No.1 (1957, 118) is the sale of a slave-girl, as recorded in a deed of sale drawn up in the Birta of Ammanitis. The young girl of seven is sold by Nikanor “in the service of Toubias” to Zenon for the price of fifty drachmai. The six witnesses to the sale include one Macedonian cavalryman of Toubais and the guarantor is a Persian Jewish soldier in his service. The seller Nikanor is a native of Cnidos, Asia Minor, showing, as Tcherikover says, “the very mixed composition of the cleruchy of Tobias” (1957, 121). The term cleruchy refers to an area of parcels of land handed over to mercenary soldiers during their period of service or on retirement. This was a standard form of remuneration in the Ptolemaic Empire, serving to retain the soldier and also to colonize unworked areas of the countryside. The practice obtained throughout the land of Egypt and its colonies and in Greece itself (Rostovtzeff 1941, 149, 159). Document No. 2a (1957, 121) records a number of places that were visited by Zenon before and after Surabit, and includes Jerusalem and Abella. The 17

latter would be Abel-haShittim (Numb. 33:34) on the Wadi Kefrein (Aharoni 1979, 34) that leads up from the Jordan to Airaq al-Amir. In fact the first part of Zenon’s itinerary (places where he distributed flour) was:Straton’s Tower (now Caesarea, where he landed by boat from Egypt?), Jerusalem, Jericho, Abella, Surabit, Lakasa …….. This indicates that he approached Airaq al-Amir (Surabit) from Jericho, crossed the Jordan by the fords nearby and then proceeded up the Wadi Kefrein to Abella (Abel-haShittim) and so on to Surabit (Tyros or Tsur). The itinerary shows that this is the route that would have been taken by caravans plying from the Mediterranean, starting at Gaza, and going to Rabbat Ammon, via Jerusalem and Jericho (see fig. 13). This is not the “exotic spice route” from the south, but the down-to-earth cereal route travelling in the opposite direction from the granary of Egypt to the settlers of the East (cf. Aharoni, 1979, 44, map 3).

Fig. 13, Main Caravan Routes (based on Aharoni 1979, map 3)

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In Document No. 2c (1957, 123), it is clear that Toubias supplied donkeys and three horses to Zenon’s party. These may have been for their immediate use on the journey but it is more likely that Zenon wanted to take them to Egypt for breeding purposes (Rostovtzeff 1941, 359). Document No. 2d (1957, 123) mentions the supply of grain to Toubias’s grooms who were travelling with the Zenon party at least back to Abella. Document No. 2e (1957, 124) refers to grain being carried by a camel caravan that travelled between Sidon, the Galilee and Egypt, but not necessarily via Surabit, which is not mentioned in the extant portion of this papyrus. Document no. 4 (1957, 125) is a letter from Toubias himself to Zenon’s master Appolonios. It tells him that he is sending him a eunuch and four boys, “house-slaves two of whom are circumcised”. The letter was sent on 10th Xandikos, year 29 of Philadelphos, equivalent to 12th May, 257 BCE. Its contents suggest that Toubias is sending the slaves as a gift to Appolonios. Another letter, Document No. 5 (1957, 128), was sent by Toubias to Appolonios on the same day and enclosed a copy of a letter that he was sending to the king direct, with gifts of several animals. The letter to Ptolemy Philadelphos specifies the animals; “two horses, six dogs, one wild mule out of an ass, two white Arab donkeys, two wild mules’ foals and one wild ass’s foal”. Both letters were filed in Alexandria on 16th Artemesion, which indicates that this caravan of at least fourteen animals reached Alexandria not more than 36 days later (1957, 127 n. 18). One more letter, Document No. 6 (1957, 129), does not refer to Toubias or his estate but expresses the Ptolemaic government’s concern with the problem of a Jewish landowner, who is defying the government officials. It suggests to Tcherikover that “the Ptolemaic government had to be on good terms with the rich landowners of Palestine if it wished to keep the country quiet” (1957, 129) and that would have applied equally in Transjordan. From the correspondence we see that Toubias was on excellent terms with the government and even on personal terms with the king. It is well known that Ptolemy II Philadelphos had a special interest in rare animals (1957, 128 & references there) and no doubt Toubias was able to breed some exotic species on his private estate across the Jordan for delivery to his royal friends in Egypt. The large landowners of Palestine and Transjordan kept order and probably collected the taxes locally for their Ptolemaic masters, and it was in the Ptolemies’ interest to stay on good terms with them. The evidence of the Zenon papyri shows that Tsur or Tyros existed at least two generations, and probably more, before Hyrcanus; that it was a site well known to the Egyptians and that it lay at that time on a caravan route coming up from the Jordan. Its owner Toubias was head of a mixednationality cleruchy or military community and indulged in breeding animals and slaves and supplying them to the Ptolemaic Court. Toubias 19

must have been an important local landowner, as he was on friendly terms not only with Appolonios but even with the ruler Ptolemy II Philadelphos. He addresses the monarch more politely than he does Appolonios (Tcherikover 1957, 129) but nevertheless in a direct way (“to King Ptolemy from Toubias, greeting”) and in no way obsequiously. It may be that Toubias had even met the king on a previous occasion and presumably this would have been on a trip to Alexandria. Appolonios was the chief minister (dioiketes) of the king, who is credited with organising the economic life of Hellenistic Egypt, and particularly its trade with the Aegean, where Egypt was sending its surplus grain in exchange for wood, pitch, iron and copper (Edouard Will 1979, 153 & 180). The Zenon expedition to the Levant was then a small side-show that served to export grain (or flour) in return for valuable luxury items such as slaves and exotic animals. But it will also have served as a tour of inspection on behalf of the king, as Egypt was then in the midst of the Second and Third Syro-Palestine wars (260-241 BCE) between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. The fact that Zenon visited Toubias (Tobias) indicates that Tobias was a power in a remote land and an important ally, as well as a trading partner.

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CHAPTER 4.

The Early Tobiads

Before proceeding from Zenon and Josephus to Hyrcanus and his building operations, we have to glance back to the antecedents of the Tobiad family. The situation is comprehensively summarised by Benjamin Mazar in his paper The Tobiads (1957) but there is a need to review and expand some points in order to complete the background to our picture of the Tobiads at Airaq al-Amir. The date of the Toubias of the Zenon papyri is secure in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphos as the letters are clearly dated to the years of his reign equivalent to 259 and 257 BCE (p.17). The name TOBYAH that is twice inscribed on the cave entrances (figs.14 & 15) could be dated to the third century BCE to suit the Toubias of the Zenon period, but is probably earlier (Naveh 1976, 64). Mazar wants to suggest that, on palaeographic grounds, the inscriptions can be taken right back to the early fifth or even sixth century BCE (Mazar 1957, 141-2). We discuss the dating of the inscription in more detail below in Chap.11 (pp.104-110). For the moment suffice it to say that Mazar’s dating is earlier than that of most other authorities but accords with his view that the estate and the caves were already in use by the Tobiads during the Exilic period, after the expulsions to Babylon in 597 and 586 BCE.

Fig. 14, TOBYAH Inscription 1 (East Cave no. 13)

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Fig. 15, TOBYAH Inscription 2 (West Cave no. 11) The main link to this earlier period is Tobiah, the Ammonite servant, mentioned several times by Nehemiah. Of course the name Tobiah (“Yahu is my good”, BDB, 375-6) can apply to any Jew, but the fact that Tobiah “the servant, the Ammonite” had so many of the nobles of Judah sworn to him (Neh. 6:18), indicates that he was a prominent Judaean who happened to have strong connections to the region of Ammon in Transjordan, as Mazar points out (1957, 144). And that would make him very similar to the later Toubias of the Zenon papyri, who had such good relations with the court of the Ptolemies, and also ran a Jewish estate near Ammon (see Chap. 3). It is important to try and understand the term “the servant, the Ammonite (haEbed haAmmoni)” that is used several times about this Tobiah. It is first mentioned in Neh. 2:10, where Tobiah is bracketed with Sanballat the Horonite, as being very upset at the arrival of Nehemiah with army captains and horsemen (2:9). It is used again a few verses later where Sanballat and Tobiah are linked with “Geshem the Arabian”, who all laugh at Nehemiah and accuse him of rebelling against the king (2:19). The three are linked again with his other enemies to undermine Nehemiah’s efforts (6:1) but there Sanballat and Tobiah are mentioned without descriptive epithet. Tobiah and Sanballat are also mentioned, again without description, with the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ashdodites as trying to stop the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (4:1-2). Nehemiah is later forced to pray to God against Tobiah and Sanballat and several prophets whom they had hired against him (6:12-14). Later, Tobiah (again without epithet) is mentioned as being allied to the nobles (hori) of Judah, who were “sworn to him, for he 22

was the son-in-law of Shechaniah, the son of Arah; and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah to wife” (6:1819). All these respectable Jewish names (Meshullam himself had helped in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, 3:4) recommended Tobiah to Nehemiah, but Tobiah continued to send threatening letters to Nehemiah (6:19). More importantly, the “children of Tobiah” (Bnei Tobiah) are mentioned among those who “could not tell their fathers’ houses, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel” and, together with the children of Delaiah and Nekoda, they numbered six hundred and forty two (Neh.7:62). This information is from a list of those coming up from Babylon with Zerubabel (7:6-7) some hundred years or so before the time of Nehemiah. It appears that the children of Tobiah had by his time regulated their genealogy, seeing that they, with the others, were not actually barred but were accepted as Israelites into the congregation (kahal) to inhabit Jerusalem (7:66). This passage, which is a virtual repetition of Chap.2 of Ezra, makes it clear that these returnees were not excluded, only that priests in a similar position were barred from the priesthood, though not from the general congregation (7:65 and Ezra 2:63). It is quite possible that some of the Tobiads, or Bnei Tobiah, remained behind in Babylon, as there is a record of Tob-yaw as a family name, clearly Jewish, in the Murasha Documents from Nippur (Coogan 1974, 250). After the rebuilding of the Temple, Nehemiah finds that Tobiah had obtained a suite of rooms (nishka) in the courts of the House of God (Neh.13:7) through the good offices of the High Priest Eliashib, to whom he was related by marriage (13:4). This was in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes I (13:6) or 433 BCE. The High Priest Eliashib was the grandson of Jeshua (12:10) who had come up from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Ezra 3:2). But this Eliashib was not above criticism himself, as his son Joiada had allowed one of his sons to marry the daughter of Sanballat, the Horonite (an obvious non-Jew) and Nehemiah therefore prevented Joiada from inheriting the High-Priesthood from his father Eliashib (Neh. 13:28). What his relationship was with Tobiah is not clear but Joiada or one of Eliashib’s other sons may have married a daughter of Tobiah. The last we hear of this Tobiah in the Book of Nehemiah is that he is thrown out of the Temple courts with all his belongings, and Nehemiah orders his rooms to be ritually cleaned to receive the sacred vessels and offerings (13:8-9). As Mazar points out, there were two social classes in Judah after the Exile, ‘the great men’ – the nobles and princes – and ‘the people’ (1957, 231). To the first class belonged Tobiah “the servant, the Ammonite” (Neh. 2:10), his associates Sanballat and Geshem and the nobles and princes who paid allegiance to him (6:18), and to the other class belonged the “children of Tobiah (Bnei Tobiah)” who had not been able to prove their descent (7:62). From this it seems clear that Tobiah is not only the name of individuals and 23

the clan of which they were leaders, but also the name of their estate and its location. The children of Tobiah were all the inhabitants of this place, headed by the clan of Tobiah and living at Tobiah before being taken into exile. Because of its location outside Judah, it may be that their family records were less well preserved than those of the Judaean families. Alternatively, it may be that the three clans mentioned in Neh. 7:62, Delaiah, Tobiah and Nekoda, had neglected to carry their records with them into exile. There may however be a further clue in the fact that Nehemiah always refers to Tobiah as “the servant, the Ammonite”. Tobiah, the ally of Sanballat and Geshem, is clearly a major figure in postexilic Judaea and able to muster considerable opposition to the king’s representative, Nehemiah. Why is he then referred to as “the servant, the Ammonite”? It seems that these two terms should be taken separately, though the translation “the Ammonite servant” is also possible. The term “the servant (ebed)” is well known as the designation of a royal minister or courtier (Mazar 1957, 144 and n.40 for references). It was used on court seals, going right back to the famous lion seal of Shema “servant (ebed) of Jeroboam” (Miller & Hayes 1986, 295). Several highly-placed court officials are referred to in the Hebrew Bible by the term ebed. Jeroboam ben Nabat, to whom Solomon had given command over all the labour force of the northern tribes, is referred to as “a servant (ebed) of Solomon” (1 Kgs.11:26 & 28). In the reign of Josiah, a number of court officials are described including “Asaiah, the king’s servant (ebed)” (2 Kgs. 22:12) clearly one of his ministers. Although Nehemiah looked on Tobiah as an enemy, there is no reason to say that he is using the term “the servant, the Ammonite” in its pejorative sense of “slave” as suggested by Williamson (1985, 183). If he were doing so, he would probably have used some pejorative epithet for Tobiah’s fellow-conspirators, Sanballat and Geshem. But there is another possibility, which we shall explore below. Before doing so, we should mention another of the early references, to one Tuvyahu, given by Mazar (1957, 234), who is mentioned in the Lachish letters, found by J. Starkey in the Barbican of ancient Lachish in 1938 and published by H. Torczyner (Tur-Sinai) in Hebrew in 1940. These letters were written just before the fall of Lachish to the Babylonians in 588 BCE, before their final assault on Jerusalem. Letter III refers to correspondence with “Tuvyahu, servant (ebed) of the king; and letter V refers to him as “Tuvyahu, arm of the king” (Torczyner 1940, 90 line 19; 127 line 10). In present-day terms, that would be equivalent to “the right hand of the king”. In a similar vein the designation as “servant” can then be clearly seen as the title of a senior courtier. It is possible that the Tuvyahu of the pre-Babylonian Exile period is linked to the Tobiah of Nehemiah’s time, even though a period of about 150 years separates the two. Seeing that one is described as “servant of the king” and the other as “the servant”, the presumption is made by Mazar (1957, 235) 24

that a close relationship to the ruling power of the day, be it Judaea or Persia, ran in the family. And that relationship continued in the line to Toubiah of Tyros and his closeness to Ptolemy II Philadelphos, as recorded by Zenon (see p.20). The Tobiah of Nehemiah’s day is also referred to once just as “the Ammonite” (Neh. 3:35); we would see this as a geographical term and not an ethnic one. The importance of the Tobiad family and their close connections with the royal courts of Judah, Persia and Egypt, must have rested on their extensive landed property, and this was in Transjordan, in the area of Ammon. Although the area of Airaq al-Amir or Tyros is not exactly Ammon, it would come under that general heading, and in the Persian period it will have come under a satrapy or province of that name (see below). Whether Tobiah was an official of the king in Ammon, or an official who happened to live near Ammon, is difficult to determine, but seeing that the terms “the servant” and “the Ammonite” are linked, it could mean that Tobiah retained an official royal appointment for the king of Persia in Ammon. Some have even said that he was the Persian Governor (McCown 1957, 72) against which it is claimed that there was no such province as Ammon in the Persian Empire. However, recent finds indicate that there may have been such a province or satrapy. In a short but important study on the Tobiads, C.C.Ji (1998, 430-31) points to the archaeological evidence for a separate province of Ammon from two related sources. The first is from two stamped jar impressions discovered in 1989 and dated to the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE. These mention a name and a place ‘Amn and were found at Tall al-Umeyri in Transjordan, which the excavator takes as evidence for a local Persian province of Ammon (Herr 1992, 163-166). The argument is taken further in the uncovering of a central wine production centre at the same site, which the excavator again sees as evidence for a separate province of Ammon (Herr 1995, 121-125). Of particular interest is his interpretation of the seals as connected to the contemporary Yhwd seals of the province of Judah, which were related to local taxation (Herr 1992, 166). If this is the case, we have in place in Ammon a system of local taxation which may have been taken over in the time of Nehemiah by Tobiah “the servant, the Ammonite” acting on behalf of the Persian king. This activity of tax collection would then have been already a family tradition that came to a head much later under Joseph, the son of a subsequent Tobiah (Josephus, Ant. XII, 175-179). However, this evidence for a province of Ammon is slim and not conclusive. It is clearly important for the Book of Nehemiah to mention that Tobiah came from the geographical area of Ammon, seeing that Sanballat was from Samaria (Neh. 3:34) and Geshem from Arabia (2:19). The little province of Yehud was surrounded by potential enemies on all sides, as is made clear in another passage that speaks of “Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites” (4:1) who completed the circle around 25

Yehud. Tobiah in Ammon is on the eastern border, while Sanballat is in Samaria to the north and Geshem and his Arabs to the south and south-east. On the west, access to the sea was blocked by the Ashdodites. Although Tobiah is actually just called “the Ammonite” in one case (3:35), in this second phrase (4:1) he is mentioned separately from the run-of-the-mill Ammonites, which suggests that he is in Ammon but not of Ammon. Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem appear to have been opposed to Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:19). Their very violent reaction however was surprising and when they went so far as to hire prophets against Nehemiah and to put him in fear (6:12-14) it looked as if other matters were at stake. The general situation which they were fighting was that “a man (Nehemiah) had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel” (2:10) and in particular he was pursuing a policy of land reform. When Nehemiah heard the plight of the general population, who were forced to borrow on pledge from the nobles and the princes, he “held a great assembly against them” and forced them to restore “to the common people their fields, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses” (5:7-11). It appears that Nehemiah set in train a process of land restoration, which must have caused the active antagonism of the great landowners such as Sanballat, Geshem and Tobiah (Zayadine 1991, 7). Although it appears that the nobles accepted Nehemiah’s reforms, albeit reluctantly, our trio took it worse than the rest. Sanballat, as governor of Samaria, probably held lands that had to revert to the Judaeans, while the position of Geshem is unclear. He has not been identified, though he must have been of an importance equal to his two colleagues (see Eph’al 1982, 210). Like Tobyah, Geshem seems to have been a dynastic name. There is a reference to “Kainu, son of Geshem, king of Kedar …….” inscribed on a silver bowl in the Brooklyn Museum, dated to the second half of the 5th century BCE (Hallo 2003, II, 176). Besides their estate in Ammon, it is probable that the Tobiah family, leaders of the Bnei Tobiah, held property in Judaea, in the Persian province of Yehud, which they had to submit to the land reforms of Nehemiah. But these reforms did not necessarily apply to the province of Ammon, in Transjordan, and there the head of the clan, Tobiah himself, was able to retain his lands, centred on the area later called Tyros (see pp. 14 & 17) and eventually Airaq al-Amir. So much is made clear also by the two inscriptions of TOBYAH at two of the caves in the cliff face. We shall discuss their dating below (Chap.11) but suffice it to say that on palaeographic grounds their date is by no means finally agreed, and that the opinions range from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BCE. One is therefore not justified in saying that, just on palaeographic grounds, the inscriptions cannot be linked to the Tobiah of the Book of Nehemiah (Williamson 1985, 183). On the contrary, we will say that the name of the place gave its name

26

to the clan, and the two inscriptions record this fact, though at exactly what period this occurred we shall discuss below. One further point on the designation “Ammonite”. It was a pejorative term in the early Biblical record, as the Children of Ammon refused to let the Israelites pass across their country (Numb. 21:24) and the pronouncement was made that no Ammonite or Moabite shall ever come into the Community of God (Deut. 23:4) which, as a matter of interest, is repeated in Neh. 13:1. Nevertheless it should be remembered that Solomon’s son and heir Rehoboam was the child of Naamah the Ammonitess (I Kgs. 14:31) and all subsequent kings of Judah emanate from the union of Solomon and this princess of Ammon, his only named wife. Be that as it may, in connection with Tobiah and the Tobiad estate, the term Ammon or Ammonite is used in the geographical sense to indicate the territory beyond the Jordan, and not in any ethnic sense suggesting a non-Jewish affiliation. This is how it appears in Josephus, as “the land across the river Jordan” (Ant. XII, 222) and also as a territory going right back to the Persian period of Nehemiah. The use of the term “Ammonite” is therefore a specific geographical term indicating Tobiah’s place of residence. As that was without doubt at Tyros (later Airaq al-Amir), it was just west of Ammon in the territory Gilead, which had originally been allocated by Joshua to the children of Gad (Josh. 13:25). Although it may have been taken by Ammon in the period of Judahite weakness after the Babylonian Conquest, the local population who remained, including perhaps some of the clan of Tobiah, will have stayed loyal to Judah and came under the jurisdiction of the Persian empire after the Return. If Tobiah had been outside the jurisdiction of the Persian king’s province of Yehud, he would have had no interest, one way or the other, in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and certainly no interest in getting a chamber for himself in the Temple precincts. It was exactly his attempt to insinuate himself into the Temple, and perhaps even into the priesthood, which continued to put him at odds with Nehemiah, even after the matters of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the land reform had been resolved. We come back now to Nehemiah’s insistance on calling Tobiah “the servant, the Ammonite”. We have rejected Williamson’s suggestion that this is pejorative, but we feel that there may be something further in this description, that it may be linked to the fact that the children of Tobiah were not able to prove their genealogy (Neh. 7:62). To understand that, we should go back a further five or six hundred years, to two Biblical references to the “Land of Tob”. The first is in the story of Jephthah, son of a harlot, who is banished by his brothers and goes to live in the land of Tob (Judges 11:3). When the elders of Gilead need him to lead them against Ammon, they go to fetch him from there (11:5). Jephthah obviously had a good knowledge of the Ammonites and their territory and was unlikely to have gained that if his banishment had 27

been too far away from their land. The modern commentaries equate the land of Tob with et-Taiyebeh in the Golan. The identification is simple, in Hebrew Tob means “good” and in Arabic et-Tayebeh means “the good”. This location for the “land of Tob” is given by Aharoni (1979, 443) and we can trace it back to Hauser (1908, 63), who says that both Conder and G. A. Smith identify the land of Tob with et-Tayebeh. G. A. Smith does indeed make this connection, saying that the name “may survive in that of the Wady and village of Taiyebeh, east of Pella” (1894, 587). The location is 40 miles (64km.) east-south-east of Lake Tiberias on a wadi that flows into the Yarmuk (Aharoni, 1979, 154, map 9). However, there must be doubts about this location, even in the name itself. This part of the world is dry and inhospitable, lying on the eastern boundary of the Syrian desert; thus it is surprising to see it described as the land of Tob, the land of “good”. As Aharoni himself writes: “many names indicate the nature of the soil e.g. Tob, Na’aman etc.” (1979, 109). One would expect Tob, and certainly the land of Tob, to be a fertile area, not a desert. For example, Na’aman, meaning “pleasantness” (Gesenius 1885, 555) is the name of a river in the fertile plain of Acre (Aharoni 1979, 22). But the matter goes much further. Jephthah is unlikely to have gained an intimate knowledge of Ammon if his banishment had been to et-Tayebeh, which is 50 miles (80 km.) as the crow flies from Rabbath-Ammon and over twice as far as that along the only negotiable route, via the River Jordan. Since the battle with Ammon takes place in the area west of Ammon (Judges 11:33; Aharoni 1979, 265), we suggest that Jephthah’s banishment was close to that city. The capital of the Elders of Gilead (Transjordan), where Jephthah is later based, is Mizpeh of Gilead or Mizpah (Judges 11:29 and 34), usually taken to be the same as Ramoth-Mizpeh, mentioned as lying between Heshbon, Betonim and Mahanaim (Josh. 13:26; Aharoni 1979, 265). There is nothing in the story of Jephthah to show that he was banished a long way from his original homeland and much to suggest that he camped in some place in the vicinity of Ammon that was “good”, but not under the jurisdiction of either the Elders of Gilead or of the Ammonites. A place in the area of the noman’s-land between the two would be a plausible location. Before trying to determine where that might be, let us look at the second Biblical reference, which concerns the “man of Tob” sending twelve thousand men to help Ammon to fight King David. The Hebrew states (literally) “And Ish Tob twelve thousand men” (2 Sam.10:6) and the modern translations render it: “and 12,000 men from Tob” (Tanakh JPS 1985, and NEB 1961), “and the men of Tob twelve thousand men” (JPS 1916).

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However the older translations, being more literal, have: “and of Ish-tob twelve thousand men (King James AV), “and Istob with twelve thousand men (LXX). Another passage two verses further on reads, in the literal Hebrew: “And Ish-Tob and Ma’akha were alone in the field”. The translations follow their previous bent, but here the Hebrew is even more emphatically a name, as the two parts are hyphenated in the Hebrew text as “Ish-Tob”. The standard Biblical Hebrew Concordance takes both cases (in verses 6 and 8) of Ish-Tob to be proper nouns (Mandelkern 1896, 1361). This also makes better sense of the Hebrew construction, as Ish (man) is in the singular; though it must be conceded that the singular is often used to imply the plural, as indeed in the earlier part of verse 6, where we have “and the king (of) Ma’akha (with) a thousand man”. However the usage in verse 8, where Ish-Tob is coupled with the name Ma’akha makes it likely that it, too, is a name. There exist other Biblical names with the prefix Ish, such as IshBosheth, son of Saul (2 Sam. 2:8 etc.) and Ish-Hod, a son of Gilead (1 Chron. 7:18). The situation with Ish-Tob is slightly more complex, as we are saying he is a man linked to a place name, to the Land of Tob. If so, where was this Tob? From 2 Sam. 10, it is clear that Ish-Tob came to help Ammon to fight King David. He is linked with other allies, the Arameans and the king of Ma’akha, who both come from the northern parts of Transjordan. But in their case it says that the “children of Ammon sent and hired them (10:6), using the particle eth to make it clear that they were the object of the sending and hiring. In the case of Ish-Tob, that particle is not used, so it could well be that they did not need to be sent or paid for. In that case, it suggests that their territory lay close to Ammon and to its capital of Rabbat Ammon. It is our opinion that the Land of Tob, to which Jephthah was banished, is synonymous with the area inhabited by Ish-Tob and his men, and that both lie in the vicinity of Ammon. If, as we have indicated, the land of Ish-Tob and the land of Tob are close to Ammon, we can now claim that the territory of this Ish-Tob is a forerunner of the location of the estate of the later Tobyah, who is recorded by Nehemiah as “the servant, the Ammonite”, and Ish-Tob is an ancestor of that Tobyah. But there are two problems. How did the name come to change and how did Ish-Tob, an enemy of David and obviously a non-Jew, become the ancestor of the Jew, Tobyah?

29

As for the name, as Tob is the name of a place, it is likely that Tobyah is also a place-name as well as a personal one. For instance, the name we have quoted above, Ish-Hod (1 Chron. 7:18), has its equivalent in Hodiyah (1 Chron. 4:19 and Neh. 8:7, 9:5, 10:11, 14 & 19) though of course there is not necessarily any connection between these several characters. But in our case we would suggest that there is a strong connection and the place name Tob or Tobyah accounts for the unusual persistance of that name in the family records, it being not just the result of papponymy. It ties the estate to the family and their descendants to the estate. Although the name Tobyah appears to be a theophoric form of Tob (“God is my good” or “Good is my God”), it is more likely to be a form of the place name, as in modern examples such as Natanyah, Nahariyah, Herzliyah and so on. An ancient example from Babylon would be Nar-Tabija (Zadok 1985, 387). The argument then appears to go full circle. Ish-Tob is the Man of Tob, of the land of Tob, that becomes the place Tobyah, which becomes the characteristic name of the chiefs living there. On the question of the change of allegiance from enemy of David to friend of Judah and indeed Judaean, there is no reason why over the ensuing years the Tob family should not have become converts to the Jewish faith. It happened perhaps in the period of the conquest of Ammon by the king of Judah, Jotham, in c.740 BCE (Hallo and Simpson 1998, 131-2). No doubt such conversions were a matter of politics and were forced by a victorious conqueror. As the family was presumably allowed to retain its estates in some form or another in the area of Tob, it may well have suited them to change to a name like Tobyah, with a theophoric ring about it, to retain the Tob element but also to acknowledge a new cultic affiliation. Of course, we can only guess at the course of events in the land of Tob between the time of the Israelite monarchy and the return from Exile of Nehemiah, but we do think that Nehemiah may have referred to his enemy Tobyah as “the Ammonite” in memory of the conversion his family had undergone many generations previously. In Nehemiah’s eyes, he was still the Ammonite (Neh. 2:10 etc.) and, by the same token, the genealogy of the children of Tobyah was also found to be somewhat suspect (7:61-62). In that sense we would agree with Williamson (1985, 183) that the designation, “the servant, the Ammonite” has a pejorative side to it, not in the sense of servant or slave but in the sense of Ammonite. So there is a case to be made out for locating the “Land of Tob” west of Ammon in the area between Rabbat-Ammon and the Jordan, in a location which is agriculturally “good” or well-watered, such as the valley of the Wadi es-Sir. Support for this can be found in some 17th century maps. Three maps are known to me that locate the “Land of Tob” in approximately this area, in the territory of the tribe of Gad. The earliest of these maps is a “Map of the Holy Land divided among the Tribes” after Nicolas Sanson (1633-1703). It is a French map published in c.1690 (Jaillot 1690) and 30

shows “Terre Tobh” in the territory of Gad (see fig.16). The second map is a Dutch one, showing the travels of Jesus through the Holy Land and is dated c.1705. It is clearly a copy of the French map of 1690, as it shows exactly the same tribal boundaries and “Terre Tob” in the same location (Mortier 1705). The third map is a coloured etching of 1817-18, copied from the earlier French and Dutch maps but lettered in Hebrew. It purports to be a “Map of the Holy Land as described in the Bible” (the original is in the Schocken Institute of the Jewish Theological Society in Jerusalem) and shows “Eretz Tob” in the same exact location as the other two. The source of the information shown on these maps is not known to me, but they do locate the “Land of Tob” very close to the area I have suggested above.

Fig. 16, French Map of 1690, showing “Terre Tob” in area of Tribu de Gad (from Jaillot) It is quite clear that the two later maps are a copy of the earlier French one. The Dutch one is a direct copy of the French; the tribal boundaries and even the tribal colours are the same. The lakes of Kinneret and the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean coast all have the same curious outlines. The third, the Hebrew map, is also clearly a copy. Though the boundary lines are not followed quite so slavishly, this seems to be the result of poor draughtmanship rather than any original thinking. It is no coincidence therefore, that all show “the Land of Tob” in the same location. 31

CHAPTER 5.

Dating and Redating Josephus

We now have to tackle the vexed question of dating Hyrcanus’s occupation of Airaq al-Amir. At first sight the matter seems simple. Hyrcanus’s father Joseph was the son of Tobias and that Tobias, or Toubias, according to the Zenon papyri, lived at the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphos (285-246 BCE, as Modrzejewski 1995, 235). Josephus seems to underpin this when he relates, as part of his Tobiad Saga, that Joseph, Hyrcanus’s father, became tax farmer for Ptolemy Epiphanes, after the High Priest Onias refused to pay the usual tax to that Ptolemy (Ant. XII, 158). However Ptolemy Epiphanes, being Ptolemy V, only came to the throne in 204, which makes it too late for Joseph to have become a tax farmer as a young man, as Josephus relates (XII, 160). If his father lived in 259 BCE, as the Zenon papyri show, as a well-respected and senior landowner (see above pp.17-19), then for Joseph to be a young man in 204 is virtually impossible. Josephus, however, used only the name Ptolemy; it was the translator who added the designation Epiphanes. The translator notes that there is a variant text of Ptolemy “Euergetes, who was the father of Philopator” (Marcus 1943, 82 note c), who would be Ptolemy III, reigning from 246 to 222 BCE, immediately after his father Philadelphos. These dates would eminently suit those of a young Joseph, acting as his tax farmer. We then have the father Tobias (Toubias) active under Ptolemy II and the son Joseph under Ptolemy III. We now have another difficulty. Josephus informs us that this Joseph acted as tax farmer for 22 years (XII, 186, 224) and was then succeeded by his energetic son Hyrcanus who retreated to Tyros for a period of seven years until the accession of Antiochus IV Ephiphanes to the Seleucid throne (XII, 234). That was in 175 BCE. If we deduct 7 plus 22 years from that terminal date, then Joseph started as tax collector in 175 + 29 = 204 BCE, which fits exactly with the rise to the throne of Ptolemy V. But that, we said, was too late for a young son of Toubias. The explanation to be offered must then be that the Toubias of Zenon’s day was not Joseph’s father but his greatgrandfather, the name jumping one generation each time, in good Jewish fashion (papponymy, as assumed by Schürer 1973, 150). This solves the problem and may also solve another one. Josephus mentions that when Joseph took over the tax farming for the Ptolemies, and the king asked him for a guarantor, our Joseph, being a man of more wit than wealth, jokingly suggested that the king and queen should act as mutual guarantors, he for her taxes and she for his, which the king laughingly accepts (XII, 178). The name of the queen that Josephus gives is Cleopatra (XII, 167). Now this does not fit the early dating in the time of Ptolemy III Euergetes, whose queen was Berenice II, but it would suit the later dating of Ptolemy V Epiphanes whose wife was indeed Cleopatra I Syra. So this is another reason to say that Joseph the tax farmer was the 32

great-grandson of Toubias. Now however that late dating poses a major problem. How could Joseph be collecting taxes in Palestine in the years 204 to 182 BCE, when the Ptolemies had been driven out of that land by the Seleucid emperor Antiochus III after his decisive victory over them at Panion in 200 BCE (Edouard Will 1982, 118)? It has therefore been the general consensus that Joseph was indeed the son of Zenon’s Toubias and acted as tax farmer for Ptolemy III Euergetes, that is, in the earlier period, and the fact that Josephus calls his queen Cleopatra (rather than Berenice) is just one of those traps historians are likely to fall into, especially as so many thought that all the Ptolemaic queens were called Cleopatra (Zayadine 1991, 13; Goldstein 1975, 99). That solves the problem of the Ptolemaic withdrawal from Palestine in 200 BCE; however, it is not the end of the matter by any means. In fact, we need to look at four different views of solving the difficulties inherent in Josephus’s chronology. In his “The Tales of the Tobiads” Jonathan Goldstein follows the earlier dating which he says suits Josephus’s claim that the High Priest Onias was refusing to pay his tribute to Ptolemy (Ant. XII, 158). This would have been Onias II (Goldstein 1975, 86) whose sister married Joseph’s father Tobias (Ant. XII, 160). And it was at this time, after the refusal of Onias to pay the taxes, that Joseph was able to take over the farming of the taxes. Goldstein corroborates this with another incident. Josephus’s Tobiad Saga relates how Joseph’s son Hyrcanus is able to get himself to Alexandria. The occasion was the birth of a son to Ptolemy and his queen, and the father Joseph himself should have gone to congratulate the proud parents but he was by then too old to make the journey. Joseph’s elder sons decline to take his place so it falls on the youngest, and brightest, Hyrcanus to go (Ant. XII, 196-197). The baby in question could only be the future Ptolemy V Epiphanes, the one son of Ptolemy IV, who was born in 210 BCE (Goldstein 1975, 97). Therefore, as this was the time when it appears that Hyrcanus bribed Ptolemy (thus Ptolemy IV Philopator, 222-205 BCE) to take over his father’s tax-farming activities, it means that Hyrcanus was active from 210 onwards according to Goldstein. The difficulty here is that, if Hyrcanus was active up to the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 BCE, he would have been collecting the taxes for 35 years, much longer that the seven years that he ruled over the estate in Transjordan, according to Josephus (XII, 234). On the other hand, if his father Joseph continued collecting the tax after 210 BCE, he, Joseph, would have been active much longer than the 22 years that Josephus attributes to him (XII, 224) seeing that he started, according to this scenario by Goldstein, in the earlier period of Ptolemy III Euergetes (246 to 222 BCE). Goldstein exposes all these difficulties, which suggest that the whole story is either a fabrication (which we see from the geographical and architectural evidence from Airaq al-Amir that it is not) or it is the cobbling together by 33

Josephus of two stories that took place under the reigns of different Ptolemies. However Goldstein rejects that idea and claims that the Tobiad Saga is based on an original Vorlage that was prepared by the High Priest Onias IV himself, who was interested to boost the image of his relatives, the Tobiads, and particularly the Hyrcanus faction; and it was Josephus who made certain judicious amendments which only served to distort the dating (Goldstein 1975, 108). The weakness of the Goldstein theory is that Onias IV was active for a long period in Egypt, where he set up the well-known Jewish temple at Tel elYehudiyah (Leontopolis), and he was surely sufficiently familiar with the history of the Ptolemies to have set it out more clearly in his Vorlage to his own and to Josephus’s satisfaction. He is unlikely therefore to have left an account with so many contradictions and loose ends. A further attempt at a resolution of the difficulties is made by Dov Gera (1990) who also tries to find the author of the original Tobiad Saga that lies behind the story told by Josephus. He emphasises that the account is split into two by the unnecessary record of the letter of Areios, king of the Lacedaemonians, to Onias (Ant. XII, 225) and it looks therefore as if there were two sources, the first section being rather like a folktale, the second being more factual (Gera 1990, 23). Though this would tend to make one reject the first section as fictional, Gera feels it has a “Jewish” feel about it, with its stories related to famous Biblical incidents, like wife substitution (Jacob with Leah and Rachel), hatred of brothers for the favourite (the Biblical Joseph and his brothers), and so on, that suggest a Jewish author from Alexandria, perhaps even the author of the famous Letter of Aristeas which describes how Ptolemy II Philadelphos ordered the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (Gera 1990, 37). On its dating then, Gera agrees with Goldstein. The second section, being rather more factual, is not in doubt and serves mainly to aggrandise Hyrcanus as the main developer of the estate at Tyros (Airaq al-Amir). The same criticism however can be made of Gera’s theory as of Goldstein’s; if the author of Josephus’s Vorlage is from an Egyptian (Alexandrian) milieu, how come that he is so confused about the Ptolemies, misnames one of the queens, and confuses the dating throughout? Although Gera cites a number of “Jewish” parallels between Biblical characters and Josephus’s account of the life of Hyrcanus, he omits to mention one telling incident. That is the story of Jephthah, son of a harlot, who is ousted by the other legitimate brothers, and banished to the land of Tob (Judges 11:1 & 5). Although Hyrcanus is not restored to Jerusalem, unlike Jephthah to Gilead (11:11), he is depicted as the most able of Joseph’s sons and obviously the one who would have made good if historical circumstances had allowed it. He is also banished to the land of Tob, or rather the land of Tobiah and, we are tempted to ask, is there a geographical connection between these two accounts, even though in time 34

they may be 900 years or so apart? We have examined this question of the geographical location of the land of Tobiah, and its possible relationship with the Land of Tob, above in Chap. 4 (pp.27-30). Returning to Gera’s suggestion that the author of the Letter of Aristeas may also be the writer of the Vorlage used by Josephus, a similar comparison was made, but in a very negative way, by F. M. Abel. The latter rejects the account of Joseph as a successful tax farmer as being a fictional attempt to show the Jew in a superior light in matters of finance, in the same way as the Letter of Aristeas attempts to show the Jews’ superior talents (Abel 1952, 65; Zayadine 1991, 12 n.54). This theory can now be discarded as we have so much archaeological evidence at Airaq al-Amir to the actual financial strength of several generations of the Tobiad clan. In spite of the weakness of his suggested Vorlage, Gera may be right in rejecting some of Josephus’s “facts”, such as the suicide of Hyrcanus, when he hears of the accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (XII, 236). Gera goes on to give a very plausible summary of Hyrcanus’s activities, which takes into account several references to the estate in Maccabees I and II (Gera 1990, 30). We shall come back to these suggestions, the problems and their resolution in Chap. 6 below. A very full survey of the Tobiad Saga is undertaken by F. Zayadine in his contribution to the magisterial volume ‘Iraq al-Amir by Will and Larché (1991, I, 5-24). To the difficulties posed by Josephus he offers a further solution. Acknowledging the discrepancies between the dates, he suggests that Joseph the tax farmer operated in fact at two different periods. He is first appointed under Ptolemy III Euergetes (as Ant. XII, 160) and continues under Ptolemy IV Philopator. But when the baby (to be Ptolemy V) is born he sends his youngest son Hyrcanus to the festivities. Josephus says our Joseph is too old to go (XII, 196) but Zayadine thinks this is just a device to allow Josephus to introduce Hyrcanus. There is now a change of regime when Hyrcanus should be collecting the taxes, having craftily obtained his father’s rights from Ptolemy IV but, on his return, Hyrcanus is forced out of Jerusalem (XII, 229) and is only able to collect the tax in his local area, in Transjordan. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, from 201-197 BCE, the tax farming reverts to the High Priest, now Simon II (Zayadine 1991, 22). This is the period when Palestine falls to the Seleucids and the system of taxation changes. However in 196 BCE, though the country is governed by the Seleucids, some of the taxes revert to Egypt. Antiochus III, the Seleucid Emperor, has given his daughter, Cleopatra I Syra, in marriage to the young Ptolemy V Epiphanes and, as her dowry, he has given her the taxes of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, as described by Josephus (Ant. XII, 155). This seems to be the only possible explanation of the curious fact that Coele-Syria (Palestine) is under the Seleucid emperors but the taxes, or part of them, revert to the Ptolemies in Egypt. The arrangement was obviously 35

an unstable one and may have lasted for only a few years, but Zayadine claims that in these years, Joseph acted as tax farmer (for a second time), while his son Hyrcanus was acting in this capacity in parts of Transjordan. Joseph probably died in around 180 BCE (Zayadine 1991, 23) by which time Hyrcanus had finally retired to Tyros on a permanent basis. Antiochus IV Epiphanes did not take an interest in Jewish affairs until his return from the invasion of Egypt in 169 BCE, when he suspected the Jews of celebrating the rumours of his death. It was probably only then that he became aware of the Jewish territories in Transjordan and it is now, suggests Zayadine, that Hyrcanus commits suicide, as Josephus claims (Ant. XII, 236) rather than fall into the hands of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Whereas previous authorities put Joseph’s activities in the time of Ptolemy III Euergetes and his son Ptolemy IV Philopator, Zayadine splits his activities into two periods; the first as above and the second in the time of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204-180 BCE). This helps to reconcile the different Ptolemies mentioned by Josephus but poses the difficulty of Joseph the Tobiad acting at two different periods separated by an interregnum of ten years or more. Zayadine’s reconstruction is ingenious but in the end implausible. Daniel Schwartz (1998) takes the idea further and suggests that really Joseph the Tobiad collected the taxes only in the later period. He claims that the discovery of the Zenon Papyri in 1915 has distorted the picture. Before that the Tobiad Saga had not attracted much scholarly interest but when the papyri confirmed the Tobiad family and their close relations with Ptolemy II Philadelphos, then scholars began to assume that the Toubias, mentioned six times by Zenon, must have been Tobias, the father of Joseph the tax collector, who therefore must have operated in the time of the next Ptolemy, Ptolemy III Euergetes (246-222 BCE), as indeed Josephus says later (Ant. XII, 158 &163). The problem is that he had originally said it was in the time of Ptolemy (V Epiphanes, 204-180 BCE) who had married Cleopatra, daughter of the Seleucid emperor Antiochus III (XII, 154). Now Schwartz takes this latter statement of Josephus (which occurs at the beginning of the Tobiad Saga) as the correct one, showing that Joseph started his tax-farming activities in the year 204 BCE at the earliest. As far as Joseph being the son of Tobias, he sees no reason to think that this Tobias was the same as Zenon’s Toubias. One Tobias could well have been the grandson of the other, that being, as we have said previously, the traditional form of preserving the name (patronumos, or papponymy). There is a further point. The earlier Toubias, as we have seen, was on personal terms with Ptolemy II Philadelphos (see p. 19) and if Joseph was his son, then he was unlikely to have been the complete stranger to Ptolemy II’s son, Ptolemy III, that Josephus implies he was. He writes that the envoy Athenion (who had been well bribed) “introduced him to the king, saying 36

that this was the person whom he had described to him when he returned from Jerusalem” (Ant. XII, 171). Surely Ptolemy III would have had some knowledge of this youngster and anyway, what was Joseph doing in Jerusalem if he was the son of Toubias, who lived at the Birta, at Tyros? It is thus more logical to say that Joseph was the great-grandson of Zenon’s Toubias and therefore likely to have operated only later in the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Schwartz points out (1998, 56) that Ptolemy V Epiphanes married Cleopatra I Syra (daughter of Antiochus III, in 204 BCE) according to Josephus, who also states that Joseph collected taxes for 22 years (Ant. XII, 186, 224) and his son Hyrcanus for 7 years (XII, 234). That would take us to 175 BCE, exactly the year when Antiochus IV Epiphanes came to the throne, and when Josephus claims Hyrcanus committed suicide (XII, 236). This is an attractive reading but there are two major objections to Schwartz’s dating: a) why was Joseph collecting taxes for the Ptolemies in Palestine, when the country was under the jurisdiction of the Seleucids as from 200 BCE (the battle of Panion)? b) if Joseph only started collecting taxes for Ptolemy V Epiphanes, how is it that it was at the birth of this same Ptolemy that his son Hyrcanus represented Joseph at the festivities in Alexandria and, it seems, got the king to appoint him, Hyrcanus, as replacement to his father? In other words, how could it be that the son (Hyrcanus) replaced the father (Joseph) before the father had even started as a tax farmer? The first objection can be disposed of (Schwartz 1998, 50). It is clear, by virtue of the dowry that he gave to his daughter Cleopatra I Syra, that her father Antiochus III gave her the right to the taxes of Coele-Syria, Samaria, Judaea, and Phoenicia. It was a curious situation but it is so described by Josephus himself (Ant. XII, 154-5) and probably lasted for several years, at least until the death of Antiochus III in 187 BCE, and perhaps even until the death of his successor Seleucus IV in 175 BCE. As Schwartz has said, this would neatly fit the 22 + 7 years allotted by Josephus to the tax collecting activities of Joseph and his son Hyrcanus (204 to 175 equals 29 years). However, the whole milieu of Josephus’s account lies with the Ptolemies, so it is difficult to see how Joseph could have been acting within the Seleucid Empire. This is given more solid evidence against Schwartz’s late dating by Fuks (2001, 354 – 356). As for the second objection, Schwartz does not touch on it at all, probably because he has no need to. Goldstein (1975, 97) worked out that the baby in question, when Hyrcanus went to Alexandria to congratulate its father and 37

mother, was the infant Ptolemy V Epiphanes, born in the year 210 BCE. But that would not necessarily be Schwartz’s choice of baby. Schwartz could either say that the story of Hyrcanus visiting Alexandria at this juncture was a fiction or, and much more likely in view of the great amount of detail that Josephus attaches to this visit (Ant. XII, 197-221), that the baby was one born to Ptolemy V Epiphanes, either his elder son Philometer in 187-186 BCE or his son Euergetes II (Physcon) born after 185 BCE (Marcus 1943, 100, n. a). These dates fit well with the “late” Joseph. Having started tax farming in 204, he would have run most (if not all) of his course of 22 years (if Josephus’s figure is correct) by 186 BCE and could well be disinclined (or too old) to visit Alexandria again (Ant. XII, 196). Why his other sons did not go, is not made clear by Josephus. But we can see that at this date the Seleucid reign over Judaea was changing (the era of Antiochus III came to an end in 187 BCE) and the sons will have thought that the “dowry” taxes were also likely to come to an end and there was no point in congratulating Ptolemy V Epiphanes as there was little to gain by it. Hyrcanus and others may well not have agreed but it could explain the lackadaisical attitude of the elderly Joseph and his first seven sons, as portrayed by Josephus. However, our main objection to Schwartz’s dating is that it only allows Hyrcanus seven years at Tyros to build up his brilliant Hellenistic estate, and this is far too little time for the amount of labour that must have been involved, as described in Chaps.14 and 16 (and p.78). Concerning the end of the Tobiad estate and the death of Hyrcanus, there is one point not mentioned by Josephus or the later commentators. On the accession of Ptolemy IV Philopator in 222 BCE, there was a crisis in the Ptolemaic ranks, as it seemed clear that Antiochus III was preparing to attack the Egyptians and take over Coele-Syria (Palestine). In the spring of 218, Antiochus III was advancing south, taking the Galilee and moving into Transjordan. The Arabs, it appears, were joining with the Seleucids. The Ptolemaic Army retreated and was eventually besieged in Rabbat Ammon (Philadelphia) and well entrenched there. But they capitulated after a few months when the Seleucids managed (through internal treachery) to cut off the water supply (Zayadine 1990, 71-73). Antiochus III left Philadelphia with a garrison of 5,000 troops and returned to the coast and Gaza in 217 BCE (M. Stern 1981, 58). It is not clear if he attacked Jerusalem and Judaea on his way to the coast. For our purposes the siege and garrisoning of Philadelphia is significant. It meant that many Seleucid troops were living in the vicinity of Tyros (Airaq al-Amir), so the Tobiad Estate must have become known to Antiochus III, perhaps even occupied by him. What happened to it, we do not know, but it was probably saved by the fact that shortly afterwards Antiochus III was defeated by Ptolemy IV Philopator – most surprisingly – at the stunning Egyptian victory of Raphia in 217 BCE (Edouard Will 1982, 37). As a 38

result, Antiochus had to withdraw all his forces back to Syria and the threat to the Tobiad Estate was lifted. It is clearly in those critical years of 222–217 BCE that the High Priest Onias II was vacillating between Egypt and Syria, and it was then that his energetic nephew, Joseph, seized the initiative and took the opportunity to throw his weight behind the Ptolemies. The victory at Raphia proved him right, but not for long. Before trying to conclude on the dating of the events of the Tobiad Saga and on its source, we have to examine the references in the Books of Maccabees. We shall come back to the subject in Chapter 7.

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CHAPTER 6.

The Maccabean References

Before we can reach any conclusions on the dating of the Tobiad Saga, and leaving Josephus aside for the moment, we have to consider several references to the Tobiads in the two Books of the Maccabees, and we can then try to summarise the main events of the Tobiad Saga and suggest an author for the Vorlage used by Josephus. The following translations of Maccabees are taken from the New English Bible, with commentary by J.R.Bartlett (1973). The clearest reference in Maccabees to Hyrcanus comes in the Heliodorus incident. It concerns the story of how Heliodorus, chief minister of Seleucus IV Philopater (son of Antiochus III), is sent by him to plunder the treasures of the Jerusalem Temple. The High Priest at the time was Onias III, a grandson of Onias II, whose sister had married Hyrcanus’s grandfather Tobias, according to Josephus (Ant. XII, 160). Onias III and Hyrcanus were therefore second cousins on the maternal side. The incident happened in about 185 BCE. The king needed money to pay his fines to the Romans (as agreed at Apamea in 188 BCE) and a certain priest called Simon, an enemy of Onias III, had told the Seleucids there were riches to be had in the Temple treasury. These it was that Heliodorus was sent to plunder. On arrival in Jerusalem he is well received but when he asks to check the Treasury monies, the High Priest tells him that the deposits cannot be touched. They were held in trust for widows and orphans, “apart from what belonged to Hyrcanus, son of Tobias, a man of very high standing” (2 Macc. 3:10). Onias mentions a quantity “in all” of “400 talents of silver and 200 of gold” (3:11). Heliodorus insists that the treasure be handed over to the king but later, when he tries to force his way into the Treasury with his bodyguard, he is confronted by the vision of a terrifying horseman in golden armour, he is attacked by two incredibly beautiful men and carried off in a helpless condition (3:25-30). His attempt to raid the Temple is aborted, but we are left to wonder why Hyrcanus the Tobiad, who was by now probably living in Tyros, should have any such valuable deposits in the Temple in Jerusalem. The story is complicated by the fact that this Heliodorus goes on later to murder his master Seleucus IV (Edouard Will 1982, 304) in 175 BCE, which makes one wonder if he really tried so very hard to seize this treasure, or just accepted Onias’s refusal at face value. But it still leaves the problem of why Hyrcanus, who was by now persona non grata in Jerusalem (Josephus Ant.XII, 229), had large sums lying in the Temple, and why Second Maccabees says Onias refers to him as “a man of very high standing” (3.10). Goldstein claims that Onias III was not only a relative but also a political ally of Hyrcanus, siding with the Ptolemies against the Seleucids, and that here he was showing his open defiance to Heliodorus,

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agent of the Seleucids. This, he claims, shows that the story is all part of the Tobiad Vorlage written by Onias’s son, Onias IV (Goldstein 1984, 209). Otto Plöger takes the simpler view that Heliodorus was playing a double game, and secretly he was on the side of making peace with the Ptolemies. He was not really trying to take the treasure for his master Seleucus, especially when he heard that much of it belonged to Hyrcanus, who was known to be a Ptolemaic sympathiser. He then went on to get rid of Seleucus IV in favour of his young son Demetrius, whom he put on the throne immediately. However, his little plan was thwarted when the elder son rushed back from Athens, despatched Demetrius (and presumably his mentor Heliodorus) and seized the Seleucid throne for himself (Edouard Will 1982, 304-5) to become Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Plöger sees in this the reason for the suicide of Hyrcanus, as described by Josephus (Ant. XII, 236), when his potential allies Heliodorus and Demetrius are swept aside by Antiochus IV (Plöger 1955, 80-81). The text itself indicates that Heliodorus’s attempted attack on the Treasury was only half-hearted. Although he insisted that the Temple deposits be handed over (2 Macc.3:13) it is then said that “He fixed a day and went into the temple to make an inventory” (3:14). Goldstein remarks that he does not understand why Heliodorus “set a day” in the future, which would give the depositors, or the priests, time to remove their monies (Goldstein 1984, 209). With this given delay, it is most likely that Heliodorus was deliberately playing into the hands of the Treasury and indeed of Hyrcanus as well, in allowing the deposits to be removed out of harm’s way. As the Temple Treasury contained many deposits, “held in trust for widows and orphans” it must have held deposits from many individuals. It is indeed curious that only that of Hyrcanus is singled out for mention (2 Macc. 3:1011). This seems to be a further indication that the author wishes to connect the names of Hyrcanus and the double-dealing Heliodorus and to show that Heliodorus was not particularly anxious to seize the deposits, especially not that of Hyrcanus. The question remains as to how and why Hyrcanus had deposits in the Temple Treasury. We would speculate that the silver and gold were an inheritance from his father Joseph, who Josephus states was a wealthy man (Ant.XII, 184), which Joseph had given to his cousin the High Priest Onias III for safekeeping, after Hyrcanus had been forced to flee across the Jordan to Tyros (Ant.XII, 222). There is one more aspect to the Heliodorus incident at the Jerusalem Temple Treasury. The text in 2 Maccabees 3:11 reads that some of the deposited treasure belongs to “Hyrcanus, son of Tobias” (Yrkanos tou Tubiou) whereas we assume him to be the son of Joseph and grandson of Tobias. Clermont-Ganneau takes this point further and claims it means “Hyrcanus 41

who is called Tobias”, which is rendered in the Greek version as Hyrkani Tobiae. From this he concludes that the Hyrcanus of the Treasury incident is also called Tobias and he goes further to claim that it is this HyrcanusTobias who had his name Tobias inscribed over the two caves at Airaq alAmir. On this basis Clermont-Ganneau dates the carved names to a little before Hyrcanus’s death in 176-175 BCE (1896, 262-3). But it is not necessary to go that far as it is common Biblical practice for “son of” to sometimes mean “grandson of” (cf. 1 Kgs. 19:16; 2 Kgs. 8:26) and “son of Tobias” would have made the affiliation clearer than the more accurate “son of Joseph”. Somewhat later than the Heliodorus incident, the High Priest Jason, who had collaborated with the Seleucids and promised to turn Jerusalem into a Greek city by building an amphitheatre and a gymnasium in return for receiving the High Priesthood (2 Macc. 4:9) was himself supplanted by Menelaus, seemingly brother of the Simon who had reported Onias III and the Temple Treasury to Heliodorus. Menelaus outbid Jason for the Priesthood and forced Jason to flee Jerusalem to “Ammonite territory” (4:26). This is in the year 172 or 171 BCE (Bartlett 1973, 249, n.23) and there is little doubt that Jason fled to Tyros, that is, to Airaq al-Amir. Although Jason had by force supplanted Onias III, it was his own brother he had deposed; thus Jason was also a second cousin of Hyrcanus on the maternal side. It could just be that Jason had fled to the Nabataeans, as Bartlett suggests (1973, 250, n.26), but that is unlikely because later, after Jason had tried to make a comeback (thinking Antiochus IV Epiphanes to have been killed in Egypt) in 169 BCE, he is forced out again (Antiochus comes back alive!) and this time Jason flees to Ammonite territory and is imprisoned by the Arab (or Nabataean) king Aretas (2 Macc. 5:7-8). It is likely therefore that the earlier reference to Ammonite territory is not to the Nabataeans, but to his Tobiad relatives further north in Tyros. It is also more likely that he launched his pre-emptive strike (to return to Jerusalem in 169 BCE) from Tyros, with the probable encouragement and indeed military support of his relatives and co-religionists in Tyros, rather than launching it from the more foreign Nabataean area around Petra. There are further references to the Tobiads in the time of the Hasmoneans. Judas Maccabeus takes the fight to the descendants of Esau in the south and then crosses the Jordan “to the Ammonites” (1 Macc. 5:6), where he fights an army, commanded by a certain Timotheus, which he crushes. But Timotheus escapes and the gentiles counter-attack. The Jews of Gilead (Transjordan) take refuge in the fortress of Dathema (5:9) maybe further north on the Yarmuk (Barlett 1973, 70, n.9), and send a message to Judas warning him that Timotheus is back in command and, “all our fellow Jews in the region of Tubias (en tois Toubiou) have been massacred…….about a thousand men there have lost their lives” (5:13).

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This region or land of Tubias is traditionally related to the “land of Tob”, where Jephthah was banished (Judges 11:3), and is so understood by Zeitlin (1950, 112) and Bartlett (1973, 70). However, the “land of Tob” is in itself an unknown quantity, as we have discussed above (pp.28-31), though it is usually taken to be in the Bashan area, east of lake Kinneret (Aharoni, 1979, 443). But Goldstein (1976, 298) takes the region of Tubias, rightly in our view, to be the area of the Tobiad estate in Tyros, known as a military colony from the time of the Zenon papyri (see p.17). And this can be confirmed from the later parallel passage in 2 Maccabees. That account is in 2 Maccabees 12 and the date is 163 BCE (Bartlett 1975, 312). After capturing Caspin (Hispin) Judas marches south for 750 stadia to reach “Charax, which is inhabited by the Tubian Jews (Toubianous Ioudaious), as they are called” (2 Macc. 12:17). Timotheus was no longer there but two Maccabean generals, Dositheus and Sosipater, eventually capture him, though he gets away by trickery and false promises (12:24). It is clear that at least one of these generals was of the Tobiad military establishment, as he is later described as “a cavalryman…..Dositheus, one of the Tubian Jews” (12:35). The name Dositheus is the Greek for “given by God”, equivalent to the Hebrew Natanyahu or Nathaniel. In spite of the language it is a Jewish name and was later given to many Rabbinic figures, in one form or another, such as R. Hanina ben Dosa and R. Dosethai ben Yannai (M. Aboth 3:9 & 10) of the 1st and 2nd century CE. The problem is to identify Charax, a Greek place-name, meaning palisade or fortification of sharpened stakes; “a place paled in a fortified camp” (Liddell & Scott 1963, 778). Gera thinks it must be the Baris of Tyros (1990, 29) and that the 750 stadia from Caspin (Hispin in the Golan) would take Judas’s troops nearly exactly to Airaq al-Amir, a distance of 175 km. or so. He calculates 750 Stadia to be 142.5km, whereas Bartlett takes it to be about 95 miles (1973, 313), which would be 153 km, even closer to the estimated distance of 175km. In any case the figures are close enough to make the identification of Charax with the Baris of Tyros plausible and indeed inevitable according to Gera (1990, 29). If this is correct, we then have Tyros remaining as a “stronghold” estate of Jewish soldiers in the year 163 BCE, well after the alleged death by suicide of Hyrcanus the Tobiad, as postulated by Josephus at the accession of Antiochus IV (Ant. XII, 236) in 175 BCE. The term Charax could well apply to an estate such as Tyros or Airaq alAmir. As far as one can see today, the estate was unwalled, only the early buildings on the Village Tel had a defensive wall with gates (see fig.3.). The rest of the area was unprotected except that there were a number of natural and artificial features that provided adequate protection in parts, but were not continuous. For instance, the cliffs to the north and west, the Dyke or embankment wall at the south-west and the Village Tel at the north-east. The Wadi es-Sir on the east and southern extremities also gave protection. 43

But in between these elements there were open links that remained indefensible. So it would be quite logical that these gaps were filled at this time of danger, of the Hasmonean uprising, by wooden palisades, which could be erected at short notice (see fig.17). They would be a feature of the site that gave it the general name of Charax, or “place protected by palisades”.

Fig. 17, Boundary to be defended by Palisade (Charax)

44

As for the Roman stade, the estimates of its length vary. According to Bartlett (1973, 313) it would be 0.127 of an English mile or 0.204 of a kilometre; to Gera (1990, 29) it is 0.19 kilometres. The figure given by R.B.Y.Scott works out at 0.185 kilometres (Scott 1970, 349). The range for the 750 stades mentioned in 2 Macc. 12:17 between Caspin (or Khispin, 12:13) and Charax is then between 153 and 139 km. Gera, who has taken a careful measure between Hispin, in the Golan, and Tyros, says it comes to between 170 and 180 km. (Gera 1990, 29). Gera is basing himself on modern military maps but the question is really: what route did Judas Maccabeus take for this long march from central Golan to the foothills of Ammon?

He could not have gone as the crow flies across the mountains of Gilead. That was an impossible route and would have been a distance of about 104 km. Rather, he would have dropped from Caspin to the Jordan Valley, a distance of about 30 km., down the valley to somewhere near Tel Nimrim, another 85 km. or so, and then up into the mountains via Wadi Shueib to Tyros, that being another 15 km. That would make a total of 130 km. He may however have taken an easier route for the last section, going further south and then using the caravan route up the Wadi Kefrein and the Wadi es-Sir direct to Airaq al-Amir (Tyros). That would have added about 30 km. from Tel Nimrim and made a total of some 145 km. from Caspin to Tyros (see fig.18). This figure is remarkably close to Gera’s estimate of 142.5 km. (see above), even though he himself calculated the actual journey to be nearer to 175 km. (1990, 29) for reasons that are unclear. Judas’s route march of 750 stades from Caspin to Charax is then most probably from the north, southwards to Tyros, the Charax of the Toubian Jews.

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Fig. 18, Possible Route of Judas Maccabeus from Caspin to “Charax” (Tyros) Bar-Kochva, however, takes a different view. He claims that here Charax is always preceded by the definite article and is thus a general term and not a place name (1989, 510, n.3). Moreover in his discussion on Judas Maccabeus’s war in Transjordan, he points out that the soldier Dositheus, “one of the Toubienoi” (2 Macc. 12:35) means only that “the unit originated in the military settlements of the ‘land of Toubias’, the territory of the Toubias family in southern Gilead, west of present-day Amman”, in fact in Airaq al-Amir (1989, 82). It is odd, therefore, that he refuses to see the Charax “which is inhabited by the Tubian Jews” (2 Macc. 12:17) as Airaq al-Amir, though he admits that it is just the right distance from Caspin. His point is that, according First Maccabees (5:1), the Jews of the land of Toubiana had been nearly wiped out, and so must now be sheltering in another fortress (Bar-Kochva 1989, 82-83, n.42). But this is not necessarily the case; it is more likely that Judas Maccabeus goes back to Tyros (Airaq

46

al-Amir) to avenge the Jews killed there and perhaps save others that had remained in hiding. We can now summarise the information from the two Books of Maccabees as follows: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

(g)

The Temple in Jerusalem holds considerable deposits belonging to Hyrcanus the Tobiad in about the year 185 BCE (2 Macc. 3:10). The High Priest Jason flees to Ammonite territory, probably Tyros (2 Macc. 4:26) in 171-2 BCE but later returns to Jerusalem. He flees again in 169 BCE to Ammonite territory but this time to the Nabataeans (2 Macc. 5:7), who imprison him, and he is deported to Egypt. One thousand Jewish males in the region of Tubias are murdered by Timotheus’s troops (1 Macc. 5:13) Judah Maccabeus chases south to Charax (probably Tyros) and a cavalryman of the Tubian Jews captures Timotheus (2 Macc. 12, 24 & 35) in the year 163 BCE. It looks as if Judas’s attack was only a lightning revenge raid too late to stop the massacre or save the Tobiad estate. “All our fellow-Jews in the region of Tubias have been massacred, their wives and their children taken captive and their property carried off. About a thousand men there have lost their lives” (1 Macc. 5:13). This will have been the end of the Jewish settlement in Tyros, probably in the year 163 BCE.

This information can be supplemented to some extent from Josephus’s account of the Hasmonean Revolt. He tells us that Judas Maccabeus set out against the Ammonites, who had a great force led by Timotheus, whom he subdued, and took the city of Jazora before returning to Judaea (Ant. XII, 329). The translator refers Jazora to Khirbet Sar, close to Airaq al-Amir, and suggests “that the territory of Tubias” of 1 Macc. 5:13 is therefore more likely to be there than in the region conventionally taken as the Land of Tob (Marcus 1943, 171, n. e). Josephus continues that the neighbouring nations then attacked the Jews in Gilead, forcing them to flee to Dathema (XII, 330). Judas and his brother Jonathan return across the Jordan to the Nabataeans, who warn them of what has happened to the Jews, and the Maccabees put Timotheus to flight and presumably rescue the Jews (XII, 340). There is no mention in Josephus of the land of the Tobiads or of Charax, just the mention of Jazora and the Jews holed up in Dathema. Josephus (XII, 328– 350) in fact follows 1 Macc. 5:3–54 quite slavishly and cannot help us beyond what we have already gleaned from the First Book of Maccabees. Moreover, he cannot supplement it with the information we gleaned from Second Maccabees, which gave us the detail of Charax, and Judas’s march 47

of 750 stade from Caspin to Charax, as it seems that he did not have access to the Second Book (Feldman 1999, 910 & 915). Two words of warning may be in order here. First, the geographical details given in 2 Maccabees are generally not considered to be as reliable as those in 1 Maccabees, the Second Book having a more theological slant than the First (Bartlett 1973, 217). However no theological elements are involved here. Secondly, the location of Caspin is not certain. That the name is equivalent to Haspin, as it is known today, is not in question, but its exact location in antiquity is uncertain. The present-day site named Haspin (or Hispin) has no evidence of Hellenistic (or earlier) remains, and it is thought that the name has “wandered” from a nearby, though as yet unknown, site (Cohen and Telshir, 1999). But whether Caspin is Hispin, or only nearby, it does not alter the general argument about its distance from Charax. We mention these two points as a note of caution, but we do not consider them to undermine the account of Judas marching to Charax, and the identification of Charax with Airaq al-Amir.

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CHAPTER 7.

Final Dating and the Tobiad Saga

Taking Zenon, Josephus and Maccabees together, we shall now attempt to reconstruct the chief events of the Tobiad Saga. As the accounts we have tried to analyse are in many cases in a state of some confusion, we feel it useful to set out below a table of events. It is however a rather risky enterprise, and we must acknowledge that Zayadine took the brave step of trying to do the same thing (1991, 22-23) and produced a list that is not really viable, as we have said above (pp. 35-36). However the fact that he set out his conclusions in a chart of events and dates, makes it much easier to follow his argument. We trust that our chart will also be useful in setting out our argument, and we hope it will be authoritative, at least for the time being. Our efforts in this connection were greatly helped by the listing of the Ptolemies in Modrzejewski (1991, 235) with all their by-names, their wives and their dates. There will always be arguments as to exact dates but we have accepted those provided by Modrzejewski for Egypt and those of Edouard Will (1979 and 1982) for the Seleucids. Our listing starts with the first firm date of 259 BCE from the Zenon Papyri, and continues till the presumed end of the Tobiad Estate in 163 BCE, covering nearly a century of settlement at Tyros, now Airaq al-Amir. For reasons given above (pp. 32 & 37) we reject the idea that the Toubias of the Zenon Papyri was the father of Joseph, the tax farmer; we rather see him as his great-grandfather. However, we do not give Joseph as late a date as Daniel Schwartz, who wanted to see him going to Alexandria in 204 BCE, as that distorts the dating of his son Hyrcanus, and gives him too short a time to build up the Hellenistic estate in Tyros. The period of seven years given by Josephus (which Schwartz is forced to accept with his late dating) is far too short for that. We have taken a middle position, which we hope will become clear from this schedule: a)

b) c)

Toubias is visited by the Zenon Caravan in Tyros in 259 BCE; at this stage, and well known to Ptolemy II Philadelphos, Toubias is the elderly landowner in Ammon. Tobias, his grandson, marries the sister of High Priest Onias II and they have a son Joseph in c. 240 BCE. Onias II vacillates and refuses to pay tribute to Ptolemy III Euergetes (who is on the point of death in 222 BCE); Onias sees Antiochus III advancing and likely to defeat

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d) e) f)

g) h)

i)

j)

k)

l)

the Ptolemies, whom he has already thrown out of Asia Minor in the crisis years of 222-220 BCE. Antiochus III captures Philadelphia (Rabbat Ammon) and probably Tyros in 218 BCE but has to relinquish them shortly thereafter. Ptolemy IV Philopater continues to rule Palestine after 222 BCE and secures it in a surprise victory over the Seleucids at Raphia in 217. Young Joseph, son of Tobias, replaces his uncle Onias II as Prostrates (chief magistrate) in Jerusalem and calls on Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe (not Cleopatra) in Memphis, where he obtains the rights of tax farmer throughout Palestine. Joseph continues to visit his patron in Alexandria and falls in love with a dancing girl by whom he has a son, Hyrcanus, in c. 218 BCE. Joseph continues as Ptolemaic tax farmer, but at the birth of a son to Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I (to be Ptolemy VI Philometor or Ptolemy VIII Physkon) he declines to go to the celebrations, as do his sons; this is in 200 BCE when Antiochus III finally wrests Coele-Syria (Palestine) from the Ptolemies and so it looks as if taxes will no longer go to Egypt; but Antiochus gives the taxes of Palestine as a dowry to his daughter Cleopatra I and Hyrcanus goes to the birth of her first baby on the off-chance that the taxes will still be able to be collected in Palestine. Hyrcanus uses his father’s accumulated funds in Alexandria to give extravagant presents to the royal couple and their courtiers and buys the appointment to succeed his father in c.200 BCE. The old Joseph and his legitimate sons oppose Hyrcanus on his return to Jerusalem and eventually force him out to his great-great-grandfather’s estate in Tyros in 198 BCE, when Scopas, who had attempted to regain Jerusalem for the Ptolemies, is ousted by the pro-Seleucid party. Hyrcanus is established at Tyros where he starts to renovate the original Toubiad estate (Baris or Birta) and builds the Qasr al-Abd, the Monumental Gate and the Fountainhead Basin, and renovates the Square Building, the Village Tel mansions, and the caves in c.198-170 BCE. Antiochus III takes no further interest in Transjordan after 218 BCE, nor does his successor Seleucus IV (187-175 BCE), so leaving Hyrcanus in peace to develop the estate at Tyros.

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m) n)

o)

p)

q)

When Joseph dies, Hyrcanus’s inheritance from his father is deposited in the Temple Treasury by his cousin, the High Priest Onias III, c.190 BCE. Heliodorus murders Seleucus IV, and Antiochus IV ascends the throne in 175 BCE; but he is too busy with affairs in Asia Minor and Egypt to take any interest in Transjordan. Hyrcanus lives on caravan tolls and continues his building activities, but finally the estate comes to the attention of Antiochus IV when he returns from his defeat in Egypt and punishes the Jews of Jerusalem in 169 BCE. Hyrcanus is forced to submit to Seleucid administration, and probably dies or is killed in c.168 BCE. Hyrcanus has died without a successor but the Tyros estate continues as a military border outpost and supports the Hasmonean Revolt against the Seleucids at battles with Timotheus and Gorgias. Most Jewish males of the Tubiads are slaughtered by Timotheus, the Seleucid general; this is the end of the Jewish inhabitants of Tyros and heralds the destruction of the estate in c.163 BCE.

With this dating, we think we have demonstrated the solution to a number of problems: 1)

2) 3)

4)

5)

Joseph, born in 240 BCE, becomes tax farmer in 222 or 220, a very young man, as Josephus claims, all in the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopater (not as the variant text, Ptolemy Euergetes, who was Ptolemy III) . Joseph, now more elderly, sends his son Hyrcanus to Alexandria to the birth of a baby to Ptolemy V and his queen Cleopatra I in 200 BCE. Hyrcanus, in spite of change of administration in Palestine from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids, bribes his way to take over some tax-collecting functions of his father (Joseph held the post for nearly 22 years). Turmoil in Jerusalem as Scopas fails to retake it for the Ptolemies in 200–198 BCE, and Hyrcanus, for this and other personal reasons, is ousted to the family estate in Tyros. Hyrcanus now reigns supreme in Tyros from 198 to at least 175 BCE, and probably still later to 168 or 169 BCE, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes returns to Jerusalem from Egypt. Hyrcanus therefore has relative tranquillity in Tyros for at least 23 years and perhaps even 30 years, though the last 10 years of that period will have been under the threat of a possible Seleucid takeover. 51

6)

Hyrcanus had bid for tax farmer in 200 BCE but that source must have dried up by 187 BCE at the latest, when Antiochus III died; it is probable that this income was replaced by extracting revenue from caravans plying from Arabia to Egypt via Heshbon and the port of Gaza.

Before proceeding to the source of the Tobiad Saga, we need to elaborate on this last point. Josephus has said that Joseph became tax farmer to one of the Ptolemies, and it has been implied that Hyrcanus bribed his way into taking over this appointment from his father. But was there such a thing as one single tax farmer for Coele-Syria? It is clear that there were all kinds of taxes in Ptolemaic Egypt, such as land taxes, crop taxes, poll tax and so on, and tax farmers had to be local men who knew their area well. A tax farmer had to attend to all kinds of local affairs, make estimates of crops, keep a census of animals and a register of fields, and it is clear that if Joseph was the tax farmer for Coele-Syria, he must have headed a considerable body of administrators and petty tax-collectors (Rostovtzeff 1941, 328-330). However it seems that the complex system of administration of taxes that applied in Egypt was not exported to Judaea, where the circumstances “tended to favour country landlords over the traditional (priestly?) leadership” (S. Schwartz 1994, 167). Bagnall asserts that in Egypt the Ptolemies took over the system of regional taxes by nomes (districts) from their predecessors, but they allowed considerable flexibility to meet different circumstances from area to area (Bagnall 1976, 10). The tax farmers, who would bid for the concession, did not themselves collect the taxes, but supervised the royal officials, who did. Clearly it was in the farmers’ interest to see that sufficient amounts of tax were raised. The same situation applied outside Egypt (Bagnall 1976, 19), but presumably was accommodated to suit the local landlords, who would then be accountable to the court in Alexandria. This arrangement would accord well with Josephus’s account of Joseph as tax farmer to the Ptolemies. Joseph, son of Tobias, was a scion of the family of Toubias of the Zenon papyri, whose large estate in Transjordan was, one presumes, transmitting taxes (and even acting as tax collector) to Alexandria. Joseph’s achievement was to extend these activities to himself becoming tax farmer “supremo” to Coele-Syria or at least to the Judaean part thereof. Under the Ptolemaic system in Palestine he would have headed an administration of estate landlords and tax collectors, who worked for him on a local basis. On account of local circumstances best known to him and his officials, and the distance from Alexandria, he would have had considerable flexibility in ensuring that the taxes were raised to the right, profitable, level. According to Josephus, the taxes “from Coele-Syria, and from Phoenicia and Judaea with Samaria, added up to eight thousand talents” (Ant. XII, 52

175), which is an enormous annual sum. Marcus claims that the figure is exaggerated, when compared to figures given by Herodotus and Cicero (1943, 92, n. c), but Rostovtzeff finds it to be quite plausible when put alongside other records of the Ptolemaic system of taxation (Rostovtzeff 1941, 1152). Whether that is correct or not, the effort involved in collecting heavy taxes from such a wide area must have been enormous. This is also borne out by the difficulty which Joseph experienced in collecting the taxes in Ascalon (Ashkelon) and Scythopolis (Bet Shean), having to use large numbers of Ptolemaic soldiers to ensure compliance, and to first put a few prominent citizens to death pour encourager les autres, as recorded by Josephus (Ant. XII, 180 – 183). It is therefore unlikely that his son, Hyrcanus, could have taken up such a post, and even if he had, it would not have lasted long, certainly not after 187 BCE. We believe his income came from preying on the caravan trade, and probably reorganising it after a few years to suit his location at Tyros, at Airaq al-Amir. The site lay not far from the main caravan route, called the King’s Highway, that headed north from Aqaba to Damascus, passing through Heshbon and Philadelphia (Rabbat Ammon) on the way (Aharoni 1979, Map 3). The route was largely controlled by the Nabataeans from their centre at Petra, and it may be significant that Josephus describes Hyrcanus as “levying tribute on the barbarians” (Ant. XII, 222) and continually warring with the Arabs (XII, 229). We take this to mean that he disputed the levying of tolls with his neighbours, the Nabataeans, but eventually reached some kind of accommodation with them. There were a number of caravan routes crossing over from the eastern highway to the Mediterranean, chiefly those going through Avdat to Gaza and north of Jerusalem to Jaffa (Joppa). But other minor cross-routes existed, and we know from the Zenon papyri that one of them went through the Wadi Kefrein (see p.18) and passed close to Tyros (Airaq al-Amir). Airaq was also quite close to the main route, the King’s Highway, at Heshbon, only some 14 km. away (see fig.13). We believe that, as the power of the Seleucid Empire moved southwards, Hyrcanus reached some kind of agreement with Ptolemy V Epiphanes that he would guarantee the caravan route to Gaza, to keep Alexandria supplied with the luxuries and spices of the Arabian hinterland, with the prized frankincense and myrrh of the Hadhramaut. In doing this, he obviously enriched himself considerably, being able to levy taxes on the passing traders and to supply them with food, water and overnight accommodation, albeit at a price. We know the caravan routes changed in the period of the Seleucids (Rostovtzeff 1941, 696-7) and we think that, when Antiochus III captured Philadelphia in 218 BCE, it is likely that Hyrcanus was able to divert the

53

Arab caravans at Heshbon and take them west past his estate at Tyros. He was, after all, a clever young man. As for the Tobiad Saga, and the sources that Josephus had at his disposal, we note that they cover the fifty years from about 225 to 175 BCE, seeing that Josephus claims that Hyrcanus took his own life on the accession to the throne of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the latter year. Josephus also states, incorrectly according to 2 Maccabees, that Antiochus took over the Tobiad estate in that year. Josephus’s source therefore knew the Tobiads from the rise of Joseph until the year 175 BCE, when the information ceases. The author of the source or Vorlage is presumably a member of the family or close associate of the Tobiads. It is clear that his or her purpose was to aggrandise Hyrcanus and his father Joseph. We have seen that the Tobiads were an influential family but the source (or sources) present the two heroes as self-made men with no previous influence at the court of the Ptolemies. They are both worldly and willing to fraternise with Greek society in Alexandria and presumably in Jerusalem as well. They are connected to the High Priestly family but do not make a big play of this, presumably so as not to over-emphasise their Jewish connections. Both Joseph and his younger son Hyrcanus are resourceful and witty but there is a distinct difference. Joseph purports to act for the people when he goes to represent them to their Egyptian masters, though in the end he does very well for himself, thank you. Hyrcanus, in going to Alexandria, acts only for himself, it appears, and exploits his father’s wealth and connections to his own advantage. There is no suggestion he is acting on behalf of the people, as his father did, or on behalf of anyone else besides himself. The source, or sources, do not have a good word to say for Joseph’s other sons; they concentrate on Joseph and the youngest son Hyrcanus. They are not afraid to show that neither of them is particular in their Jewish observances; Hyrcanus is not particular in his food (Ant.XII, 210) nor Joseph in his sexual morals. In fact it would seem that it is the dancing girl with whom Joseph falls in love (Ant. XII, 187) who has most to gain from this Saga; it is her lover and her son that she is praising, while showing contempt for her lover’s other children. Of course the Josephus version rather covers this up by pretending that Joseph’s brother saves him from consorting with the foreign girl by switching from her to the brother’s own daughter at the last moment (Ant. XII, 188) but this is so preposterous that it looks like a heavy-handed addition by Josephus to sanitise the truth or perhaps an attempt to show Hyrcanus as the legitimate heir to the Tobiad estate. Whoever it was that set down the text used by Josephus, he or she had a good idea of the scene at Tyros and a poor idea of the succession of Ptolemaic kings and queens. They also knew little or nothing of Joseph’s predecessors at Tyros and thought it was Hyrcanus who had initiated the 54

estate. They recognised Hyrcanus’s fear of his brothers (Ant. XII, 233) and admired his resourcefulness and that of his father. Such an author could well have been his mother, with little political knowledge of Egypt but a clear idea of his plans for the aggrandisement of Tyros, which she described as his single-handed creation. It could well be that the lady died in 175 BCE or that this was the date of the chronicle and that there was nothing said about Hyrcanus or the estate after that date. This influenced Josephus to put an end to his Tobiad hero with a convenient suicide in the year that Antiochus IV Epiphanes came to the throne. As he had no more information after that date, he put Hyrcanus and the estate to bed with a dramatic flourish. After all, we know that Josephus was keen on suicidal endings, whether at Gamla (War, IV, 81), Jotpata (III, 390), Scythopolis (II, 45) or Masada (VII, 398), without always having the evidence to hand. We therefore tend to agree with Gera (1990, 30) that the suicide was a convenient fiction to “finish off” Hyrcanus at a time, such as the accession of Antiochus IV, that would give it a ring of truth. The falsity is underlined by the fact that Josephus records this as the end of the estate, it being taken over, he says, by Antiochus IV (Ant. XII, 236). We know that was not so, as it still remained with “the Tubian Jews” in the period of the Maccabees (see Chap. 6).

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CHAPTER 8.

Early Explorations

We can now go back to the discovery of the site in 1818, and its subsequent archaeological investigation. Within that review we shall take into account the opinions of those who explored the site and how they related it to the account given by Josephus. The first recorded visit to the site by Europeans is that of Charles Leonard Irby and James Mangles, both commanders in the Royal Navy. In 1816 they left for a tour of the Continent but they strayed further and further afield and finished up visiting obscure parts of the Levant, returning to England only in 1820. They recorded their expedition in “Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor during the years 1817 & 1818” and published them in 1823. The entry for June 13th 1818 reads: “We left Heshbon, passing by a stream which, if followed, would probably have led to the pools. We then proceeded along the road to Szalt, and in about four hours arrived at a place called by the natives Arrag el-Emir. Here are the ruins of an edifice constructed of very large stones, some of which are twenty feet long, and so broad that one stone constitutes the thickness of the wall. The ruin is situated upon a square platform or terrace, of some extent, with a stream below. From the situation, and from the circumstances of large beasts, in relievo, being sculptured about it, Mr. Bankes believed it to be the palace of Hircan, who, according to Josephus, being driven across the Jordan by his brother Alexander, king of Jerusalem, had built a palace in this neighbourhood, surrounded by hanging gardens, traces of which are yet visible. There are many artificial caves in a large range of perpendicular cliffs near it; some of these are in the form of regular stables, in which feeding troughs still remain, sufficient for thirty or forty horses, with holes in the live rock for the head fastenings. Some of the caves are chambers and small sleeping apartments, probably for servants and attendants. There are two rows of these chambers; the upper one has a sort of projecting balcony across the front of the chambers. There is one large hall finely proportioned, with some Hebrew characters inscribed over the doorway; the whole is approached by a sort of causeway. We spent the whole remaining part of the day here, and slept at an adjoining camp. On the hill, immediately above the palace, are the remains of a small temple much in ruins” (1823, 473-4)

It appears that Mr. Bankes accompanied them, all on horseback, for this part of the journey and may even have come up with them from Egypt. William John Bankes (1786-1855) was a bit of a mystery figure, much involved in early archaeological investigations in the Near East. He was wellconnected, having been a Member of Parliament for Truro in Cornwall for a short time (1810-12). His father Henry Bankes was MP for Dorset and a trustee of the British Museum. His seat at Kingston Hall in Dorset, now Kingston Lacy, became a great museum of antiquities under his son William, who even obtained an obelisk from the island of Philae, and erected it at Kingston Lacy in 1839. Inscriptions on this obelisk helped both Thomas Young and Jean François Champollion in their quest for the decipherment of hieroglyphics (Adkins 2000, 168-170). William John 56

travelled extensively, starting with Wellington’s army in Spain and moving to Egypt and Nubia. Bankes must have returned to England after his adventures with Irby and Mangles but he was forced abroad again in 1841 after implication in a homosexual scandal. Unfortunately Bankes left no published record of his adventurous discoveries but his papers are now at the Dorset County Records (Lewis et al.1996; Bowsher 1997). He was clearly a widely-read scholar and knew his Josephus Flavius and we can safely say that he appears to have been the first European to identify the ruins at Airaq al-Amir. An examination of Bankes’s papers at the Dorset County Records shows that he took a deep interest in the ruins. His archive (D/BKL:HJ IV H) includes several sketches. One is a well-executed water colour of the remains of the east façade of the Qasr, showing the wall partially collapsed but the two corners standing up to three courses with the lion reliefs in the third course (see fig. 19).

Fig. 19, Water Colour Sketch of Qasr by W.J. Bankes 1818 Another sheet shows a rough sketch plan of the site with the Qasr and embankment wall and the small Square Building on the hill above the Qasr, which Irby and Mangles refer to as “a small temple in ruins”. The sheet also includes a cross-section through the ceiling, with cavetto mouldings, of one of the caves, and a remarkably accurate transcription of one of the TOBYAH inscriptions; also a sketch (in plan) of the double rebated architrave to the cave entrance next to the inscription. Bankes has written a description of certain items, his lettering is small and hard to decipher, but the beginning reads: “General Plan of the remains called Aarag el Emir, or the Prince’s view (?), about 2 hours and ½ distance from Heshbon to the northward, on the direct road to Salt. Compare them

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with the description in Josephus, there can be no doubt that we have here the ruins of the singular palace built by Hircan beyond Jordan on the confines (?) of Judea & Arabia not far from the district of Heshbon [Here Bankes is paraphrasing Josephus Ant. XII, 233]. The characteristics of this royal kingdom (?) were a tower of white stone or marble with representations of animals wrought on it…”

A third sheet, really just a scrap of paper, gives Bankes’s dimension of the “the largest stone of the edifice”, which he shows as 9 ft. 8 ins. (2.95 m.) by 21 ft. 6 ins. (6.55m.) and 3 ft. (0.91m.) thick. There is also a little plan of the Qasr with the entrance in the east wall, where the stones had collapsed to ground level. Bankes shows the overall dimensions of the “edifice” as 59 feet by 116 feet (18m. by 35m.), which is quite close to the actual dimensions of about 19m. by 38m. Bankes left a number of manuscript journals of which Journal No. 2 (dated 1818) is a “Description of Wadi Mousa” and the Dead Sea area, and includes, according to the title page, Aarag el Emir (Hircan’s Palace), in between the sections on Heshbon and Salt. It is “part dictated to C. L. Irby and part in my own hand” and signed WJB. Although the Journal is mainly intact, the end section, which includes Aarag el Emir, is missing, having been deliberately cut out. We can only surmise that this section was used by Irby and Mangles for their book and was removed by them, or was even excised by Bankes himself for this purpose. The account in Irby and Mangles, probably by Bankes, is wrong only in the reference to Alexander, king of Jerusalem, driving his “brother” Hircan across to Jordan. Presumably the reference is to the Hasmonean brothers, Aristobulos II and Hyrcanus II, who disputed rule in Jerusalem, when Hyrcanus II (nothing to do with our Hyrcanus) was forced out to Petra in 65 BCE (I am indebted to Dr. Sacha Stern for this identification). In most other aspects the account is remarkably accurate, for example: (a) the place name Arrag–el–Emir, (b) an edifice of large stones, some stones twenty foot long and as broad as the whole wall, (c) the ruin stands on a platform or terrace, with a stream below (remains of the lake?), (d) the ruin, with large beasts “in relievo” sculpted on it, being “the palace of Hircan”, (e) traces of “hanging gardens” (terraces) still visible, (f) artificial caves, for stables and servants’ quarters, in rows on two storeys, (g) one large hall (cave) with Hebrew characters over the doorway. (h) on the hill, remains of a small temple in ruins. There can be no doubt that Irby and Mangles are describing the village of Airaq al-Amir, the ruined Qasr al-Abd, the caves and, in (h), the ruin 58

designated as the small Square Building by H.C. Butler (1907, 22) and described in detail by P. Lapp (see p.79). From Airaq al-Amir the British travellers were heading north for es-Salt (they call it Szalt) a distance of about eight miles (13 km.) as the crow flies, which was at the time the Ottoman capital of the region. They approached the site from the south, coming over the Wadi Kefrein, then branching at the Wadi es-Sir to strike north to Airaq al-Amir and Salt. As they were coming from Heshbon, Airaq al-Amir was a convenient halfway house to Salt, but it is not clear what made them visit these ruins. Presumably William Bankes already had some knowledge of the place, though it sounds as if this was his first visit to the site. The account of Irby and Mangles is quoted by Félicien de Saulcy who came to the site in 1863. He arrived by a different route, as he and his party approached from Jericho, crossed the Jordan by the fords at Markahdet Hajlah and then rode eastwards up the Wadi Kefrein, past the site of AbelShittim (Abilla) and turned north at the Wadi es-Sir (de Saulcy 1865, 211), the route that had been taken by Zenon of Egypt twenty-one hundred years previously (see p.18). De Saulcy records a long description of his visit in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 26 (1867, 33107). He produced an outline plan of the Qasr with a number of useful details, of a column plinth, door lintels, part of a sculptured frieze and the staircase recesses and porthole-type windows. The latter details are particularly interesting as the staircase construction is quite unusual and will be described further below. De Saulcy’s drawing is reproduced in Will & Larché (1991, I, 257). In order to understand the descriptions given by the early explorers, it must be stated that what these early travellers found at the Qasr was a ruin in a state of complete collapse (our fig. 52, as WL.II, pl. 4). They would have been able to see that the Qasr had been a most impressive building with chambers at each corner, with an entrance portico at the north and possibly another at the south, with little of the internal walls visible, but with a large number of loose half-columns, whose original positions were unclear. There was some evidence of a staircase at the north-east corner; the east section of the external wall, with two carved lions at each end of an upper frieze, was still visible, and other pieces lay scattered around the site, some with more lion sculptures on them. There was no sign of the two feline fountains, the first one of which was only uncovered by the Lapp expedition in 1962 (see p.79). It would have been apparent that the Qasr had been built of monumental stonework with megaliths of an extraordinary size. There was no immediate evidence of the height of the building or of its internal construction, the interior being covered with fallen debris and giant monoliths.

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In spite of its ruined state the remains were most impressive; the lion sculptures and the megaliths were quite unusual and de Saulcy was prompted to declare the building to be a temple. This was, much later, considered to be an aberration by Ernest Will (1983, 149) but he was talking by then with the benefit of hindsight. Nevertheless Will, who worked on the site for ten years or more, and was very dismissive of the early designations of the Qasr as a temple, could only himself conclude it was “le Château du Tobiade Hyrcan” (WL.I, title) which is, in our view, itself misguided (see pp.136-138). In the first publication of his visit, de Saulcy gives a racy account of his four days on the site, in November 1863, with four companions, a military man (Gelis), a botanist (Louis), a priest (Salzmann) and an architect (Mauss) and several bodyguards. He describes their difficult climb up from the south, presumably up the Wadi es-Sir from the Wadi Kefrein, to a plateau on which stood “un grand édifice en ruines” (1865, 211). He notes that it stood on a terrace in a vast depression which, if filled with water, would have made the ruin stand on a near island, linked to the land only by a wide jetty. De Saulcy remarks on the many pairs of short upright stones with holes that started at this jetty and led up towards the caves for “hundreds of metres” (1865, 212). He assumes they had held bars between the posts on each side of a pathway down to the “temple” ruin. As for the ruin itself, Saulcy saw the jumble of interior walls as a later phase of occupation, and the outer monolithic construction as clearly something monumental, in his view a temple. De Saulcy goes on to examine the caves and the “Semitic” inscriptions by two of the doorways, which he is unable to decipher. He notes a number of large half-rings cut out of the rock above one doorway, maybe for holding some kind of curtain or drape and he concludes that the considerable number of rock tumblings within the caves must have been the result of an earthquake (1865, 216). De Saulcy found that the caves were still inhabited by Christian families of Salt, with their animals. Nearby he notes a massive rock with a large number of recesses which, he claims, could not have been for pigeons but were rather for lamps to light the way to the “temple”, seeing that the pairs of stone uprights that he saw at the jetty formed, he thought, a pathway leading up to this place at the caves (1865, 217). In his text, de Saulcy quotes Josephus at length and compares his descriptions (in Ant. XII, 228-236) with the visible remains, commending Josephus’s accuracy, but only in part. He confirms Josephus’s remarks on the animal decorations and claims that a large stone paw that he found on site belongs to a colossal lion statue (1865, fig. on 221), though it had probably belonged to one of the feline fountains (as Hill 1963, 55, n.33); he is so intrigued by this that he actually takes the paw away with him, back to France. As de Saulcy cannot imagine that a Jewish temple with images (like the lion) could have been built by Hyrcanus, whom he describes 60

(incorrectly) as being of a priestly family (1865, 222), he postulates an earlier pagan temple, built before Hyrcanus came to the site. He disputes Josephus’s description of the building as a Baris or fortress, seeing that its large open panels, and its location at the lower level of the estate, makes it indefensible. He also disputes the idea of a moat or lake, and suggests that water surrounded only part of the “temple” site. As for Josephus’s “aulas” (halls) he sees them in the buildings on the Village Tel. But de Saulcy saw many other remains, such as the Monumental Gate near the Qasr, the massive Dyke or embankment to the “lake” and the aedicule (small temple) on the hillside, and he asks, could all of this have been built by Hyrcanus in the seven years allotted to him by Josephus? His answer is a resounding “Non!” (1865, 223). De Saulcy summarises his findings thus. Hyrcanus came to the site and built a fortlet inside the “temple”, then already in ruins. Similarly he fortified the caves and brought them into use, this being done in the seven years he lived in exile, fearful of attack from his brothers (Ant. XII, 232). Before his time, the Ammonites had constructed the temple with lion images and had connected it to the caves by a processional way, marked by the paired stones. This avenue may have been used, he continues, to convey the bodies of Ammonite kings from the temple to a necropolis in the caves (1865, 224). De Saulcy claims that the processional way passed through the Monumental Gate but this could not have been so, as his own plan clearly shows. The plan published by de Saulcy, prepared by his colleague Major Gelis, is admirable and locates features now no longer visible (our fig. 20). In particular, it shows the avenue of paired stones, of which 18 pairs are marked, and another single stone. From the northern section of stones, which looks complete, one could say that the stones were set at about 15m. pair to pair. At the jetty (southern) end the last two pairs are set at 10m. pair to pair. The plan shows the Village Tel as a large roughly rectangular enclosure with additional enclosed areas to the east and west. The overall enclosure measures an average of 110m. east to west and 120m. north to south. It contains two small structures marked “édifice religieux?” and a stair and sentry box (guérite) cut into the south-eastern rocky face of the Tel. The small structures have now disappeared from view but there is evidence of the sentry box (see p.185). At the hillock north of the Qasr, the plan shows two small buildings on the edge of the artificial terrace. One is marked “édicule” and is the small temple mentioned by Irby and Mangles (above) while the second, called “monument indéterminé”, is no longer visible today. From what we know today the plan is accurate and one should be able to rely on it for features no longer visible. The descriptions must however remain suspect, especially as de Saulcy (or Gelis) is so bold as to mark the main building as “Temple de Molokh”.

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Fig. 20, Plan of “Aaraq el Emir” by Major Gelis for the Expedition led by F. de Saulcy 1863 (from de Saulcy 1865, 216/217)

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In the course of sketching the remains of the Monumental Gate, some thirty metres from the main ruins, de Saulcy is suddenly shaken by a terrible noise of growling, which turns out to be made by a panther hiding in the bushes. Before de Saulcy and his friend Mauss, who was nearby, could get out their revolvers the beast was gone (1865, 225). Of course our pair of explorers had no idea that not far away, under spoil and fallen masonry, stood the remains of the two panther fountains of the Qasr (see p.79). Later that same day their companion, the botanist Louis, was accosted first by a wild boar and then by “un chat énorme” which turned out to be another panther, a cub this time which, when shot at, ran back into its underground lair (1865, 227). De Saulcy recorded several architectural fragments, such as column capitals and bases, and he recognized that the smaller half-columns lying around the site belonged to the gallery of an upper storey. In this he was correct, as proved by the French reconstruction, whereas later scholars, such as Butler, and Lapp and his architect Brett, were deceived into thinking they were parts of engaged columns of the lower storey. De Saulcy and Mauss also examined briefly the remains on the Village Tel, where they found an aedicule (shrine, now no longer visible) similar in style to the Qasr and the Monumental Gate, and the ruins of a complete small town or village, which they dated to well before the time of Hyrcanus (1865, 235). Finally de Saulcy notes that the ruins of the main building are called Qasr el-Aabed, or “palace of the black slave”, by the local tribe of the Adou’an. In spite of his unsubstantiated insistence that the Qasr was an early pagan temple, de Saulcy’s work and descriptions are valuable, especially the plan (our fig. 20) that shows remains no longer visible on site. Le Comte Melchior de Vogüé had visited the site one year before de Saulcy and recorded his impressions in his volume on the Temple of Jerusalem, published in 1864. Luckily for us, de Vogüé found it relevant to describe Airaq al-Amir and the Qasr el-Abd as an introduction to his account of the Second Temple, that of Zerubbabel. He does not fall into the trap of calling the Qasr a temple, he refers to it as “un palais d’Hyrcan” without further comment (1864, 38). De Vogüé took a good look round the site (in 1862) and noted the two tiers of caves, some used for habitation, some for stables, some for storage. He correctly identifies the large end block west of the caves as a colombier, or dovecote (1864, 38). He describes the Dyke or embankment as holding back a possible lake, in which stood the Qasr al-Abd, with its enormous stones and frieze of animals. He sees it as an isolated residence, all built in one phase, animals and all, but never completed. He claims that a complete boundary wall linked this residence or palace to the northern caves, with an entry at what was later called the Monumental Gate. These features all served to link the site to the description given by Josephus (Ant. XII, 228236), which de Vogüé quotes. He accepts Josephus’s statement that Hyrcanus reigned here for seven years and confidently dates the Qasr to 63

those seven years before the accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 175 BCE (1864, 39). De Vogüé shows a sketch plan, elevation and section of the Qasr. His plan is of the remains as visible but is hardly accurate, and his north elevation and section are rather feeble reconstructions. He shows a two-storey façade but the section is only of a single storey interior with a first-floor gallery around it, to which he rightly shows a staircase in the north-east corner. Of interest is his claim that the circulating gallery was roofed by vaults, of which the springing (sommier) was still visible at the south-west corner (1864, 40). De Vogüé, who was the first explorer to publish drawings of the site (1864, plates 34 & 35), recorded several architectural details of the Qasr, such as column capitals, cornice and entablature (1864, figs. 17-25). He notes that the evident mixture of styles (Corinthian capitals, Doric entablature, Ionic cornice) was typical of Hellenistic work and that Vitruvius records this when he says that this mixture of styles was typical of the period before rules were laid down by the (Roman) Empire (1864, 41). The use of an animal frieze is related, de Vogüé says, to Asiatic palaces and the use of the vault is an oriental practice, though he notes that the building as a whole is Greek in style and manner. De Vogüé comments on the caves and the inscriptions (1864, figs. 26-28) but is unable to decipher them correctly. He does however consider them to be of the second century BCE, in line with the other works of Hyrcanus. Although de Vogüé may have been more level-headed in his interpretation of the Qasr than his colleague de Saulcy, his drawings are not as accurate as those of de Saulcy (though his details are good), and his plan of the site is sketchy in the extreme. In fact it is only the recent plan of the French Team, published in 1991, that surpasses that of Gelis published by de Saulcy in 1865. One should mention a third French explorer, a friend and colleague of both de Saulcy and de Vogüé. He is the Duc de Luynes, whose work Voyage d’Exploration à la Mer Morte, à Petra et sur la Rive Gauche du Jourdain was published posthumously under the direction of de Vogüé in 1871-76. De Luynes visited the site shortly after de Vogüé and de Saulcy, because the former wanted his opinion on the question of the function of the Qasr, which was a point of contention between him and de Saulcy. De Luynes gives a brief description of the site and the principal ruins, mentioning the ‘large’ (the Qasr) and the ‘small’ monuments, the latter being the Monumental Gateway (1871-6, 139). He gives an extremely sketchy site plan, which he says is drawn from memory (1871-6, 140). De Luynes says at the outset that he is not competent to enter into the controversy between his colleages, but he is sufficiently interested in the site 64

to describe it in some detail (1871-6, 138). He shows useful sketches of the lion blocks, the size of the megaliths and the tenons in their base, used to locate the giant stones one above the other. (1871-6, 142). Though he declines to enter into the controversy, he betrays his personal preference, I think, by referring to the monument as “le château d’Hyrcan” (1871-6, 141) which is in fact the title adopted 120 years later by Ernest Will (WL.I, title page). In addition to these three titled Frenchmen, at this early date the site was visited by the Rev. H. B. Tristram in 1864. He describes it in a journal on his travels in the Land of Israel. He approached the site from nearby Nimrin (pointing to its meaning of “panther”) in the Jordan plain and then crossed south to the Wadi Kefrein and into the Wady Seir and up to the “ruins called Arak el Emir, a fine castle built by Hyrcanus, son of Joseph Tobias” (1865, 527). He was charmed by the beauty of the location, camped on the level open space (the Village Tel ?) overlooking the wadi, and went down to the stream, catching a great number of fish for his luncheon. Tristram visited “Hyrcanus castle” and remarks on the lion sculptures and the “many loopholes for archery”, which must be the small angled windows to the staircase (see p.149). He notices the paired stones with holes running up to the caves, notes the cave with a carved ceiling and the “mutilated Hebrew inscription”. He mentions one great cave suitable for stabling a hundred horses, and records the westernmost megalith indented with “square chequers”, which he leaves to others to identify (1865, 531). It is the one we consider to be a dovecote (see p.180). Tristram spent only one day at the site and then went on towards Heshbon, bypassing nearby Seir, which he thought to be the ancient Jazer (1865, 533). His description of Airaq alAmir is of no particular interest, but the early date of his visit shows that by the 1860s the site was clearly on the map of the adventurous traveller. In 1889 Claude Regnier Conder published The Survey of Eastern Palestine of which Vol. I, the Adwan country, contains his description of Airaq al Amir under the heading “Tyrus”, which he explored for four days from October 20, 1881 (1889, 65-87). He is well aware of Josephus’s description and explains his name for the place Tyros by its connection with the Hebrew Tsur, or rock (relating the site to the cliffs, called in local Arabic Arak), and he correctly relates the ancient name to the present-day Wadi Sir or Wadi es-Sir. Conder goes on to describe three elements of the site: (a) (b) (c)

the cliffs and caves, the “Kasr el ’Abd”, the village ruins.

He precedes this with a very short précis of the Tobiad Saga from Josephus, in which he refers to Hyrcanus, incorrectly, as “a certain priest”, and accepts

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(with Josephus) that Hyrcanus committed suicide, which event he dates to 176 BC. He uses this marker to date the ruins of his “palace”. The caves were examined and measured by Lt. Mantell, who travelled with Conder. They are well described and many are drawn, in a series of 18 sketch plans. Conder concludes that the upper caves were used as stables. He derives this from the ramp leading up to them and from the fact that some of them had mangers and tethering rings (1889, 71, fig.8). He wonders at the large defaced stone block at the west end of the caves and describes the 26 holes cut into its surface, which he takes to be recesses for lamps to light the upper cave gallery, though he doubts if this would have worked in practice. He touches on the possibility that this was a columbarium (which seems to be the right explanation, see p.180) but rejects it for the stone being in the open. Conder and Mantell examined 15 caves, which they describe in some detail. Some had steps, many had mangers (troughs), they counted 100 in all, of which most were “much decayed” (1889, 71). One of the caves, which Conder calls No. 11, is obviously an artificial cutting to a rectangular plan (18m. x 10m.) and 10m. high to the apex of a gently arched ceiling. It had a carefully cut cornice on the long sides and the small entrance (90cm. wide x 180cm. high) is cut well above floor level. Cave No. 13 (further east) was similar although, being full of brambles, it could not be measured. This cave had by its door the TOBYAH inscription, which Conder describes in quite some detail. It seems that the second inscription, which he does not mention, was by the entrance to his Cave No. 11 (further west). Although Conder gives an accurate drawing of the inscription (1889, 77) his analysis of the lettering makes him read it as Uriah (with an ayin), the meaning of which eludes him, as it does us. However, coincidentally, the similar sounding Uriah (with an aleph) would mean “stable”! Conder dates the lettering to the Hasmonean period, comparing it to the archaizing alphabet on the coins of that period (these views were corrected by more expert scholars, see pp.103-109). Conder goes on to describe the Kasr el ‘Abd, which he translates as “palace of the slave”, and identifies it with Josephus’s Baris or castle. He discounts de Saulcy’s temple supposition and relates the legend of the princess and the slave (1889, 78), which he says gave the palace its name (see p.115). He gives a very rudimentary plan of the Qasr and notices that it stood in a depression that in winter filled with water, which was held back by a large retaining wall to the south and east. He notices the gateway that stands at the north-east end of the retaining wall, called the Monumental Gateway (porte monumentale) by de Saulcy. Conder goes on to describe the extent of the Qasr and measures the enormous size of some of the megaliths. His sketch of the east elevation shows one course of stones with the lion entablature still standing (1889, 80) and he gives sketches of four of the 66

lions, the fallen capitals and a section of the standard Doric frieze with triglyphs and guttae (1889, 83). He also gives some details of the remains of the gateway which show it standing much as it remains today, except that the upper stone courses were more level in his day. Conder has a long passage about the pairs of “cippi” (small standing stones) with a circular hole at the top, that stood on the causeway to the east of the Qasr and led up for 400 yards (366m.) towards the cliffs. Unfortunately these stones are no longer in place though they were still seen by Butler in 1904 (see below). Some of them can be seen today in secondary use (fig.56), built into local boundary and retaining walls and some are lined up at the Qasr (fig.21). According to Conder, the stones were set together in pairs, about 60 ft. (18m.) between pairs. Conder considered them to have been used to assist somehow in transporting the large stones from the cliffs (acting as a quarry) to the Qasr site. Some later scholars consider them to have been supports for pipework (using the holes in each stone) to take water to the Qasr or its surrounding lake (cf. Butler 1907, 18) and de Saulcy had seen them, as mentioned above, as a processional way from the caves to the Qasr. To our mind Conder had the right idea and we discuss this further in Chap.14 (p.149).

Fig. 21, Cippi lined up in Qasr enclosure Conder devotes just one short paragraph to the ruins on the terrace above the Qasr and below the cliffs, which is the site of today’s small village. He thinks the remains may well be later than the Qasr and he describes some foundations of monumental size and other curiously cut stonework, which he cannot explain. He finishes his account with praise for the well-watered valley of the Wadi es–Sir and the shade given by its forest–size oleanders. He concludes, “The natural advantages of this secluded and well-watered nook made it well fitted for the abode of a luxuriant tyrant like Hyrcanus the priest” (1889, 87). Conder has not mentioned the little ruin on the hill that 67

Irby and Mangles designated as a small temple, but he is on the side of the angels (in the eyes of Ernest Will) in calling the Qasr a palace; and one must be especially grateful to him and Mantell for the work on the caves which, even to date, have not been adequately surveyed, due probably to their dangerous state. Before moving to the Twentieth Century, we should mention one more traveller, probably the first professional archaeologist to visit the site, or the first to have his visit published. This was Selah Merrill of the American Palestine Exploration Society. He visited the site on 24th October, 1875, travelling from Hasban (Heshbon). He claims that the ruins are among “the most interesting in Syria… (with) some of the biggest stones that I have seen east of the Jordan…” (1881, 107). He obviously finds the site of great interest and suggests that “the caverns, reservoirs, stables, and all the rooms that have been excavated in the rock, should be measured and plotted”. He talks of a causeway to the “castle” and mentions the line of stone posts each with “a hole as if for a railing” (1881, 108). He goes on to quote Josephus and to give dimensions of the largest stones. It seems that Merrill himself did no further work on the site, but the detailed examination that he recommended was eventually taken up by another American, Howard Crosby Butler, in 1904. On October 13th 1904, the Princeton Expedition, led by Butler, visited the site of “Arak il-Emir” with the intent of fully investigating the Qasr al–Abd and its surroundings. They published their results in 1907 in Division II of the volume on Ancient Architecture in Syria, and in Division III on Greek and Latin Inscriptions, section A, southern Syria. The first volume was by Butler and the second by the epigraphist of the expedition, Enno Littmann. The expedition spent six days on the site (1907, II, 2).

Fig. 22, North Façade of “Kasr il-Abd” as reconstructed by H.C. Butler 1905 (from Butler 1907, ill l.)

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Butler himself, an architect and no mean artist, produced a very fine rendering of his restoration of the north façade of the Qasr al-Abd, complete with a frieze of two lions on each side of the entrance. It was shown with a portico of two circular columns in antis, with a loggia above, all capped by a heavy cornice moulding (our fig.22). Butler’s surveyor, F. A. Norris, produced a sketch plan of the site showing its main features; the cliffs and caves; the village houses (seven) on the Tel; the Qasr standing on a platform within a basin bordered by the Dyke embankment to south and east; two lines of stones (the ones called “cippi” by Conder) leading from the caves down to the Qasr; and one item – omitted by Conder - the small ruin on the hill, which Butler calls the Square Building. The site is shown as bordered to the east and south by the Wadi es-Sir, to the north by the cliffs and to the west by further cliffs marked as “quarry” (1907, II, frontispiece). Compared to their other work on site, the plan is poor and in no way as accurate as that published by de Saulcy. The expedition had great difficulty in examining the Qasr because “the huge building was completely collapsed and the gigantic blocks of which it was built are piled in heaps upon the foundations” (1907, II, 2). Nevertheless Butler and his men were able to slide in and out of the jumble of megaliths and they even found a complete human skeleton in one of the crevices. Butler ascribed this to a criminal act on the part of the local Bedouin. Presumably he was convinced the skeleton was of modern origin. Butler gives the Josephus references to the site (Ant. XII, 230) and translates Josephus’s Baris as “a mighty building”, disagreeing with the translation of “palace” used by (he claims) de Vogüé and Bankes and noting that Baris is also used by Josephus to mean “fortress” (1907, II, 2). He notes that four of the colossal lions, each 3m. long by 2m. high, were still in place, and finds that the Qasr stood on a mound in the middle of a depression that had once been flooded, the waters held back at the south by a dam across the valley (1907, II, 3). He also quotes Josephus as saying that Hyrcanus built “halls (aulas) of different dimensions and adorned them with spacious gardens (paradeisois)” (Ant. XII, 233). Butler describes the cliffs to the west and north, the latter “honeycombed with artificial tunnels and chambers in one and two stories”, and finds in them rooms of all sizes that had been used as kitchens (with smoke holes) and “stables with mangers for a hundred horses or more”. Butler traces an aqueduct “partly rock-hewn and partly built up” from the Qasr to a position high up in the valley of the Wadi es–Sir, that brought water to the settlement (1907, II, 3). He finds one of Josephus’s “halls” in a completely ruined state on the terrace below the cliffs and above the Qasr and, as he says this is the site of the modern village, it must be the area we now refer to as the Village Tel. He says “all traces of the ancient edifices have disappeared save a few 69

building stones and some broken columns of the Doric order” (1907, II, 3), which are indeed still visible today. He remarks on the elaborate system of well-built terraces extending down to the Qasr and beyond, also visible to us today. Butler goes on to describe the “Kasr il-‘Abd”: two gateways, the building on the terrace north of the Qasr, the terrace walls and the aqueduct. He finds that the Qasr is unlikely to have been a palace or fortress and, after lengthy examination and discussion of the physical remains, argues the case between the temple suggested by de Saulcy (as above) and the palace by de Vogüé, eventually coming down on the side of de Saulcy. He cannot accept de Saulcy’s argument that it was already an ancient temple to Molokh or Qamos that Hyrcanus found in ruins and reused, but states firmly that the architectural detail shows a Hellenistic building of the third or second century BCE. He cannot envisage Hyrcanus (a Hebrew) erecting a temple outside Jerusalem, and moreover one with prominent graven images carved on it, so he concludes that it was a Syrian temple built one hundred years or so before Hyrcanus (1907, 17 & 18). Butler goes into considerable detail on the remains of the Qasr, much of it accurate and informative. He finds the internal walls to be of much cruder construction than the exterior and allocates them to an early Muslim era (1907, 7), and he takes the evidence of the vaulting stones found by de Vogüé to be of the same late period (1907, 13). The finding of many halfcolumns suggests to Butler that the interior was open and supported only on engaged columns along the east and west walls. This leads him to the plan of a hypaethral (open-air) building with an open ground floor surrounded on four sides by a first-floor gallery accessed by a staircase (which he describes in accurate detail) in the north-east corner. Such an open-air building could never have been a palace and could well have been a temple, if Butler’s reconstruction (1907, pl. 3) were correct. Whatever one thinks of the temple hypothesis, there are several factors to be considered quite apart from the historical and literary ones: (a) The evidence of the large southern embankment indicates that there was to be a lake or body of water around at least part of the Qasr. If this was partial only it could be considered to be a sacred lake (as in Egyptian temples) but if it was complete then normal access would be nearly impossible and a temple needs public as well as priestly access. The indications from Josephus (that it was a moat) and from the site are that the water was planned to form a complete surround. The existing causeway, entering at the side, was only of a temporary nature used for building purposes and did not constitute a formal method of entry. The planned lake would deny normal access to the temple.

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(b) A temple requires an altar and there is no evidence of one, nor would there be room for one on the Qasr platform. However, if Butler’s reconstruction of an open-air building had been right, there could have been an altar in the open central area. (c) A temple is a building of a certain formality and certainly so in the Hellenistic period; it would have symmetry, grandeur, and a plan free of incidental additional rooms and chambers. From the evidence of the remains of the Qasr, only (c) would support the temple theory, (a) and (b) would definitely rule it out. Butler, however, seemed to feel that the monumentality of the original building ruled out any use other than temple. Butler goes on to discuss how the massive monoliths could have been transported, and inclines to the theory that the small standing stones or cippi were used somehow to facilitate the movement of the megaliths from the quarry at the cliff face to the Qasr (1907, II, 18), as suggested by Conder. Against this theory, he points out that the rough causeway or jetty leading to the Qasr from the east approaches at a level some 3m. above that of the platform on which the Qasr stands and 2m. above its floor level. But, to our mind, this is not a rebuttal. First of all, it is useful to bring the blocks to a slightly elevated “loading bay” from which they can be slid to the desired position and level. And secondly, it is now clear (from the French reconstruction) that the ground floor level was indeed about 2m. above the surrounding platform, so the causeway was at exactly the right height to serve the ground floor. As the cippi each had holes at the top, there was a suggestion that they held pipes of hollow timber to transport water, but the space between the stones (Conder gives 18m., Butler 10m.) was too great for any pipework to span, so Butler rejects this; just as he and Conder also reject de Saulcy’s suggestion that the stones marked a “sacred way” to or from the Qasr. For that purpose, the stones, being only some 1m. apart laterally, would have been much too close to each other (1907, 18). As the cippi are no longer in position today it is difficult to determine their use, but certainly the idea that they acted in some way to guide and haul the monoliths (most of which were some 90cm thick) is attractive and will be discussed further in Chap.14 (pp.149ff.). Butler mentions one monolith, he says destined for the second course of stonework, which was abandoned on the hillside (1907, 19). Norris’s site plan shows it deposited close to the pathway marked out by the cippi and it could well have been left there, having slipped off the pathway and not easily hauled back, or (as Butler suggests) found to be surplus to requirements. His site plan also shows another line of paired stones leading from the cliffs towards the small Square Building that stands above the Qasr. This line would indicate the moving of stone to the smaller building, though not on the scale needed for the Qasr. Curiously, neither de Saulcy 71

nor Conder shows this second line of cippi and it is certainly not visible today. Concerning Butler’s two gateways, the first one is the Monumental Gate, so named by de Saulcy. It was already down to the five courses that are still standing today and Butler identified it correctly as Hellenistic, contemporary with the Qasr. The second gate, of which Butler claimed to see the foundations, is no longer visible and not mentioned by earlier or later scholars. Butler claims it is 100m. south of the first gate. It is quite possible that the fragments (cornice, eagle and triglyph frieze) found by Butler really belonged to the Monumental Gate, and this was the opinion of the French Team, who also found fragments of flanking lions (see WL.I, fig. 19). Butler does make the revealing comment that the eagle on the frieze has similarities with that on Ptolemaic coins (1907, 21). It should be noted that Butler had also seen at the Qasr, on the head of some of the fallen columns “the rough outline of a bird, presumably an eagle with wings raised” (1907, 11). Butler shows a photograph and drawing of a fragment of the gate cornice (1907, figs. 10 & 11) which Conder had also reproduced (1889, 84) but drawn upside-down. Butler gives no explanation of the purpose of the gate or its location, which is not so strange as there appears to be little logic to either, but see further discussion in Chap.16 (p.171). The small Square Building was already in a totally ruined state when Butler examined it. He found only the foundation course and “fragments of carved details” (1907, 22) but he concludes that the building, only 6.80m. square at foundation level, was a tomb or an aedicule (shrine). He found three lengths of entablature or frieze (today there is only one) from which he concludes that the building itself was 5.88 m. square with solid walls on three sides and a porch of four columns or two columns in antis, on the fourth (east) side. Being square, the roof, he suggests, may have formed a pyramid (1907, 23). This suggests a tomb, but if there was a columnar portico it was more likely to have been a shrine of sorts. Butler mentions no surface finds at this location. He discerned many large-scale terrace walls used purely for agricultural or levelling purposes and in no way associated with defensive works (1907, 23). He goes on to describe the great Dyke or embankment south of the Qasr, which he saw as a set of three parallel retaining walls connected by crosswalls in a kind of casemate construction (1907, 24). It is not clear how he got this information without site exploration, for little of this is visible on the ground, certainly the crosswalls are not in evidence today. Butler makes only a brief note of the caves, saying that the TOBYAH inscriptions relates them “conclusively with Hyrkanos and his occupation of the site” (1907, 24). He sees the caves as places of habitation and stabling and certainly not for burial, as there are no signs of niches (kokhim) or arcosolia or other trappings of the burial procedure. He then goes on to 72

make an important strategic point. The caves provided a primitive from of habitation, but a defensible one, whereas the grand external buildings were relatively luxurious but without the means of defence against “any enemy that happened to pass that way” (1907, 25). This is the crux of a major problem. If Hyrcanus was running a military estate where were his defences? Finally Butler mentions a stone-lined and stone-cut aqueduct leading from high up in the Wadi es-Sir, past the foot of the cliffs and down towards the Square Building (1907, 25). This is no longer visible and was probably destroyed or re-used with modern water channels, but in any case it is doubtful that the main water supply did indeed come from the Wadi (see p. 191). We must return to the two cave inscriptions. They were investigated by Enno Littmann, epigraphist to the Butler expedition. As opposed to de Saulcy, de Vogüé and Conder, Littmann now gives the right reading of TOBYAH for both inscriptions. He acknowledges that these readings were already made by Nöldeke, de Vogüé (certainly not in his original work of 1864) and Clermont-Ganneau (Littmann 1907, 1 & 2) and says it can be the only possible reading. Littmann discusses the basis of the name and finds it must either refer to Hyrkanos the Tobiad or to Tobias the Ammonite, the one mentioned several times in the Book of Nehemiah (see p. 22). The dates in question, he says, are then either c.180 BCE or c.450 BCE and he inclines strongly to the former, to the “Hyrkanos” hypothesis. He does say that on palaeographic grounds the lettering could date to the 5th or 4th Century BCE but a later date in the 2nd Century is not ruled out (Littmann 1907, 4). We shall discuss this matter of dating further in Chap.11 (pp. 103ff.). Littmann goes on to two other matters. He supports the view that the Qasr al-Abd is a temple rather than a palace, saying that Butler’s only doubt in this matter being how could a Jew like Hyrkanos sanction a temple outside Jerusalem? Littmann points out that Hyrkanos, having been forced out of Jerusalem, needed a place to worship, for himself and his people. He mentions that other Jewish communities, outside Jerusalem, had their own temple such as “the chapel of Jahweh” at Elephantine (only recently known at this time from the Aswan papyri) and the temple of Onias IV at Leontopolis or Tell el-Yehudiyeh (1907, 5 & 6). He goes on to claim that Josephus uses the descriptive word Baris as equivalent to the Aramaic birta, meaning both “palace, castle and temple”. The second matter that he brings is the local Bedouin legend of Arak il-Emir (“Cliff of the Prince”) which he relates in some detail (1907, 6 & 7) and which we recount in Chap.12 (p. 115). In 1935 Carl Watzinger published a short piece on Airaq al-Amir in Part II of his Denkmäler Palästinas (1935, 13-17). He describes the site and its 73

main features and refers to the work of Butler and de Saulcy. His main comments are architectural, referring to the iconography of the capitals, which he relates to Syrian models and the acanthus–footed bases, which he says derive from Alexandria. He thinks that the interior was unroofed (hypaethral). The Monumental Gate he says is of the same period as the Qasr which, he thinks, had turrets at each corner. As to its purpose, he says this cannot be decided until the interior and the south end are cleared of rubble (1935, 16), but he himself feels that there are two possible hypotheses. It could have been either a temple (built before Hyrcanus but still Hellenistic) or a hunting lodge to please an Ammonite nobleman, built on a Persian model (1935, 14). Watzinger shows a photograph of the ruin (from the PEF archives) and reproduces Butler’s restored northern façade (1935, pl. 23, our fig. 22). To summarise, it should be clear from the above review of these early expeditions that: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Airaq al-Amir is a seminal site with several rather unusual features. the physical remains go a long way to confirm the description of Tyros by Josephus, the dating of the buildings and inscriptions on the site need further examination, the identification and reconstruction of the Qasr is in dispute, other remains, especially on the Tel (the modern Village), need investigation.

The great advantage of the site over many others is that the impressive architectural remains can be confidently linked to a literary description by Josephus, which gives authenticity to the historical background. In order to expand on the literary background and the remains on site, a true archaeological expedition needed to be mounted. It was obviously with these challenges in mind that a second American expedition was launched in 1961, under the direction of Paul Lapp. In the course of the 55 years between Butler and Lapp many scholarly papers were published relevant to the Tobiads and their estate at Airaq al-Amir, some stimulated by the discovery of the Zenon Papyri in 1915.

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The chief publications relevant to our interests were: 1923,

L. H. Vincent, La date des Epigraphes d’Araq el-Emir, in Journal of Palestine Oriental Society No. 3, 55-68

1932-3, S. Zeitlin, The Tobias Family and the Hasmoneans, in American Academy for Jewish Research, IV, 169-223. 1950,

R. Amy, Temples à Escaliers, in Syria, XXVII, 82-136.

1957,

V. A. Tcherikover & A. Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, I, 115-130 (Zenon Papyri).

1957,

C. C. McCown, The ‘Araq el-Emir and the Tobiads, in Biblical Archaeologist, XX, No. 3, 63-77.

1957,

B. Mazar, The Tobiads, in Israel Exploration Journal, VII, No. 3, 137-145 & 229-238 (publ. 1941 in Hebrew).

1961,

V. A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 64, 65, 126-142.

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CHAPTER 9.

The Lapp Expeditions

The Lapp expeditions of 1961 and 1962 were the first true archaeological expeditions to the site. There was a preliminary campaign in early 1961, and two major ones in the autumn of 1961 and the spring of 1962. They were led by Paul Wilbert Lapp (1930-1970) who was at that time Director of the American School of Oriental Research (later the Albright Institute) in Jerusalem. Work started in the spring of 1961 with two soundings, one in the village (the Village Tel) and one at the Qasr, as reported in BASOR 165 (Feb 1962) 16-34. Lapp also published details in ADAJ Vols VI & VII (1962) 80-89. The village sounding was originally planned at an open area on the east side, but a dispute on ownership of the plot resulted in a shooting incident (!) forcing the expedition to select another site in the north-west of the village. Two squares were opened there and successfully dug to bedrock. Square 1 lay on the north-west boundary of the village and square 2 slightly to the south of it. In general terms, as work proceeded in exposing the lower levels, Stratum I was dated to the early Byzantine period (c.200 CE) and Stratum II to the first century CE. Stratum III, divided into levels A and B, immediately predated Stratum II and level A was dated from 100 BCE to c. 25 CE. It lay over a Hellenistic occupation layer (Stratum IIIB), which contained one coin of Ptolemy II and two of Antiochus III. These periods of occupation seemed to be continuous. However Stratum IV was quite different. It was assigned, based on the pottery, to the tenth and eleventh century BCE, indicating an early settlement on the Village Tel going back to the Biblical period. Lapp suggests the site could be identified with Ramath-Mizpeh in the territory of Gad, described in Joshua 13:26 as being between Heshbon and Betonim (1962, 24, and n.11). Ramat-Mizpeh is taken to be the Mizpeh of Gilead of Judges 11:29 (Aharoni 1979, 265) and Aharoni identifies that with Khirbet Jelad (1979, 252, 441). There seems to be no real necessity to find a Biblical identity for the ancient Airaq al-Amir, but it would be tempting to suggest that the Iron-Age settlement at the Village Tel was the seat of the local chief Ish-Tob of 2 Sam.10:6 (see pp.28-29). The point of interest on the Village Tel is that there was development in certain discrete phases, thus: a) in the tenth-eleventh century BCE b) then a break till the Hellenistic period (third to second century BCE), c) continuous development till early Byzantine period in third century CE, d) then a break in development till the modern period. 76

At the Qasr six squares were designated of which two fell inside the Qasr, one outside to the west, one at the north-east and two at the south-east corners (Lapp 1962, fig.5). All the probes showed three levels of occupation. Stratum I was dated, by coins and pottery, to about 500 CE; stratum II, of which there were two phases, was also deemed to be Byzantine, and was dated to before 365 (or 363) CE, the date of an earthquake presumed to have struck the region, which Lapp considered to be the immediate cause of the collapse of the Qasr (1962, 32). Stratum III, which represents the building of the Qasr, could not be conclusively identified at this stage but the indications were that it was to be dated to the beginning of the second century BCE at the earliest (1962, 34). The same date seemed to apply to building phases at the Square Building and at the Village Tel. This would support, Lapp said, the Josephus account that Hyrcanus built the Baris and that it was indeed the Qasr. The Birta of the Zenon Papyri (see pp. 17ff.) must, according to Lapp, be elsewhere. As to the purpose of the Qasr, and the meaning of the word Baris, Lapp concludes that the Qasr is in no way a defensible building (castle or fortress) but he did not, at this stage, choose between palace, temple, or Albright’s suggestion of it as the Tobiad Mausoleum (Lapp 1962, 34). These findings were of course only preliminary ones but they convinced Lapp that further work on the site was both desirable and necessary. It should be noted that Paul Lapp had published in 1961 a landmark paper, Palestinian Ceramic Chronology, 200 BC-AD 70, which became the standard work on the area pottery of the late Hellenistic period, and made him eminently suited to evaluate the ceramic findings at Airaq al-Amir. Subsequent to the preliminary soundings, two more campaigns were conducted, as we have said, in autumn 1961 and spring 1962, as reported in BASOR 171 (Oct. 1963) 8-39. The report is in four parts, the Village Tel, the Plaster Building, the Qasr al-Abd and the Square Building. The Village Tel and the Plaster Building were designated Field I, the Qasr Field II and the Square Building Field III. In the Village (Field I) two squares were opened between the two previous soundings, and they confirmed and refined the earlier findings. Stratum IV (previously IIIB) was now the Hellenistic phase (c.175 BCE) corresponding to the Hyrcanus period. However the remains were only fragmentary in the excavated area but included a stone-paved floor and a column base (Lapp 1963, 11). Stratum V consisted of foundations of mudbrick and included two ovens, all dated to Iron I, the early Iron Age, of c.1050 BCE (1963, 10). The other section of Field I was excavated to the west of the Village Tel, west of the south end of the early soundings. Here Lapp found a large building (19m. x 22m, internally) that he called the Plaster Building on account of its finely rendered walls. There was no indication of its function but according to the pottery it was akin to Stratum IV in the other village 77

dig, so it was deemed to coincide with the Hyrcanus period. Lapp theorized (1963, 20) that it was part of Hyrcanus’s grand plan for his Tyros and corresponded to one of the aulas (that is, buildings around a courtyard) or “enclosures remarkable for their size” described by Josephus (Ant. XII, 233). The conclusions to be drawn from the two sections of Field I are that there was major building activity in the Hellenistic period, probably coinciding with the Hyrcanus era. After that, construction activity continued but was never again on the same scale (1963, 20). On the other hand there was evidence of much earlier building activity on part of the Village Tel, dating right back to the early Iron Age c.1050 BCE. In both seasons, further work proceeded at the Qasr, designated Field II. It confirmed the previous classification, that is: Stratum III, Stratum II, Stratum I,

Hellenistic work ascribed to Hyrcanus, c. 175 BCE, Early Byzantine occupation, prior to the earthquake of 365 (363) CE, Later Byzantine, dated to 5th century CE.

There was evidence of Early Bronze pottery in the massive fill to the external walls of the Qasr, it was seemingly used to create the platform or island on which the Qasr stood and which Lapp takes as evidence that the monument did indeed stand in a lake (1963, 21). The foundations were excessively deep (nearly 3m.) for the internal as well as the external walls. In spite of the ruined state of the Qasr and the jumble of massive blocks that were practically immovable, Lapp was able to open 12 squares inside the building as well as 14 externally (1963, fig.7). The results were therefore fairly comprehensive although Lapp’s architect, Michael Brett (see below) could not make an accurate assessment of the interior of the building due to its ruinous state and the immovable megaliths. The pottery sherds on site were Hellenistic, confirming Josephus’s ascription of the building to Hyrcanus. There was considerable evidence of the unfinished state of the Qasr, such as the monoliths with lion sculpture only roughed out and the unfinished state of several drum columns and their capitals (1963, 24, n. 28). From the massiveness of the building Lapp doubted whether it could have been built in the seven years that Josephus allotted to Hyrcanus on site (Ant. XII, 234) and he therefore assumed that this accounted for the unfinished state of the building. But it is now clear (after the French restoration) that the building was completed to a large degree at least in carcase form; though the interior and the finishing touches to the sculpture and ornament were left incomplete. In view of the fact that the French expedition laboured for ten years to reconstruct only part of the building, with the use of heavy lifting equipment, it is quite unlikely that the Qasr could have been largely finished within seven years. The assumption of the seven years would also have had to cover the whole of Hyrcanus’s other building activities at Airaq al-Amir 78

(see pp.167-176). Lapp, while querying the seven years, found no reason to think that the Qasr had been started before the time of Hyrcanus. One of the major discoveries of the 1962 season was the feline sculpture fountain on the east wall of the Qasr. It was fully described by Dorothy Kent Hill, an Honorary Associate of the Expedition, in BASOR 171 (Oct 1963) 45-55, and will be discussed further below, when we deal with the animal iconography of the Qasr (pp.118-120). The second matching fountain on the west wall was not found till the ASOR Soundings of 1976 (Brown 1983, fig. 50). Lapp considered the feline sculpture to be integral with the construction of the Qasr, and not a later insertion, even though it was carved on a block much thinner than the other monoliths, and of a different material (1963, 27 and n.33). Lapp noted that the chamber behind the feline sculpture was plastered and may have been a basin to store the water for the fountain that discharged through the mouth of the sculpture (1963, 27). At this point in his Report, for some reason, Lapp discusses the function of the Qasr, and notes that there was an attempt to see it as the Tobiad Mausoleum that had been suggested by W. F. Albright (1949, 149). This idea was rejected by Lapp. He emphasized the fact that the Qasr had a fine staircase in the north-east tower leading up to a roof terrace over the complete extent of ground floor rooms, as reconstructed by his architect Michael Brett (Brett 1963, 39-45). He says “these elements – stairway, terrace and tower – have been convincingly associated with the temple cult function in a brilliant typological study by Amy” (listed on p. 75). It is noteworthy that Amy himself excludes the Qasr from his temple category (Amy 1950, 123) as Lapp acknowledges (1963, 29) but Lapp probably felt that all the evidence was not available to Amy at the time of his study in 1950, and that he, Lapp, had now convincingly shown that he had uncovered all the characteristics of a Syrian temple. But it was not so simple, particularly as there was no evidence for an altar, nor was there any clear access to the building if it were to be surrounded by water (see p.70). Lapp asserts “it is even possible that the body of water around the Qasr had a sacred character” and goes on to draw parallels to the Temple of Onias at Leontopolis (Tel el-Yehudiyeh) which also had associations with a lion-cult and acted as the centre for a military colony, as did Tyros (1963, 30-31). The Lapp expedition undertook the first serious examination of the Square Building (Field III, see our fig. 3). It had three strata of occupation, as for the Qasr. Stratum I included a hearth on the south wall suggesting domestic use in the later Byzantine period, as at the Qasr. Stratum II included elements such as floor slabs, column pieces and a threshold from the earlier building, and Stratum III was the original “small monumental building with affinities to the Qasr” (1963, 35). Lapp considers Stratum II to have been a 79

complete rebuilding after the destruction of the original and that the exact configuration of the original was not left apparent (1963, 35). This seems to be a bit of an exaggeration as it is clear that the Stratum II (Byzantine) building was founded on the Stratum III (Hellenistic) base and there are a number of Hellenistic fragments, such as a Doric entablature with triglyphs as for the Qasr, still on site close by (our fig. 4). Lapp says quite clearly that “the small monumental building (my emphasis), with its entryway, pair of columns, triglyph entablature, and paved floor was carefully set upon a well-watered terrace” (1963, 35). As at the Qasr, there was evidence of earlier occupation in Early Bronze sherds used in fill below the building and Lapp considers them here (though not at the Qasr) to have constituted an occupation layer, which he calls Stratum IV (1963, 36). Thanks to pottery sherds Lapp had no hesitation in dating Stratum III to the Hellenistic period, as for the era of Hyrcanus at the Qasr. The small Square Building was sited at the edge of a large terrace, approximately 50m. from east to west and 100m. north to south. This terrace was clearly of artificial construction, as can still be seen today, but Lapp makes no note of it. He does however record a water channel leading from the south of the Square Building towards the Qasr (some 250m. away) or its supposed lake, and considers this to have been part of a feeder channel to the lake (1963, 21). It is probably for this reason that the French team consider the Square Building to have been some kind of water installation though they do not explain their reasons. Their opinion is given in their comment on Irby and Mangles’ description of the building as “a small temple” (see p.58), where Will dismisses that suggestion and adds that it was “de fait un bassin régulateur du système d’irrigation” (WL.I, 3, n.1). Lapp found no evidence at the Square Building of destruction of Stratum II by the earthquake of 365 (363) CE and thinks that the building remained in occupation till the end of the fifth century CE. In view of this long period of occupation the French claim is all the more surprising, but they may well be saying that in the Hellenistic period this was a small water installation (a nymphaeum?) that was destroyed and rebuilt for domestic use in the early Byzantine period. In summary, Lapp sees the Village Tel site starting as an Iron Age I fortress with some earlier EB (Early Bronze) occupation in the village and an EB occupation layer at the Square Building. The next use of the site is characterised by the Plaster Building and probably others on the Village Tel, and the construction of the Qasr al-Abd and reconstruction of the Square Building (and its associated terrace?) by Hyrcanus, as outlined by Josephus. Having found a piece of triglyph frieze, as for the Qasr, in a sounding by one of the TOBYAH-inscription caves, Lapp is of the opinion that even the man-made caves, the two with inscriptions, may be dated to the Hyrcanus period. With their narrow entrances, as described by Josephus (Ant. XIII, 232), they were made by Hyrcanus to be defensible as well as domestic. 80

Lapp planned to continue his work at Airaq al-Amir, particularly at the caves and in the village, in 1964 (1963, 39) but it was not to be. He went on to dig at Wadi ed-Daliyeh, at Bab ed-Dhra and other sites in Jordan and although he planned to return to Airaq al-Amir at a later date, this was thwarted by financial constraints and by his untimely death in 1970, in a swimming accident in Cyprus. In view of the ruined state of the Qasr, the attempt at reconstruction by Lapp’s architect Michael Brett was a brave one. He made a correct assessment of the staircase and external walls but assigned the many halfround columns lying on site to be part of a range of engaged columns along the east and west walls (as Butler had done). This has now been shown to be incorrect, as the French Team found them to be part of the external colonnade on each façade at first-floor level (as de Saulcy had rightly surmised). Brett, like those before him, was also unable to assess the interior at ground floor level and so postulated a series of columns to support a terrace at first floor level. This was a perfectly logical move but ignored the springing ledge and fallen voussoirs on site, which the French have assigned to arched vaults supporting this floor. These remarks are all made with the benefit of hindsight and it should be recorded that Brett’s reconstruction (our fig. 23) held the stage until the work of the French Team became known and was published in 1991.

Fig. 23, Isometric Reconstruction of Qasr al-Abd by Michael Brett, for the Lapp Expedition, 1962 One particular point of interest in Brett’s work is his assessment of the foundations, which were shown to be 3m. deep even for the intermediate

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walls of the Qasr (Lapp 1963, 23, fig. 8). It would seem that such foundations were unnecessarily deep for the internal walls that do not carry as much superstructure as the massive outer walls. A suggestion was made that the deep foundations were in fact walls of a crypt below the main floor, but Brett was able to show that these foundations would have been unstable without the surrounding earth fill and therefore could not have housed a crypt or basement storey (Brett 1963, 41, n.4). The foundations were necessary to bring the Qasr walls, even the internal walls, down to stable ground below the infill platform within the “lake”. As they were built between supports of retaining earth or fill, the construction was both original and economical (somewhat akin to today’s use of piling or “trenchfill”) and showed another aspect of the ingenuity displayed by the builders of the Qasr. It was, however, not effective enough to avoid the dangers of subsidence (see pp. 206-207). Before considering the work done by the French team from 1976 onwards, we must look at the later publications of the Lapp results as recorded by his widow Nancy Lapp and others, and also further soundings made on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) on site during October 1976. Part I of the Annual of ASOR, Volume 47 (1983) is devoted to Paul Lapp’s work at Airaq al-Amir and edited by Nancy Lapp. Her Introduction (1983, 1-11) is a summary of the excavation reports already described above, complete with the published plans. Further articles include the Coins (Chap.1, N. L. Lapp), Hellenistic Pottery from the Qasr and Square Building (Chap.7, N. L. Lapp), Wall Decoration (Chap.8, J. Groot) and Skeletal Remains (Chap.9, M. Toplyn). Part II of the same volume is about excavations subsequent to Lapp, and describes The 1976 ASOR Soundings (Chap.11, R. Brown), The Monumental Gateway and Princely Estate of Araq el-Emir (Chap.12, Dentzer, Villeneuve and Larché) and Recent French work at Araq el-Emir: the Qasr el-Abd Rediscovered (Chap.13, Ernest Will). We shall review these chapters briefly. The chapter on coins shows that, of interest for the Tobiad or Hyrcanus period, are just five coins from the Village Tel area. One is from the Ptolemaic period (Ptolemy II Philadelphos) and the other four are Seleucid (Antiochus III twice, Seleucus IV and Seleucid, unidentified) ranging in date therefore from c. 260 to 170 BCE. The Ptolemaic coin could well have been current at Tyros (Airaq al-Amir), as we see from the Zenon papyri. The Seleucid coins are more problematic as it is doubtful if the Seleucid government had extended its administration to the site before 170 (see p. 51), but its coinage could of course have found its way there beforehand, especially during the Seleucid occupation of Philadelphia in 218-217 BCE (see p. 38). There was one other coin of the period listed as Ptolemaic–ace of the 2nd century BCE but it was found in Stratum I of the Qasr, that is, at a much later period (N.Lapp 1983, 13). 82

The pottery analysis by Nancy Lapp in Chap.7 confirmed Lapp’s original assessments. Early Bronze sherds found in the fill laid for the Qasr were mixed with Hellenistic groups thus confirming the date for the start of the Qasr (N. Lapp 1983, 64). The platform fill of the Square Building also revealed early second century (Hellenistic) sherds (1983, 66). Details of the Hellenistic pottery from the east Qasr wall and other parts, and from the Square Building, are drawn and listed (1983, 67-74). It should be noted that pottery from the Village Tel is currently being researched by Michael Zimmerman of Brown University (p.c. Jan.2006). Chapter 8 shows that finds on the Village Tel and in the Qasr revealed a considerable quantity of painted plaster wall decoration (Groot 1983, 7592). In the case of the Qasr it all related to the later periods, to the Byzantine strata, and revealed a surprisingly luxurious style of painted plasterwork finish. In one area the plaster was finished in a variety of tempera colours, being “green, gold, white, orange-red, pink and black” (1983, 80, n.9). In the Village the main finds were obviously in the Plaster Building and here the remains include the earliest Hellenistic period. The Plaster Building seems to have been part of a mansion built around a courtyard, of the rather grand second-century Greek type (1983, 76). The wall decoration was similarly grand. The rather rough stone wall construction necessitated a plaster finish, which was applied in the normal three layers, with a finishing coat in smooth fine white plaster. This was embellished in the relief style, which laid out the walls in different zones (dado, upper area, cornice) some of them standing out in relief from the others. Different zones were also treated in different colours and evidence shows areas of Pompeiian red and clear white (1983, 79-80). Although only fragments remain to indicate this work, they do show that the Hellenistic rooms (possibly mansions) in the Village must have attained a relatively high degree of luxury. The period in question corresponds to that of Hyrcanus’s Qasr. The skeletal remains from the Lapp excavations showed that on the Village Tel, Strata I, II and III consisted of bones of sheep-goat, cattle, dog, pig and others, while Stratum IV (Hellenistic) showed only sheep-goat remains. Though not conclusive, it seems to indicate that the village in the Hyrcanus era abstained from eating pork. Stratum V, going right back to the Early Iron age, again showed pig and also camel remains (Toplyn 1983, 92). Part II of the ASOR Annual Vol. 47 describes work subsequent to the Lapp expedition. First to be recorded are the 1976 ASOR soundings, which attempted to complete business left unfinished by Lapp’s work in 1963. The field director was Ms. Robin Brown who wrote the report (1983, Chap. 11). This was followed by a description of the work on the Monumental Gateway and comments on the Estate as a whole by Dentzer, Villeneuve and Larché

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(Chap. 12) and finally “The Qasr el-Abd Rediscovered” by Ernest Will (Chap.13). The 1976 ASOR work attempted to clarify the phases within the Qasr by further soundings on the Qasr platform and closer analysis of the pottery. All in all, their results confirmed those already set out by Lapp in 1962 and 1963 (1963, 32). The three main phases were (Brown 1983, 105): Stratum III Stratum II Stratum I

Hellenistic Early Byzantine Early Byzantine

c. 200 – 175 BCE c. 335 – 365 CE c. 365 – 500 CE

This shows a clear break in habitation for a period of some 500 years between strata III and II. The Byzantine occupation was clearly significant and prolonged, lasting for nearly 200 years. After that there was another break until modern times, with only very slight occupation throughout the Ottoman period in the 16th –19th century CE (1983, 113). The same applied (except for the modern periods), according to Lapp, at the Square Building (1963, 37). During the 1976 soundings, evidence was uncovered of a drain feeding the water storage room behind the second feline-shaped fountain, which was now found on the west elevation (1983, 109 and 110, figs. 49 and 50). Indications of a similar feeder basin were also found behind the symmetrically placed eastern fountain that had been discovered by Lapp in 1963 (as above). Investigations outside the Qasr showed that the dished area around its platform was founded on a layer of grey and stoney clay (1983, 106, fig. 44) that would have retained water running into the area around the Qasr and therefore a lake, or “moat” as Josephus describes it (Ant. XII, 230), could have been formed. This is still a matter of controversy as the French team came to other conclusions (see now FL, 14,15), but the ASOR summary says: “The extensive clay pan which lay beneath the topsoil has demonstrated conclusively that throughout the Byzantine period, and probably in earlier periods as well, a large standing body of water existed in the area around the Qasr, if not all the year round at least on a seasonal basis” (1983, 114). The evidence for the lake also depends on the date of the small retaining wall to the Qasr platform, which may have been a feature of Stratum III (Hellenistic) or only later in the Byzantine period (1983, 114). On the other hand the major evidence for some kind of water retention is clearly the huge Dyke or embankment south of the Qasr, which certainly predates the Byzantine period, as indicated by its constructional facing of cyclopean masonry (see pp. 167ff.). Soundings were taken by the ASOR expedition in an area outside the Village Tel. They revealed few Hellenistic sherds but significant quantities 84

of Byzantine ware of a consistent type that would indicate a local workshop (1983, 129). This type, with similarities to local Heshbon ware, points conclusively to dates in the 4th - 5th century CE, and to occupation levels similar to those found at the Qasr. The remains of later occupation are very limited and demonstrate again that there was no significant community at Airaq al-Amir after “the Early Byzantine period until the Modern period” (1983, 130). The Monumental Gateway (the name was used by Lapp and derives from the “Porte Monumentale” of de Saulcy 1865, 216) was investigated by a French Team in two seasons in 1977 and 1978 (Dentzer et al. 1983, 133-48). The remains were standing to a height of six courses of masonry on a plinth, as they are today but somewhat less precariously, as the top course today is well out of true. From the pieces remaining on the ground, the French Team were able to reconstruct the gate to its full height of 9.25m. (30ft). Restoration however was not attempted as the remaining pieces were too fragmentary. The façade was built of impressive monoliths in alternate high and low courses giving an impression of great strength. But this was illusory as the high courses were monoliths set on their narrow edge, which made them inherently unstable. The backing however was laid in shallower courses and this has helped to stabilize the façade. The facing blocks are in hard white dolomite, looking like marble, while the backing areas are in a softer grey limestone (1983, 138). Above the two remaining jambs, or pylons, the team was able to reconstruct (on paper) the impressive stone lintel, now broken into three or more pieces. On each side of the lintel bearing was a large stone with the figure of a lion; one of these stones is still visible alongside the gate (our fig.24). The doorway had a Doric framework surmounted by a highly decorative cornice (fallen pieces of which had been drawn by Conder 1889, 84 and Butler 1907, ill.11) and above that a Doric entablature incorporating eagle metopes, one of which had again been drawn by Butler (1907, ill.12). The reconstruction of the whole Gateway is given in WL.I, fig.19 (our fig. 25).

Fig. 24, Lion Carving from Monumental Gate

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Fig. 25, Reconstruction of Monumental Gate with lines of cubits (WL.I, 199, fig. 19) It is claimed the Gateway was toppled by the earthquake of 365 (363) CE that also affected the Qasr (Dentzer et al. 1983, 138). Conder had only seen four or five courses of stonework because of the accumulated rubble and humus that had collected around the jambs. On digging down the French Team found two partial floors, both of which they date to the Hellenistic period but claim that neither was a completely finished floor, showing that one had never been constructed. The implication is that the builders never completely finished the Gateway and that the last element, the threshold flooring, was never laid. At least it has never been found, nor has the front step. The floors that do exist are fragmentary and poorly laid (Dentzer et al. 1983, 141). It looks as if, as in the case of the Qasr, work was well advanced but never fully completed. Luckily the temporary floors included a number of coins dated to the reign of Antiochus III (223–187 BCE). It seems the gate was in use for a short time, when the temporary floors were laid, but it was never reused in the Byzantine period. Besides the temporary nature of the flooring, there was no evidence of the doors or gates that must have been intended, nor of any fixings or fittings for such doors (1983, 141). The evidence of the Seleucid coins, which were in good condition, indicates that the Gateway was built in the period around 200 BCE and probably somewhat later. The pottery evidence leads to similar conclusions, pointing to the first quarter of the second century BCE (1983, 142). The Gateway was an isolated construction (see fig.3) but did connect to walls, albeit walls of a much less imposing construction, either side. To the 86

west was the end of the Dyke wall and to the east a rough enclosure wall to the estate, leading towards the Village Tel. The gate stood at the right angle between the two. In itself it consisted of just its two pillar jambs, the east one of which was solid stonework. The west one however contained a small recess, 3m.deep by 1m.wide by nearly 2m.high (Dentzer et al. 1983, figs. 60 & 62). Its width and height seem tailored to accommodate a single sentry but the depth is excessive. However no other purpose seems likely. The French Team go on to discuss the function of this Gateway, standing at the right angle between the Dyke and the boundary wall. It obviously belongs to the Hyrcanus programme of work but it in no way relates to the Qasr or other elements on the site, such as the caves or the Village Tel. However it does stand just alongside the original pathway between the caves and the jetty leading to the east side of the Qasr. With its lines of paired stones (Conder’s cippi, see p. 66) this was probably the route by which the megaliths were brought from the quarry at the caves to the Qasr platform. The French Team do not make this point but it does show that the Gateway could hardly have stood further to the north. They do recognize that the gate stands head and shoulders above the adjoining walls either side and that its function is therefore far from being a gateway in a defensive wall. Moreover, they point out that the Gateway itself is in no way built on a strategic model, of which there are many and more complex ones of all periods across the Levant (1983, 146). The defensive potential of the site may be low but to the French Team this only goes to show that the real essence of Tyros (Airaq al-Amir) was its excellent agricultural features, its area of wide terraces perennially watered by the Wadi Sir (and other underground sources, in our view). The site was therefore valuable for its agricultural produce and the team suggest the Gateway and surrounding low walls were intended to afford protection against petty marauders (like a high fence would be today) though not against any determined attack by an army or against siege. This may be an adequate conclusion for the lack of serious defences but it is not an explanation for a Monumental Gateway of considerable sophistication such as this (see pp. 117 and 171). The lions carved each side of the gate are rightly described as having an apotropaic role, protecting the Gateway and those living inside its gates. The Team go on to consider the bestiary on the Qasr itself (the lions, the eagles and the felines at the fountains) and relate them to the animal breeding that occupied the earlier Toubias, supplying Zenon with rare animals and also with slaves (pp. 18, 19). All this activity gave rise to a kind of paradeisos or estate of exotic plants and creatures, as described by Josephus, whose descriptive word this is (Ant. XII, 233). It all amounted eventually, they think, to Hyrcanus trying to impose an oriental level of luxury on a site that was somewhat backward, as measured by its

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surrounding population, yet beautiful and productive in its agricultural and breeding output (1983, 147). The French team of IFAPO (Institut Francais d’Archéologie du Proche– Orient) started work at Airaq al-Amir in 1976 and its leader Ernest Will gives a general resumé of five years of their work in Chap.13 of the ASOR Annual. In a short history of the site discovery, Will is very dismissive of his compatriot de Saulcy and full of praise for de Saulcy’s “learned colleague” de Vogüé. De Saulcy incurred Will’s sarcasm (1983, 149) because he insisted the Qasr was a temple, probably of Moabite origin, while de Vogüé was more cautious and referred to it only as a palace (see p. 63). The latter use, Ernest Will says, corresponds closely to Josephus’s Baris (Ant. XII, 230) as that could mean a palace as well as a fortress, and there is no reason, he says, to disagree with this ancient source (1983, 151). However in our opinion, Will himself misinterprets Baris as we show below (p.116). Will is probably concerned at the temple designation as it is an attractive one that persisted via de Saulcy to Butler and even Lapp (see p.79) and he is keen to scotch the idea as he attempts to prove that the Qasr was of a residential nature, which he finally calls “Le Château du Tobiade Hyrcan” as we shall see below. That too, in our opinion, is wrong, though we agree the temple hypothesis is not tenable. Will records the conclusions about the architecture of the Qasr reached by him and his architect François Larché. They show convincingly that the period of the work is Hellenistic but at this time they had not yet completed an evaluation of the interior of the building. Nevertheless they show that it consisted of vaulted chambers on the ground floor, the later Byzantine walling (as uncovered by Lapp) having been founded on stub walls remaining from the Hellenistic originals. The architectural detail all points to a Hellenistic date though Will shows that many of the sculptured elements were left incomplete. This was not unusual in a building of this period, as the money often ran out, but at the Qasr, he says, other major elements of the walls of the upper storey also appear unfinished (1983, 153) and so it looks as if Josephus is right, that Hyrcanus committed suicide in 175 BCE (Ant. XII, 236) and that the work was then halted. In his description Will talks of the rooms at ground level being “storerooms” with a “brightly-lit corridor” around so as “to make the handling of the stored wares or equipment easy” (1983, 152). This, in our view, is an incredible assumption, that this wonderful building, of a quite exceptional character, should have its premier location on the ground floor devoted to mundane storerooms, which are then given the benefit of a fine, well-lit ambulatory. We come back to this point later (pp.136ff.). Will states that the living quarters were relegated to the upper floor as in much oriental housing (1983, 152). The upper floor was certainly on a grand scale with continuous rows of apertures between lines of columns on both the east and

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west elevations; in fact much too open for any convenient residential use but, as stated, we shall come back to these points. Will foreshadows the publication of his major work on the Qasr (WL.), which we review below, and adds that further work on the remainder of the site and its monuments will continue with another French Team (1983, 153). Unfortunately, after 1990, Ernest Will himself relinquished the leadership of IFAPO and left the site. He died shortly afterwards, in 1995. After 1987 François Larché was transferred from Jordan to work at Karnak, Egypt. Some work of another French Team is continuing from time to time, directed from the IFAPO offices in Amman, but no results have been published to date. Larché is continuing to work on a reconstruction (on paper) of the upper floor of the Qasr (p.c. Feb.2001) and this work has now been published in 2005, as the concluding volume (Vol. II) to his joint work (Vol.I) with Ernest Will. We discuss it in detail in Chapter 15.

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CHAPTER 1O.

The Qasr al-Abd as described by the French Team

In the course of ten years of work or more on site, IFAPO restored the Qasr to second floor (roof) level and were able to bring back much of the original grandeur to this unique building. Their magisterial volume on the Qasr is nearly as splendid as the building itself and, in its monumental folio size, they follow in the footsteps of their French colleagues of the nineteenth century, such figures as Le Comte de Vogüé (1864), and C. Chipiez and G. Perrot (1889), both publishing folios on the Temple of Jerusalem. The work on the Qasr is presented as one volume but in two parts, “Texte” and “Album”. The first part is subdivided into seven sections: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

The Site and its History, by Ernest Will and F. Zayadine, Description and Restoration of the Monument, by Er. Will and F. Larché, History of the Monument, by Er. Will, Technical details and Decoration (Sculpture), by Er. Will, J. Dentzer-Feydy and F.Queyrel, The Monument, its Identity and Origin, by Er. Will, Archaeological Remains, by Er. Will, P. M. Blanc and O. Bussart, Photographic Plates A, B & C.

The second part consists of an impressive series of drawings by F. Larché and J.-P. Lange. The figures are divided into site plans, plans of the building at all levels, elevations and sections, with parts of the building and details shown in axonometric view, and concluding with some splendid rendered drawings of the sculptured eagles, panther-fountains and lions. Besides the drawings, which we will not dispute, the main points of issue concern the history of the Tobiads and Hyrcanus (by Zayadine), and the identification of the Monument (by Ernest Will). We shall also touch on the description of the sculptures (by Queyrel). As for the history we have already covered that above in our section on Dating and Redating (our conclusions pp.49-51). For reasons given there we do not agree with Zayadine’s chronology of the tax farmer Joseph (WL.I, 22), nor do we accept that Hyrcanus necessarily committed suicide, though we do favour Zayadine’s date of 169 BCE for his death (see p.49). That however was not the end of the Tobiads, they were not finished off by the Hasmoneans as Zayadine suggests (WL.I, 23); on the contrary they fought with the Maccabees and were brought to an end by their enemies the Seleucids (see p. 47). In his assessment of the identity of the Qasr, Ernest Will poses the question “Temple où Palais?” (WL.I, 255). In spite of his very rigorous investigation of this question, it is not the only question and there are other 90

possibilities as we shall show below (pp.136ff.). Will starts with a brief history of the views of his predecessors, views we know from his article of 1983 (see pp. 88-89) and from our examination of the work of de Vogüé (1864), de Saulcy (1865) and Butler (1907). Will shows the reconstruction drawings by de Vogüé, Lange (1885) and Lapp’s architect, Brett (1963) but it must be said that none of them are as impressive as those of de Saulcy. Seeing that all the reconstructions are faulty, one should give credit to de Saulcy, who shows interesting details of the unusual staircase construction and windows as well as portions of entablature, plinths and lintels. He does not fall into the trap of showing engaged columns on the ground floor (the French proved they actually belonged to the upper storey) as did Butler (1907) and after him Lapp and Brett (1963). De Saulcy was also right in showing two chambers next to the northern towers, which were later seen to be the reservoirs behind the feline fountains. Where of course de Saulcy was in error was in his dating of the architecture, which his pagan temple idea led him to a date in some ancient period well before Hyrcanus. Here Butler, who still adhered to the temple concept, saw clearly that the building was Hellenistic (WL.I, 258). Butler restored the lion sculptures to a beautiful north façade (Butler 1907, Plate I), which was widely reproduced (our fig.22) but proved in the end to be misleading if not downright incorrect. Butler’s drawings are very fine, a great improvement on earlier work, but hardly more correct than the earlier versions. Will goes into some detail on the work of Lapp (WL I, 258), which we have already discussed (see pp. 7682). He then gives the views of other scholars who support the temple thesis such as Vincent (1920), Galling (1929), Fritz (1971) and Busink (1980). He notes in passing that W. F. Albright suspended judgement on the subject (WL.I, 259). We should note that Albright did publish a few brief remarks naming the Qasr as the Tobiad Mausoleum (Albright 1933, 29 and 1949, 149), which view Lapp considered and later rejected (Lapp 1963, 27). Will does indicate fairly conclusively that any attempt to see a temple at the Qasr would have required at least two rows of internal columns at ground floor level, and there was no evidence of them or of a stylobate (extended base) to support the columns (WL.I, 259). Ernest Will is right, it is certainly not a temple, but does that make it a palace or a château? Will goes into some detail on the Jewish aspects of the Qasr. He admits that the estate had a mixed population of Jewish and pagan military families as is clear from the Zenon evidence (see pp.17-20) and thinks there was a loyal circle of Jews around Hyrcanus. He considers Galling’s suggestion that the Qasr was a temple equivalent to that of Onias IV at Leontopolis in Egypt (Galling 1929, 225) as Lapp had also adumbrated, but rejects it, seeing that Onias had to cater for a body of Jews in a foreign land, while Hyrcanus did not. So was the Qasr perhaps a synagogue? Will rightly rejects that idea, though he suggests there may have been a private prayer room for family use on the upper floor (WL.I, 262). This is a doubtful proposition as there is no evidence for such a use at this early period in Israel and Jordan, though 91

prayer houses (proseuche) did exist in Egypt from the time of Ptolemy III Euergetes in the late 3rd century BCE (Levine 2000, 75). Be that as it may, there can be no suggestion that the Qasr as a whole is a prayer house of one kind or another. Regarding the animals (Will includes the ox-head skulls or bucranes that were a part of the unfinished entablatures) he points out, quite rightly, that the Jewish attitude to such images is not known but was likely to be much more liberal at this time, just before the strictness and stringency that came in with the Maccabees (WL.I, 262). His general interpretation of the animals is that they are acting in a protective or apotropaic role, and also in another of their functions, that of boosting the power and royal attributes of the palace occupant, much like the lions associated with the Temples of Solomon (I Kings 7:29) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 41:19) or even the eagle erected by Herod over the later Temple (Josephus Ant. XVII, 151); though the Jews at some stages were violently opposed to that eagle (see p.126). Will in fact sees the menagerie of sculpture as boosting the idea of palace or château, rather than temple, though he acknowledges that the bucranes (ox-skulls) are a Greek motif found on temples and funerary monuments (WL.I, 263). As the lions and eagles are symbols of royal power, Will thinks that they were used on the Qasr to boost Hyrcanus’s ambitions, adding that “la façade nord en particulier apparait comme une sorte de manifeste” (WL.I, 264). This is indeed so and Will is right to emphasise the north facade that acted as the main entrance to the Qasr. He takes the view that one can rely on the testimony of Josephus, that the building is a Baris (in the sense of “palace”) and stands as such in relationship to the caves, and to another element that Josephus does not mention, the Village Tel. Will sees this all as comparable to the complex of new buildings at Jericho, which Herod built opposite the earlier Hasmonean ones; and also to be compared to Herod’s Masada, which consists of the extravagant three-tier “hanging” palace, at one end of the more conventional complex on the upper plateau. He finds that to be similar to the exotic Qasr at the end of the estate, away from the village centre and the caves. The caves were the defensible refuge but a highly uncomfortable one; the Village Tel remained the administrative centre of the estate; and the Qasr was there for the ruler (chieftain) to relax, away from the bustle of everyday life (WL.I, 265). In this way, the monumental Qasr reflected, according to Will, the ambitions of this rather special Tobiad, Hyrcanus, sheikh of Tyros and Airaq al-Amir. Ernest Will’s conclusion is that the Qasr is in the oriental tradition of a mansion built for the local ruler (WL.I, 285). Its style is Greek but the execution is in a “barbarous” local fashion. No exact precedent exists but it is related in part to various widely dispersed examples of Hellenistic architecture, being an edifice of the Baris type, referred to as a tetrapyrgia, that is, a building with four towers. Though certainly not a fortress it may be that these towers led Josephus to call it a Baris, normally translated as “fortress”. Will points out that the upper storey of the building cannot be reconstructed (on paper) as the evidence is too scanty. The architect 92

followed the koine (common Hellenistic) style and showed links with that of the Ptolemies, and their work in Alexandria. A man of Hyrcanus’s ambition may well have employed a senior architect from Alexandria who would have brought some of his own craftsmen with him but had to leave much of the work in the hands of local artisans. Nevertheless, says Will, the “château” is of a distinctive type, a sophisticated building which, though executed in a somewhat clumsy manner, is a unique example of its kind (WL.I, 286). No analysis of the Qasr would be complete without a careful look at the range of sculptured menagerie. A full description is given by F. Queyrel (WL.I, 209-251). First to be considered are the two panther fountains, discovered in 1962 (east elevation) and 1976 (west elevation). Queyrel points out that both figures are male, with long tails and white patches in the marble (pink dolomite breccia) corresponding to the spots of a panther (our figs. 6a & b). The tail originally ended in a stony tuft of hair that has now disappeared. The mouth of the animal is open and the throat served as a water spout. The animals are symmetrical, both facing northwards, so the eastern feline is facing to the right, with its left (inner) paw lifted and the western one facing to the left, its right or inner paw raised. The animal has all the characteristics of a leopard (WL.I, 212) but, because of the patches on the stonework which are obviously meant to represent the animal’s spots, it can also be identified as a panther. Queyrel says the figures have all the normal feline characteristics, showing a delicate attachment of the hindquarters to the body, in contrast to the heaviness seen in the lion. He does not agree with the description by Hill, who worked with Lapp, of the animal sculpture being an “extraordinary mixture” (1963, 49) but finds it to be of a natural form with some exaggeration of the tail and the mouth (WL.I, 212). The figure’s proportions are too large for a cheetah and if it were a tiger, then the stonework would exhibit stripes rather than spots. The only two possibilities are then leopard or panther and the smallish head favours the panther identification, according to Queyrel. Queyrel notes that the panther may have been local to the area, seeing that this animal of the Sinai (panthera pardis jarvisi) has been recently introduced to the nature reserve at Ein Gedi in Israel, where it is well acclimatized (WL.I, 212, n.556). However distinctions between leopards, panthers and lions may not have been so clear in antiquity. Queyrel points to the feline figure in Tomb I at Marissa, southern Israel, which is contemporary with the Qasr (our fig. 26). One section of the tomb frieze shows a feline attacking a horse and rider, where the size (compared to the horse) and the spots on the animal, named on the panel as pardalos, suggest a female panther. (However other scholars describe it as a leopard; Rozenberg 1999, 35). The animal at Marissa, boldly attacking an armed horseman, shows the character of a panther, that is, courage and ferocity (WL.I, 213). Queyrel sees this is a common element shared with the Qasr’s lion frieze, as both animals are depicted with beetled brows and bared fangs, 93

in an attitude expressing the beasts’ natural ferocity. The panther is also famous for its agility, and the sculptor, says Queyrel, may be expressing its instinctual ardour, which is often described as “dionysiac” or godlike within nature (WL.I, 213, n.563).

Fig. 26, Panther (pardalis) at Marissa, from the Chase, South Wall of Tomb I (from Peters and Thiersch 1905, Plate VI) Concerning its function and symbolism, Queyrel sees the two felines, one each side of the northern portico, as having a guardianship role. He notes that the animal’s sexual organ is ithyphallic, which signals the “phallus apotropaique” or virile guardianship of the residence in question (WL. I, 214). Besides this role of protector or guardian, he thinks the panther’s function is a demonstration of royal power. As the estate was a paradeisos, where it was normal to hunt wild animals on horseback, panthers may have been among them, as illustrated by the hunt of male panthers on a sarcophagus from Sidon (WL.I, 214, n.572). In our case the panthers are represented in isolation, but seem to come out of a parade of such symbolic creatures, as seen on the grand procession of Ptolemy II Philadelphos (WL.I, 215, n.578), who was contemporary with Zenon’s Toubias (see pp.17-20). Those animals on the procession symbolized the prosperity and power of the Egyptian Pharaoh, giving legitimacy to his reign. Hyrcanus adopted this symbolism, says Queyrel, extracting the panther, the lion and the eagle, in an attempt to give himself a similar legitimacy (WL.I, 215).

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The animal symbolism is then of an Alexandrian nature, and representations of panthers are rare in previous eras. Queyrel suggests that the panther with the lifted paw may be derived from heraldic designs shown on funerary monuments (WL.I, 215, n.585), while the hunting of panthers is shown on several sarcophagi, especially those of Satrap and Alexander (as WL.I, 214 n.572 and 574) in the Istanbul Museum. In addition, panthers are shown carrying Dionysos on the mosaic of the House of Masks (WL.I, 213, n.564). Built shortly after the time of Hyrcanus, the Khazne in Petra exhibits a panther or similar feline on the attic storey, seeming to lift its left paw (WL.I, 216, n.596; note: these animals appear on each side of the first storey pediment but the heads are partly missing and the whole figure is badly eroded). According to Queyrel, panthers are an exotic species and Ptolemy II Philadelphos showed particular interest in such animals (as indicated by the purchases made for him by Zenon at Tyros, as p.19). Hyrcanus was following therefore in the footsteps of his family and their connection with the Hellenists of Alexandria. As for the use of panthers as fountains, Queyrel sees them as a symbol of the wild nature of the felines tamed for pleasurable use, as in an idyllic world (such as this paradeisos?) where the gardens are stocked with wild animals tamed to serve man, the overlord. A similar theme is seen where the panther is carrying a small child in the Dionysiac parade at Memphis (as WL.I, 216, n. 594). In a related sense Queyrel sees the many lion heads, used as gargoyles to debouch water, a common Hellenistic motif (our fig.27), as showing the king of beasts tamed to provide life-enhancing water. Leopard protomes used at fountains exhibited a similar symbolism (WL.I, 218). The panthers here at the Qasr thus show the idyll of wild nature tamed to serve man. Queyrel points out, finally, that the panther is an animal that is always thirsty! Curiously he makes no connection between the panther fountains and the waters of the surrounding lake. Nor does he give any reason for the fountains being there in the first place.

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Fig. 27, Lion protome rainwater Spout, Altar of Athena Polies, Priene, 2nd Century BCE, Pergamon Museum, Berlin Coming next to the lions (WL.I, 219-241) it is their prominence that makes the major impact on the visitor. They are in groups of four at each corner of the Qasr. On the long elevations there are at each end one lion followed by a lioness with one cub crouching beneath her (there may have been two originally). On the shorter elevations, the north and south (see fig.12), there are at each end a lion and a lioness tail to tail. The outer lion faces the corner and, most curious detail, shares a head with its double around the corner (our fig. 5). The inner lioness faces towards the portico, in the north as in the south. In his early restoration Butler captured the lions rather well – as fig.21 - but had two lions nose to tail on the north elevation (1907, Plate I). The paired lions and lionesses of the east elevation were visible to the early travellers, but the remainder did not come to light until the French restoration. Although the majority of the lion figures are badly eroded, it appears that most of them were sculpturally complete but those in the southwest corner were never finished (WL.I, 229). According to Will, some of the lion figures were vandalized during the Byzantine period of iconoclasm (WL.I, 102). Although the panther figures in their dolomite marble were left unembellished, Will thinks that the coarser limestone of the lions may have been coated with a fine plaster and even painted, as were some of the interior finishes (WL.I, 229). However, we think this to be unlikely and unnecessary; such a finish would have been impractical on an external surface.

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Unexpectedly, the lionesses had a mane though a lesser one than the males. On the other hand the female teats are heavily accentuated, at least in the example extant with the one cub, at the north-west corner, which is the best surviving leonine figure (see our fig. 28). Lions are polygamous and this is indicated, Queyrel claims, by counting the two bodies with one head as one lion, which is then attached to two females. Similarly the lioness with two cubs (assuming that there was a second cub in the vacant space) is correct, as the females tend to have a litter of from two to four cubs (WL.I, 230).

Fig. 28, Lioness and Cub at Qasr on West Elevation, North End The symbolism of the lion has several interpretations. First is the one of guardianship, and their prominent position at the four corners of the Qasr is a display of this quality. The role of the “corner lion” is prevalent in SyroPalestinian architecture and Queyrel mentions examples at Byblos (WL.I, 230, n.639), at Betocece (231, n.640), and at Amrith (n.642). In fact, in Greece ever since the archaic era, the guardian function has devolved particularly on lions on funerary monuments (my emphasis). The corpse of Alexander was guarded by two golden lions, standing guard at the vaulted tomb (231, n.647). The mausoleum of Halicarnassus includes several lions and panthers (231, n.649 and pl. C. 19, 6). We shall discuss that monument further below (Chap. 13). The lion also served as protector to temples in the east, in Mesopotamia, in Phrygia and particularly in the Hittite regions (WL.I, 232). Lions appear at cultic sites such as Hazor (232, n. 656) and Bet Shean (n.657). Even the Temple of Solomon had its guardian lions on the laver bases (I Kgs 7:29 & 36). The Greek world used lions as protectors to their temples but preferred 97

to use them in this capacity for their tombs (WL.I, 232). They were also used thus in Egypt as at the Sarapeion of Memphis. As the Qasr of Hyrcanus could not have been a tomb or sanctuary, at least that is what Queyrel claims, the lions must have represented guardianship of the residence, as is shown by their grouping at the entrances (WL.I, 233). This role was given to lions because of their strength, which appears also in the Bible, where the lion inspires fear and terror (233, n.672). The lion is associated with Judas Maccabeus (“He was like a lion in his exploits”, 1 Macc. 3:4) in regard to his force and strength. In other words the Hyrcanus lions represent “la force héroique et terrible, en un mot invincible, du bâtisseur du Qasr” (WL.I, 233). The fact that the lions are represented in one band (though not continuous) around the building indicates the royal pretensions of Hyrcanus (WL.I, 234). Queyrel also suggests that the total number of lions, counting the corner doubles as one, is twelve and therefore shows a nice affinity with the twelve tribes of Israel of whom Judah, also represented as a lion (“Judah is a lion’s whelp”, Gen. 49:9), was the leader (WL.I, 235). The depiction of lions in a band is typically oriental, as seen much earlier in the glazed brick lions of the processional way at Babylon (WL. I, 235, n.691); and again, they appear thus, as previously mentioned, in Tomb I at Marissa, contemporary with the Qasr. However the frieze is not continuous at the Qasr and the linking of lions with lionesses and cubs is a unique feature and an example of the “picturesque” (WL.I, 236). This is underlined by the unusual addition of lion cubs, which tend to soften the otherwise fierce aspect of their seniors. Also the representation of the ends of the lion’s tails curled around the end paw (as with the panthers) gives the figures, says Queyrel, a distinctly Hellenistic and “picturesque” air. Do these lions stem from an oriental tradition? It seems they do, says Queyrel, but their origin is more Assyrian than Hittite (WL.I, 236). The depiction of the fingers of the paws is very pronounced at the Qasr and typical of an Assyrian or Persian type, as for the gryphons on the glazed tiles of Susa and the lions shown in relief on the Apadana of Persepolis. There is one detail which absolutely defines these lions/lionesses, but which is not mentioned by Queyrel. That is the string of “leaves” that run along their bellies in one form or another (see our fig.29). It is really an extension of the mane and is exactly parallel to that on Assyrian representations of the animal in the lion hunts of the Assyrian Emperors at Nineveh (Frankfort 1996, pl. 185, Assurnasirpal II; pl. 211, Assurbanipal) and at Khorsabad in a panel of animals guarding the palace temple (1996, pl. 171). However this plaited mane is shown in Assyrian art only on the males, whereas at the Qasr it extends to the females as well (WL.I, 237). Nevertheless, as Queyrel points out, the nearest equivalent to the Qasr lions is to be found at the Mausoleum of the Sarapeion of Memphis, where they are depicted in the round in the Dionysiac parade, which dates only slightly earlier than their brothers at the Qasr (WL I. 233, n.664). There are also parallels with the 98

lions on the great altar of Pergamon (237, n.719). We discuss parallels with Pergamon further below (p.121).

Fig. 29, Lioness body at northeast corner, showing underbelly “garland” (WL. II, fig.98) As for the corner lions of two bodies at right angles with one projecting head at the intersection, according to Queyrel this is an oriental feature with parallels such as on the ivory box found at Megiddo (WL.I, 238, n. 723, though that dates to the 12th cent. BCE). The use of the single head is a device of optical illusion typical of Alexandrian taste (WL.I, 238). These unusual beasts also have an affinity with the human-headed giant guardian bulls of Assyria, having combined front and side views (with five legs each!) The single head contributes to the virtual effect of the lion seen in perspective, particularly when the sculpture is seen from a distance and from below (WL.I, 239). The whole lion/lioness concept also imparts a remarkable element of surprise to the architecture of the building which, according to Queyrel, is quite baroque-like. The effect of viewing the lions in perspective is positively Euclidean, and one which the sculptor and architect might have learnt at the School of Alexandria (WL.I, 239). However, the treatment of the sculptures with their exaggerations, their rather laborious execution and the simplication of muscular features, is the result of crude local workmanship. It is similar to the unsophisticated work of the Dionysiac parade at Memphis, which Queyrel dates to the end of the third century BCE and which Hyrcanus might have seen (WL.I, 217, n.613). It is not possible to specify the workshop that produced these sculptures, Queyrel can only say they are of the school of Alexandria, which came into vogue later at Petra, particularly at the Khazne, and at the temple of lions and gryphons (WL.I, 240, n.750). At the Qasr, the application of sophisticated sculpture in a rather crude mode of execution, epitomizes the

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hopes and aspirations of the Tobiad grandees, in their attempt to emulate an Alexandrian form of Hellenism (WL.I, 241). We come now to the top of the tree, to the eagles that surmounted the cornice and perched at the corner capitals of each pediment (our fig. 7). As for the lion, they are in a variety of poses; at the corners their open wings hide the column capital from two sides, at the front and rear loggias they show a three-quarter view with only one wing unfurled. But in no way are they unnaturally represented, like the lions, with one head on two bodies. The loggia eagles have their contemporary equivalent at Marissa, in the (my emphasis) funerary niche (WL.I, 249, n.759). They are of course also represented on the Ptolemaic coinage, with wings more or less open (our fig.30).

Fig. 30, Coin from Alexandria, obverse, Ptolemy I Soter Reverse, Eagle Inscription Ptolemaioy Basileos (from Stern 1981, central illustration) The symbolism of the eagle is one of royal authority as derived from the trappings of victory; the bird is often shown with a crown on its head and a palm in its claws (WL.I, 250, n.762). Additionally it can be seen with a captive serpent, also as a symbol of victory (n.764). In the Ptolemaic coinage, the eagle is a bird precious to Zeus and emblematic to the Ptolemies. But the eagle was also important to the Seleucids; the bird of Zeus indicated to Seleucus where to site his capital of Antioch (n.767). Hyrcanus, says Queyrel, used the eagle in the same way as Ptolemy II Philadephos set it up on his royal tent to proclaim the power of his dynasty (n.768). Queyrel emphasizes that the eagle, in spite of its appearance at the Marissa tombs, has no funerary connections at the Qasr (WL.I, 250). The eagle has no local precedent at Damascus or Aleppo, but in the ancient cities of Sumer and Elam it was the symbol of several gods (WL.I, 257). Its employment at Airaq al-Amir is Ptolemaic as well as Hellenistic and Roman, as at Petra (on the Khazne) and in the Hauran and at Palmyra (WL.I, 251, n.772). In conclusion Queyrel says that the eagles above and the panthers below emphasise the “lofty” characteristics of the lions. Together 100

they symbolize Hyrcanus’s hankering after power in a desert environment and in an atmosphere of pseudo-royalty (WL.I, 251). We shall return to other sections of the impressive Will and Larché volume (WL.I & II) in connection with the unusual forms of the construction used in the Qasr (so well illustrated in part II); the possible sequence of construction; the effect of earthquakes (if any) on the building; and further parallels to the representations of the animals. In particular we shall look at all these matters and how they impinge on the presumed function of the Qasr. The Will and Larché volume makes little mention of the other elements of the site and the monuments on it, but we shall examine them in some detail and indicate their relationship to the Qasr itself. Before that, we examine the Tobiad inscription and related names and look again at the sculptural bestiary from a different angle.

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CHAPTER 11.

The Tobiad Lexicon

It is necessary to examine some of the names and terms that have been discussed throughout this essay. First among them must be the name Tobias, but we shall also look at Hyrcanus, the geographical place names Tyros and Airaq al-Amir, and the building terms Qasr al-Abd, Baris and Charax. We have discussed above the earlier Tobiads, based on Biblical texts and on the work of Mazar (see Chap. 4). The name Toubiah, Tobyah or Tobias was obviously a strong factor of unification within this powerful family, and it is clear that as a name it was handed down from grandfather to grandson over many generations. We can be sure that we have the one family before us, seeing that in several cases the name is linked with the title “the servant”, that being the title of a royal minister, and most likely so in the classic mention of it in Nehemiah. The name and title appear together first in the Lachish letters (see p.24) so we are going back to at least 587 BCE. If Hyrcanus died at the accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, as Josephus claims, which would be in 175 BCE, we then have a run of over 400 years for this influential family, and all of this well attested in a variety of literary documents, the Lachish letters, the Book of Nehemiah, the Zenon Papyri, the two Books of the Maccabees, and above all the Antiquities of Josephus Flavius, a very considerable record. We have also gone beyond Mazar and claimed in Chap. 4 (pp. 27-30) that the name may be connected with the Land of Tob, as in the story of Jephthah (Judges 11) and with Ish-Tob, who fought with the Ammonites against David, king of Judah (2 Sam. 10). In passing we should add that the name Tobiah itself is not a rare one. The meaning is Tobi-yah, “God is good” (or better, “Yahu is my good”, BDB, 376) and it could have been used extensively throughout Israel; but curiously in the Bible, it appears rarely outside the references to the Tobiads in Nehemiah. A Tobjah is referred to twice, in Zech. 6:10 and 14, as a family coming from exile out of Babylon, and Mazar links them also to the Tobiads (1957, 235) though there is no proof for this. The name Tobiyahu (Tobijah) occurs in 2 Chron. 17:8 as that of a Levite sent out to teach by Jehoshaphat (870-845 BCE). In the Apocrypha, the Book of Tobit is about one Tobias, the son of Tobit, the son of Tobiel (Tobit 1:1 and 9), all names based on the word tob or “good”. In later literature we have “Tobiah, the doctor” who appears in front of the Sanhedrin to testify to seeing the new moon (M. Rosh Hashana 1:7). According to Josephus, one of the later members of the family was Joseph son of Tobias, who became the famous tax farmer of the Ptolemies. He had several sons by one wife and another son, Hyrcanus, by a second (Ant. XII, 186). Were any of them called Tobias, after their grandfather? It is most 102

likely that one was. Hyrcanus is never referred to by any other name though from the story of Heliodorus seizing the Temple treasure (2 Macc. 3:11) it appears that Hyrcanus is there called Hyrcanus-Tobias (Yrkanos tou Tubiou) and it was the opinion of Clermont-Ganneau that Tobias was his Hebrew name (1896, 262), though most other authorities disagree and say it means Hyrcanus son of Tobias (see p.42). It would have been unlikely for Hyrcanus to have carried the family name of Tobias, that presumably was the prerogative of the eldest son, or at least a son of the first wife, and Hyrcanus was a latecomer, son of a second wife or even a concubine (see Chap. 2). Mazar suggests one of the other sons carried the name of Tobias (1957, 235) but we hear nothing further of him. Hyrcanus was shunned by his other brothers (Ant. XII, 221) and presumably the son called Tobias, siding with the Hellenists against the Hasmoneans, met a gory end during one of the battles in Jerusalem or elsewhere. Perhaps he was even one of the two brothers that Josephus claims were killed by Hyrcanus (Ant. XII, 222), and that would have been the end of the named line of Tobias. The Tobiads were wealthy landowners with an estate in Transjordan, between Jericho and Amman (fig.1). As this territory was closer to the land of Ammon than to Judah itself it came to be associated with Ammon and consequently “Tobias, the servant” is referred to in Nehemiah as “Tobias, the servant, the Ammonite” (Neh. 2:10). As we have said above this in no way implies non-Jewish affiliation, it is a geographical term referring to his estates. It could also imply that at this time in the Persian period the Tobiads were ministers of the Persian king for Ammon, that is, regional governors of this part of Transjordan (Mazar 1957, 144). This would have been of a temporary nature while the Persians ruled “Yehud” (their name for the province of Judah) as after that we know that the Toubias of the Zenon Papyri showed allegiance to Ptolemy II of Egypt (see p.20) and eventually Joseph the tax farmer lived in Jerusalem. It is worth noting moreover that this Joseph was born at Phichola according to Josephus (Ant. XII, 160) and, although the name is unattested, it is possible that it is variant of Pehel, which Aharoni identifies with Pella (1979, 34, & Map 11) in Transjordan, east of the Jordan, opposite Bet Shean. Pehel was renamed Pella, in honour of Alexander the Great’s birthplace of that name in Macedonia, when Pehel became a polis in the early Hellenistic period. How Joseph, son of Tobias, came to be born there, rather than in Tyros or Jerusalem, is not clear. But it does suggest that he was certainly not the son of the Toubias of the Zenon papyrus (see pp. 17-20), who lived at Tyros, but rather his great-grandson (see p. 50). At Airaq al-Amir, two of the caves are fronted with the inscription “TOBYAH”. The wording was seen by the earliest explorers, Irby, Mangles and Bankes, by de Vogüé, by de Saulcy, by Conder and Mantell and others, who could not make sense of it, and the correct reading was first recorded by Nöldeke. Enno Littmann, however, who accompanied the Butler expedition, gives the credit to de Vogüé, Nöldeke and Clermont-Ganneau 103

(Littmann, 1907, 1-2). We have found no evidence that de Vogüé got it right, though Clermont-Ganneau certainly did (1896, 263), but Nöldeke had read it correctly thirty years earlier. He writes: “Höchst interessant ist nun schliesslich die ganz kurze Inschrift Nr.2, welche von einem 176 v. Chr. Geb. Errichteten Gebäude stammt und sicher aus der Zeit des Baues ist. De Vogüé liesst ; ich lese und zweifle nich dass meine Lesart allgemeine Billigung finden wird, obgleich sich über den ersten Buchstaben wegen der Beschädigung desselben streiten liesse. Hier haben wir also Quadratsschrift aus der vormakkabäischen Zeit”.

This little passage shows that de Vogüé had misread the inscription and that it was the first letter that misled readers because, Nöldeke says, it was damaged. This is not so, rather it was the rare form of the letter, and Nöldeke, who had not seen the inscription itself, got it right. However, like others after him, he dates the inscription by the assumed date of its adjacent major building, the Qasr, which he takes to be 176 BCE (Nöldeke 1865, 640-1). Conder, writing much later, and reading Uriah (1889, 77) had obviously still not heard of Nöldeke’s correct reading. Like de Vogüé, he took the first problematic letter to be an ’ayin. Driver, in his authoritative introduction to the Book of Samuel, mentions the inscription, and says that de Vogué got it right in 1868 (Driver 1913, xx). He does not mention Nöldeke at all. As to the dating of the two inscriptions, Enno Littmann (1907, 2-4) makes a full study of the rather curious forms of the lettering (our figs.14 and 15). First of all, one should say that the letters are large, 38–40cm high, deliberately cut and neatly executed. They are by no means casual graffiti. The eastern inscription (our fig.14) is very clear and hardly eroded, being protected by an overhang in the cliff. The western one (fig.15) is a little less clear, as the rockface is badly weathered but the letters are still easily recognisable except that in this case the final letter, the leftmost one, is damaged. The difficulty in reading the inscription was not the state of the letters, but their form, which was a transitional one between palaeo-Hebrew and modern square script. As we have noted, the first letter in particular (tet) caused problems. Littmann’s analysis concentrated on two factors, the palaeographic evidence and correlation with historical events. On the first count, his analysis is convincing. He relates the form of the letters to the stele of Teima (CIS. II, 113) and the Aramaean (Aramaic) monuments found in Egypt, the stelae of Sakkarah (CIS. II, 122), and Carpentras (CIS. II, 141), which are dated to the fourth or fifth century BCE. Littmann gives Sakkara as 482 BCE (1907, 4). These comparisons are legitimate if one looks at our incriptions in relation to the table given by Franz Rosenthal (1939, Table 2 at end), which reproduces the alphabets of CIS. II, 113, 122 and 141. This table is shown as our fig.31. However, Littmann then changes tack and relates the inscriptions to the historical circumstance of Hyrcanus, saying: 104

“there is no cogent reason why the letters under discussion must needs be of the 5thor 4th century B.C. and there is no serious objection to their being dated in the early 2nd century” (1907,4).

Littmann is obviously mesmerised by the ruins of the Qasr, which he insists was a temple (1907, 5) and feels he can legitimately relate the cave inscriptions to the time of Hyrcanus. Similarly, Nöldeke, the first to read the inscriptions correctly, also dated them by the Qasr monument.

Fig. 31, Schedule of Royal Aramaic Inscriptions. Note column 11 (KK) (from Rosenthal 1939, Table of Scripts 2)

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A similar attitude is taken by L. H. Vincent in his excellent review of the inscriptions (1923, 55-68). He draws similar parallels with Teima, Sakkara and Carpentras and goes so far as to draw out the original inscriptions with parallels based on nine other scripts (1923, 63). We reproduce this in our fig.32 (with certain additions to be explained below). On the basis of these parallels, Vincent would date the inscriptions to a range between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE (1923, 6l). But then he abandons this sensible conclusion by claiming that the Aramaic forms developed further in Palestine and that: “il paraît s’imposer de conclure ici que les textes d’Araq el Emîr représentaient beaucoup mieux les formes de l’écriture araméenne usitée en Palestine au cours du IIIe siècle que vers le milieu du second avant notre ère” (1923, 65).

Fig. 32, Table of Scripts by Vincent (1923, 63) with addition of No. 9, four letters from KK by Torrey (as fig. 33) 1, 1a 2 3, 3a 4, 4a 5 6 7 8

Airaq al-Amir Teima Stele Saqqarah Stele Carpentras Stele Saqqarah Vase Vatican Stele Teima Tile Gezer Amphora

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Vincent is veering away from his own well-founded comparisons, and also from the Hyrcanus date, so that he can correlate the inscriptions with the, at the time, recently discovered (1915) papyri of Zenon, and show that the inscriptions were the work of the Toubias of 259 BCE (Vincent 1923, 68) of the Zenon papyri (see pp. 17-20). Benjamin Mazar goes in the opposite direction, suggesting an early date at “the end of the sixth or the beginning of the fifth century B.C.” (Mazar 1957, 229). He bases himself on palaeographic grounds, saying the inscription is one of “the earliest examples of the official Aramaic script” and predates that of the Yhd stamps and coins, the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine (c. 420 BCE), the ostraca from Ezion-Geber, and the Nippur documents of Darius II (1957, 141). He also relates the script to Teima (6th century BCE) and Saqqara (482 BCE) and refers to other inscriptions of the Persian Empire and, incidentally, to “the monumental inscription from Cilicia (fifth century B.C.)”, which he does not define. Mazar’s conclusion is that “the TOBYAH inscriptions must be dated at the latest to the beginning of the fifth century B.C.” (1957, 142). This would place them fair and square in the period of “Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite” of Neh. 2:10 (see p.22). A dissenting view, however, is expressed by Joseph Naveh, who discusses the TOBYAH inscriptions in relation to both the archaeological and paleographic data (Naveh 1976, 62-64). He dismisses the early date of the fifth century, because of the shape of the “he having a perfectly horizontal bar” and says that it appears to be of the fourth century BCE and that there is no reason to ascribe the inscription to any particular personality of the name Tobyah, “but rather to the family as a whole” (1976, 63). After considering that the inscription may have been later, based on Lapp’s idea that it was a late survival “frozen” from a century or so earlier, Naveh concludes that it was prepared as a family emblem that was fixed in the fourth century BCE (1976, 64). Frank Cross also dates the inscriptions to the late fourth or early third century BCE (Cross 1961, 191, n.13). We beg to differ from these expert opinions, though we would agree with Naveh that it is not necessary to link the inscriptions to any one particular individual named Tobyah. Naveh’s point about the “perfectly horizontal bar” on our he being different from other fifth-century models is quite true regarding the inscriptions mentioned by Littmann and Vincent (as can be seen from the table in Rosenthal, our fig.31). But there is one inscription that does indeed have a truly horizontal stroke to the top of the he and that is in Rosenthal’s column11, the “Inschrift von Kesegek Kojn”. All the others have a sloping head to the he, but not this one. In fact all the forms of Rosenthal’s column 11 are remarkably close to those of our inscriptions, though unfortunately the tet is not present at Kesegek Kojn (referred to below as KK).

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This inscription is referred to only briefly by Rosenthal (1939, 33) but it is described fully by C. C. Torrey who published it in 1915, with photographs (Torrey 1915-1917, 370-374). The stone was cut out of a cliff near the village of Kesejek Keoyew (Torrey’s spelling) about 15 miles north-east of Tarsus. It was purchased in 1915 and is now in the Library museum of Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut. The letters are about 4.5cm high and relatively clear, for the stone, though weathered, is a hard flint (see our fig.33). We have added the letters from KK that correspond to the TOBYAH inscription as no. 9 on the chart by Vincent (fig.32). They match well, it is just unfortunate that, as we have said, there is no example of the tet. We believe this is “the monumental inscription from Cilicia” referred to by Mazar (1957, 142).

Fig. 33, The Cilicia Inscription from KK (from Torrey, 1915-1917, 370/371) Torrey dates the KK inscription to the fifth century BCE on palaeographic grounds, which he says are “always somewhat precarious” (1915-17, 371). But as he also finds close comparison with the Sakkara Inscription (CIS. II, 122; he calls it Memphis) and the Teima stele (CIS. II, 113), we see he is in agreement with Littmann, Vincent and Naveh in placing them all in the fifth century. His further reason is important. He claims that coins issued by the Persians in Cilicia in the first quarter of the fourth century, and the hunting inscription of Cilicia, show an alphabet of a later type. So he places the KK inscription “as early as the fifth century B.C.” (1915-17, 371). As the KK inscription shows a he with a perfectly level horizontal head, we believe that meets Naveh’s objection (as above) and that we can ascribe the TOBYAH inscription to the fifth century BCE. The fact that it is linked on palaeographic grounds to inscriptions as far away as Cilicia and Egypt need not contradict our case, as these locations were all part of the great Persian Empire with Aramaic-speaking governors running satrapies throughout its 108

far-flung territories. One such satrapy, or part of one, was Ammon (see p. 25) and one of its leading citizens, even if not himself governor, was “Tobias, the servant, the Ammonite” of the fifth century BCE, contemporary and enemy of Nehemiah, the king’s cupbearer and Tirshata (Neh.1:11 and 8:9). However, having reached this conclusion, we must now consider another aspect. No discussion of the inscriptions has taken into account that the eastern one is cut on a prepared surface cut out of the cliff that incorporates a rather individual doorway (see fig. 34). Though poorly preserved, the door opening is framed by a double-rebated architrave to the sides and head. The threshold is not in existence. This rather primitive form of framing is rare, seen mainly in Limyra, in the area of Lycia, in southern Turkey, where it appears on a large number of rock-cut tombs in the hillside above the town as a motif used almost exclusively for these tombs of the fourth century BCE (Bean 1978, 26, 30, 143-5, figs. 81, 82, 83). We reproduce an example from Limyra (Brewster 1993, fig. 21) as our fig. 35. The same doorway motif is also used at rock-cut tombs in Araxa, Cyanese, Teimiussa and Myra, all in the area of Lycia and dated to fourth century BCE (Bean 1978, figs. 29, 57, 60, 70).

Fig. 34, Double rebated architrave to Doorway by Inscription No. 1 (East)

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Fig. 35, Rock-cut Tombs at Limyra (from Brewster 1993, fig. 21) We may therefore have to abandon our confident parallel to the KK inscription of the fifth century, seeing that ours was carved on a surface that is unlikely to have been cut before the fourth century at the earliest. If it is indeed to be dated to that century it is later than the Tobiah of Nehemiah and earlier than the Toubias of Zenon. The very early date of Mazar becomes impossible and the late dates of Vincent and Littmann unnecessary. Our proposal is that the inscriptions be dated to the late fourth or very early third century BCE, when the territory of Tyros first came under the hegemony of the Ptolemies, from 320 onwards (Modrzejewski 1995, 235) and when Lycia, in southern Turkey, was also part of the Ptolemaic Empire (Schalit 1976, 20, map). The dating would agree with Naveh and Cross (Cross p.c. July 2002) and it is not then possible to tie the two inscriptions to any particular member of the Tobiad clan. The parallel of the doorway framing with Lycia also suggests that the entrance was to a cave or rock-cut tomb of some kind, though there is no longer any evidence of such use. The two TOBYAH inscriptions appear on the two major caves, and one wonders as to their purpose. Both are placed near to carefully squared doorways. The eastern one (fig.14) is just to the right of the door frame with the double-rebated architrave and leads into a double-height hall of about 18m. in length by 9m. in width. This is Conder’s cave No. 13, but as it was full of brambles, he was not able to survey it completely (Conder 1889, 76). However, it seems to have been similar to his cave no. 11, which was also 18m. long, but 10m. wide and 10 m. high, to the apex of a shallow arched ceiling springing from a rebated cornice (1889, 75, figs.17 and 18). It is this cave no.11 which carried the second TOBYAH incription, in this case to the left of the squared doorway. That doorway does not have any special framing. In both cases the carved doorway does not lead to the floor of the hall, but enters at an upper level, and there was probably a wooden stair leading down. At present there is a rough ramp in cave no.11, which may be

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a later addition. In cave no.13 there is a sheer drop, and the rock below contains another doorway giving level access.

The double doorway to Cave 13 is unusual. The lower doorway, now of irregular shape, must have been the main, perhaps the original, point of entry, as shown by pivot recesses at each end of the overhead lintel. The upper opening, with the double-rebated frame, may have been a doorway to an upper internal floor of wood or even a window (as suggested on site by M. Zimmerman, Jan. 2006). As it is the opening with the TOBYAH inscription alongside, we favour the idea of it being a doorway to a tomb chamber in the past, but the questions of access and flooring are unresolved.

Cave no.13 is also unusual in having three sets of recessed holes carved into the rock face that projects above the doorway (see fig.75). We can only surmise that these were to hold some kind of awning or velarium that was stretched before the doorway to form a ceremonial stage or sitting area. The specially cut doorway with the squared-off recess around it, and an area of level ground in front of the cliff, point in the same direction (see fig.36). If this is correct then the use of the inscription TOBYAH would give added meaning to this place, which may have been an open-air reception area in front of the hall, used perhaps in this case for banqueting as Josephus has suggested (Ant. XII, 231). This would, however, have been a use much later than the date of the inscription. Regarding the three recessed holes, de Saulcy had already suggested that they may have been to hold one end of a tent or “a kind of verandah” (1865, 215). Pictures of such an awning appear at Pompeii and Praeneste/Palestrina (MacKendrik 1962, 118, fig.5.1). We reproduce part of the Palestrina Barberini Mosaic as our fig.37, taken from McKenzie 1990, pl. 245. MacKendrik claims it is a late Hellenistic copy of an early Ptolemaic original in Egypt.

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Fig. 36, Sketch of ceremonial entrance to Cave 13

Fig. 37, Detail of Praeneste (Palestrina) Mosaic with Awning or Valerium (from McKenzie 1990, pl. 245

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The entrance to Cave no.11 is not in the same class, there is no evidence of a possible awning, an external platform or reception area. However the interiors are similar, being artificially cut with an arched ceiling and cornices, and a formal doorway with the inscription alongside. The common elements are the inscription and the carved-out hall. As to their use, Mazar suggests that they were graves at an early date (1957, 141) and, before him, Albright also thought they were the tombs of the Tobiads (1932, 171). At later periods it was general practice for the family name to be inscribed at the entrance to a burial cave or at the family section within a cave (Price 2003, 42). Vincent takes the view that these two caves were singled out by Toubias (of Zenon fame) for his own safe-house in case of any attack on the estate (Vincent 1923, 67) while Littmann suggests that they were a claim to ownership by an individual Tobias “to indicate that he was living there or had his property in them” (Littmann 1907, 3). We are of the opinion that the two caves were indeed originally burial chambers at the early time of the inscriptions and were later extended and converted to triclinia or dining rooms to honour the dead, in fact the banqueting halls mentioned by Josephus (Ant. XII, 231). This conversion took place under Hyrcanus, when he was planning to place all the family tombs in his new monument, the Qasr al-Abd (see pp. 137-138). It is hardly possible to take this matter further as access to the two caves in question is barred at present due to the dangerous condition of the roofs. There is some evidence of rockfall at the entry to Cave no.11 and considerable evidence elsewhere. At one place west of these two caves, a large fall has occurred in the past, making a clean horizontal break presumably along a line of layering (see fig.38). It is these lines of layering between the strata in the limestone that have facilitated the cutting of the caves in antiquity, and that now make them vulnerable to falls of rock. Local talk suggests that the recent building of a new road on the mountainside above the caves has helped to loosen some sections of the cliffs, but this is uncertain. Nevertheless it has led the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism to stop work on making the caves accessible to the public.

Fig. 38, Rockfall Break at Cliff face 113

CHAPTER 12.

Further Names, Places and Folktales

The name Tobias leads us on to another name, Hyrcanus. Joseph, father of Hyrcanus, presumably picked up this name from the Ptolemies in Alexandria. It has no Jewish basis though it was used extensively in Palestinian circles shortly after the time of this Hyrcanus. ClermontGanneau, as quoted by Zayadine (1991, 20) says the name is of Persian origin and equivalent to Vourkan. It certainly comes from a location near the Caspian Sea, also called the Hyrkanian Sea (Pliny Nat. Hist. IV, 58; Cook 1983, 197 & 260) which was in the Persian Empire conquered by Alexander the Great. Alexander was known to favour cultural rapprochement with his former Persian enemies (he himself married a number of Persian princesses) and probably encouraged the use of Persianstyle names. The idea would have spread to Ptolemaic Alexandria and thus to Joseph, tax farmer to the Ptolemies. It was probably smart and “modern” to use such a name for a Jewish boy in the Hellenistic period. There may be another more direct connection with Hyrcania, the area by the Caspian Sea. It appears that Artaxerxes Ochus took Jewish prisoners from Egypt and settled them in that location in 345-343 BCE (Schürer 1986, 6). When they returned to Judah/Coele-Syria at a later date, after the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander, they were known as Hyrcanians and from that derived the popular name Hyrcanus (Schürer 1973, 201, n.2). The name is used by the Maccabees, particularly John (Johanan) Hyrcanus, son of Simon Maccabeus, who was High Priest from 135 and later King to 104 BCE. His grandson Hyrcanus II became High Priest in 76 and died (or was murdered) in 30 BCE. The name flourished in early Rabbinic circles, and was borne by the father of Rabbi Eliezer the Great also known as R. Eliezer ben Hyrkanos (fl. 80-110 CE) and the father of another sage, Dosu ben Harkinas (fl. 40-80 CE). Just as Alexander was a name popular among Jews because of his supposed kindness to them in not attacking Jerusalem (Josephus Ant. XI, 338) so his promotion of the name Hyrcanus probably also appealed to them. The use of this name by Joseph the tax farmer, at the early date of c.200 BCE, does suggest that he considered his youngest son different from those of his first wife (who probably had traditional names including that of Tobias) and that may have followed on from his unorthodox union with the dancing girl (as p. 15). Josephus calls the estate of Hyrcanus Tyros (Ant XII, 233) and we have already shown that many scholars connect this, quite rightly, with a place of rocks (Hebrew Tsur) and to the present-day name of the Wadi es–Sir that runs through the site. The name occurs in the Zenon Papyri in the form Surabit or Tsurabit (see p. 18), which shows that, contra Josephus, it existed well before Hyrcanus. There is no particular mystery then to this name of 114

Tyros, though it does not occur in Maccabees or Nehemiah in relation to our site. The Biblical Tsur, however, always refers to Tyre of the Phoenicians, whose king was Hiram at the time of Solomon (1 Kgs 5:15 etc). From Tyros we shall turn to the current name Airaq al-Amir. The name occurs in the earliest European account (Irby & Mangles 1823, 473) and throughout all later accounts, but transliterations vary considerably in their spellings. All the early versions start with “A”, and indeed the present pronunciation by the locals is closest to “Ai”. While the name seems to have been standardized as ‘Arak el-Emir or ‘Araq el-Emir, the latest version as adopted by the French and others has been ‘Iraq al-Amir. The reasoning has been well set out in a letter from Frank Cross to Nancy Lapp, stating that he preferred the modern el-Emir, as used by Albright and Paul Lapp, to the classical al-Amir, and recommended following them as to ‘Araq, though suspecting that the Jordanian form was ‘Iraq (N. Lapp, 1983, 7). The latest French Team has adopted the new Jordanian form of ‘Iraq together with the classical al-Amir. We do not like ‘Iraq because it leads to confusion with the country of that name and because many of the standard Encyclopaedias still have Araq (the NEAEHL 1993 has however adopted ‘Iraq el-Emir). As a compromise, we have used Airaq al-Amir. We must confess that this goes against the advice of F.M. Cross (p.c. July 2002) but we have adopted it and feel it gives a fair equivalent to the local pronunciation. Whatever the spelling, the meaning is “Cliff of the Prince”, the word ‘Araq or ‘Iraq being in a local dialect, and it may be of Bedouin origin. Its meaning relates it to the earlier Tyros, in that both refer to the most prominent feature of the site, a row of rocky cliffs. From one local name we should go straight to another, the name for the monumental building, the Qasr al-Abd. The spelling is non-controversial though it used to be written as Kasr. The meaning is clear, the “Castle of the Slave”. Abd is equivalent to the Hebrew ebed, usually meaning “slave”. But it can also be “servant” and, as we have seen above (p.24), “the servant” can imply servant of the king and thus be a title of honour. The name has however been interpreted locally in its literal sense and so it looks as if the palatial monument belongs to the Slave while the cliffs belong to the Prince. Local history has wound ingenious legends around these names, as quoted by both Conder and Littmann. While the Prince of the Cliffs was away to pay his respects to the Prophet in Mecca, he left his daughter in the charge of a black slave. The slave promptly fell in love with her and she promised to marry him if he built a palace for her. This he did with enormous stones that he could lift with the power of love, but before the castle could be completed, the Emir returned and killed the slave with fire and buried him beneath one of the giant stones (Conder 1889, 78). In the version quoted by Littmann there are several additional details. The slave laboured for seven years, he quarried the stones out of the cliffs, he made a lake for the palace and filled it from an aqueduct. He had completed the palace and on his shoulder was bringing another stone for the door when the Emir appeared, 115

and the slave dropped the stone on his own heart and died (Littmann 1907, 6-7). The fact that the monument is called Qasr al-Abd is significant as it suggests a castle or palace and it seems highly likely that the slave or servant suffix relates directly or indirectly to Tobias, the servant (of the king). As the monument was extensively used in Byzantine times (as p.205) it is quite possible that any early Muslim association with the area (c.650 CE) saw it as a ruined or unfinished palace and still knew of its association with the Tobiads, servants of the king. As for the cliffs, they were cliffs of course for all to see, and if the monument was that of the “Slave” he must have had a master and that master was obviously “Prince of the Cliffs”. We come now to the two Greek terms Baris and Charax. Baris has given no end of trouble as Josephus has described the monument built by Hyrcanus as a Baris (Ant XII, 230) and it is certainly not a fortress, which is the normal translation. Scholars have tried to make the word baris therefore mean castle or palace (Ernest Will 1982, 199; 1983, 151) or even temple (de Saulcy 1865, 222), though it is only fair to say that de Saulcy saw the building as a tower built by Hyrcanus inside an earlier temple. It cannot be a fortress as it lies at the bottom of a basin and its sides are partially open, with rows of apertures on the east and west sides and open porticoes on the north and south. So it seemed reasonable to alter the meaning of fortress to fortified villa (Albright 1933, 29), which it equally is not, and then from fortified villa to plain villa or château (WL.I, 35). However there is another explanation. It is generally agreed that baris is the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic birta and the Hebrew bira. We have clear examples of bira in Biblical literature from the books of Daniel, Nehemiah and Esther. All refer to “Shushan haBira” (Dan. 8:2, Neh. 1:1, Esther 1:2, 5) usually translated as Shushan (Susa, or Shush in Persian) the Castle. Now it is clear from the Book of Esther that this Bira or castle was a complex of buildings that included the royal palaces and also other dwellings, as Mordecai (Esther’s cousin) also lived in Shushan haBira (Esther 2:5). Furthermore, this complex of buildings had its own gateway, as Mordecai sat in the king’s gate (Esther 2:21) which must have been the gate to the complex. We also have an example of the meaning of the Aramiac birta from the Elephantine papyri of the 5th century BCE. They describe the Jewish military colony of Elephantine Island (in southern Egypt) as residing in the Yeb Birta (Cowley 1923, 112). That birta contained the Jewish temple, many residences and obviously all the houses of the garrison and it may even have meant the whole town with its walls and gates (Kaiser 1998, fig. 3). In other words, therefore, we believe that Josephus’s Baris refers not so much to a single building as to the whole Hyrcanus estate, fortified or not. We concede that the word in Josephus refers to the actual monument “which 116

was constructed entirely of white marble etc etc” (Ant. XII, 230) but he may have misconstrued his Vorlage and changed the designation from the site to its main buiding. If this is correct, it would explain two things. First, the monument is not itself a baris but the site is a baris, in the sense of birta; that is, a complex of buildings within one unified area. Secondly, this unified estate needed its own dedicated point of entry or gateway. Hence the Monumental Gate that stands at the end of the great Dyke that retains the ‘lake’ to the Qasr. However there is a further difficulty. If the site as a whole is a baris or a birta, that implies that it was a fortified area, or at least a protected one. In the case of Airaq al-Amir the perimeter defences appear to have been minimal, though there was the Monumental Gate. But even that seems to have been built more for show than for security. However, the site was bounded by the cliffs and the Wadi es-Sir, so it was a clearly delineated site, a baris or birta. Gera has suggested that the term Baris refers to the buildings on the Village Tel, which were indeed surrounded by a defensive wall (1998, 43) and that Josephus wrongly transferred the term to the Qasr. This is an attractive idea and also explains how Zenon refers to the Birta of Ammanitis (see Chap.3) years before the time of Hyrcanus. However we prefer our idea that Baris refers to the estate as a whole, as that explains the inclusion of the Monumental Gateway that serves only as the formal point of entry to the estate. The last term to be examined is Charax, used as a place name in 2 Maccabees, specifically as “Charax, which is inhabited by the Tubian Jews” (12:17) and we follow Gera in considering this to have been Airaq al-Amir (as p. 43). We have calculated the distances and its position above, but now we should examine the word itself. Bartlett in his commentary to Maccabees says “the Greek word charax means a sharpened stake used in fortifying a camp site, and so the camp itself, and may not be the real name of the place” (Bartlett 1973, 314-5). He identifies it with Dathema in the north or near Bozrah to the south-east, but we think the term admirably fits the Hyrcanus estate. It was a model estate but clearly not a fortified one. Came the war of the Maccabees against their Seleucid masters, it seems that the Tobiads took the side of the Hasmoneans and must have tried desperately to defend their enclave, which did after all contain military units, at least at the time of the Zenon papyri and probably thereafter. In the time available they could have resorted only to defences of wooden palisades to link up between the cliffs, the Village Tel and the wall of the Qasr Dyke (our fig.17). Thus the site became a camp protected by wooden stakes or palisades when war with the Seleucids threatened. The name Charax would then be highly appropriate. Of course this in itself is not enough to identify the site but the distances given in Josephus enable us to reach the same conclusion (see pp. 43-46).

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CHAPTER 13. The Bestiary Revisited We have given above (pp.93ff.) a résumé of the French analysis of the animal figures on the Qasr, and before setting out our own views on this subject we should discuss the original article by Dorothy Kent Hill on one of the feline fountains (see fig. 6b). In 1962, in the third campaign at Airaq al–Amir led by Paul Lapp, the eastern fountain was uncovered, with its remarkable feline sculpture. In Lapp’s report it is described as “feline sculptured on mottled red and white dolomite block inserted in lowest dressed course of Qasr east wall toward north end” (1963, fig.13). Lapp calls its discovery “the most exciting event so far at Araq el-Emir” (1963, 26). Dr. Dorothy Kent Hill was an Honorary Associate of the Expedition and on the staff of the third campaign. Her article on the sculptured fountain was published with Lapp’s preliminary reports of the second and third campaigns (Hill 1963, 45-55). Hill gives a very full description of the animal and describes its form as a fountain. Taking the form first, she sees it as having four elements, the animal’s mouth or spout; the plastered water channel behind it, which she traces for 1.40m. (1963, 46) through the backing masonry; the rough overflow at the base of the sculpture (1963, 48, fig.4) and the basin in front of it. As to the source of the water she assumes it must have been connected in some way with a raised aqueduct originating from the Wadi es–Sir. This is patently impossible, as the animal’s mouth is at a higher level than the surrounding ground. If any water were to have been transferred it would have had to have been by siphonic action, a most unlikely circumstance. From the preliminary plans produced by Lapp (1963, 22, fig.7) and his architect (Brett 1963, 43, fig.2) it is clear that they were not aware of the reservoirs behind the sculptured fountains, Brett showing them just as rooms with doorways. Of course at that time they were only aware of one fountain. Lapp did however mention that there was a small plastered basin that may have stored water behind the one fountain (Lapp 1963, 27). De Saulcy had also shown these rooms as open chambers (WL.I, 257, fig.24) and it was only the French Team who fully recognized them as reservoirs, with evidence of plastering on the walls, still visible today (our fig.39).

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Fig. 39, Wall plaster to east Reservoir of Qasr So it is quite understandable that Hill could not trace the source of the water and, to be fair, her main concern was to examine the sculpture in artistic terms, as to provenance and date, but it is surprising that she completely neglects two other aspects. First, what was the purpose of the fountain? And secondly, what was the symbolism of this extraordinary sculpture? Seeing that Lapp was grappling with the identity of the Qasr, whether it was a residence, a mausoleum, or a temple (and he looked at all three possibilities, settling finally for the temple idea, see above p. 79), it is curious that this sculptured fountain was not discussed within that context. Hill does however say that her purpose is to give the sculpture speedy publication and that it was too early to ascertain its function or the reason for its presence on this “enigmatic building” (1963, 45). She claims: “the animal fountain. . . is the most striking sculptural monument in all Transjordan” (1963, 45), a bold claim but probably a justified one. She describes the animal as a lion without a mane, its “body slight for a lion, heavy for a leopard. . . the paws . . . resemble a bird’s claws. . . the variegated stone. . . provides a spotted hide. . . . as for the head, it is a trifle small for a lion, large for a leopard” (1963, 48 & 49). Her description sums up the sculpture very well and inclines one to see the animal as a leopard (having spots and no mane) rather than a lion, or even as a panther, as the French have designated it, though Hill never mentions that species. While not plumping for either lion or leopard, Hill suggests that the sculptor had in mind other works of mixed parentage, such as sphinxes and griffins, and thus produced a kind of feline hybrid (1963, 49), which was neither lion nor leopard. For a preliminary study, this is a fair summary and we feel that the later conclusion of the French, that we are dealing with a panther, is a designation that does not invalidate Hill’s general description. It may also be noted that felines with a frontal-facing head are all described

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by Greek archaeologists as panthers “for economy of description” (Cook 1976, 39). The feline, as we have said, was carved on a separate dolomite slab. This was much thinner than the monoliths otherwise forming the side walls of the Qasr and it was felt that the sculpture may have been added at a later date, the suggestion being that it could have been made for another location and then brought over for reuse at the Qasr. Hill rejects that suggestion outright as being virtually impossible, it would have required “some truly Herculanean engineering feat” to achieve (1963, 50). The explanation for the thinner slab is quite simple. The carving was made on a special block that the sculptor no doubt selected to reflect the spotted skin of the feline in question and this special dolomite stone, although from a local wadi (Lapp 1963, 26, n.33) was just not available in the massive dimensions of the adjoining megaliths. Hill goes into considerable (and impressive) detail on the artistic parallels for the feline. She notes that lions’ heads were common as waterspouts (protomes) on the eaves of Greek buildings from the sixth century BCE onwards (1963, 51) and similar examples existed nearer home in Nabatean Petra. Whole lions and leopards also appeared in fountains at Sbeitla– Sufetula in N. Africa and at Smyrna (1963, 52). Hill claims that this combination of feline and water is common in Greek art but not in other civilizations (1963, 53). On the other hand, she sees the motif as such deriving originally from the Orient and being grafted onto a Greek environment in the fourth century BCE (1963, 54). She discusses at some length the odd proportions of the feline’s head to body and in particular the uneven length of its legs. This may have been an attempt by the sculptor to give a three-dimensional effect based on the “laws of perspective and foreshortening” (1963, 53). That would put it on a par with the projecting lion-head gargoyle of the upper frieze, as remarked by Queyrel and which he attributed to instruction in the artistic schools of Alexandria (see pp. 99 above). Finally Hill concludes that the sculpture is the work of a provincial hand in the style of Greek art, showing also perhaps some Persian influence that came through the Seleucids and their rule of Persia, though admitting that examples of contemporary Parthian art (after 250 BCE) are not available for comparison. It may well be that she is correct about the provincial execution of this Hellenistic piece (which Hill sees no reason not to date to the Hyrcanus period of c.180 BCE) but we would claim, with Queyrel, that the non-Greek influence came from Alexandria rather than Persia. We can now turn to a reassessment of the three animal figures on the Qasr, the eagles, the lions and the panthers. Having given details of the figures seen through the eyes of Queyrel of the French Team (pp.93-101) and now the feline sculpture as seen by Hill of the Lapp expedition, we do not intend to repeat their investigations but rather to probe the symbolic significance of 120

this trio of somewhat exceptional figures. We shall start with the most extensive of the figures, those on the middle frieze, the lions and lionesses, which come in three categories, the males, the females and the cubs. The symbolism of the lion is three-fold. The lion imparts majesty and power, it is the king of the jungle. Secondly, the lion plays a protective part in guarding its own or its owner’s territory from harm in this world; thirdly, it has a role in guarding his or her tomb in the next. That the lion is shown together with a lioness and the lioness with her cub or cubs is most unusual and, as far as we can tell, unique. It suggests that Hyrcanus, or his sculptor, was trying to express a fourth attribute of the lion, one which attempts to express family continuity or continuity of the generations. (The lioness and cub can be compared to the image of the infant Telephus being suckled by a lioness, contemporary with the Qasr and described below). This attribute would have to be taken together with one of the previous three symbols and it would fit best with the tomb guardianship role. The symbolism then would be that Hyrcanus, a member of the Tobiad clan, was expressing hope of the continuity of the line after his death. This does not invalidate the plain guardianship role, as already mentioned. Clearly the lions had this function as we see they protected the building from every side, being grouped at the four corners. They guarded the porticoes at the north and south ends, but their figures extended around to the sides and particularly to the corners, where the single head of the dual bodies projected like a gargoyle (see fig. 5). Their fierce aspect warned all comers to beware. This was their apotropaic function. At the same time, as has been said previously, the lions also served to represent the power that lay within the building, as if to say we, the symbols of jungle royalty are here to protect our masters, also of royal blood, or at least of royal pretensions. Then what was the additional power of the lioness and her cubs? There is a telling figure of a suckling lioness on another Hellenistic monument, on the Pergamon Altar. The interior courtyard of the altar consisted of a peristyle decorated with a sculptured frieze depicting the story of the son of Hercules, Telephus, considered to be founder of the city of Pergamon. The outcome of one of Hercules’s sexual exploits, the baby was abandoned by its mother in a forest where it was suckled by a lioness and then found again by Hercules (Kunze 1995, fig. 34). This altar frieze (now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) was built on the orders of King Eumenes who ruled from 197 to 159 BCE (1995, 17). Obviously the infant Telephus gained his strength not just from his father Hercules but also from his foster mother, the lioness. Similarly, the lioness at the Qasr is suckling the future generation to take over the mantle of the Tobiads.

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The majority of Greek and Hellenistic lions were standing guard over tombs. Examples abound from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, completed in c.349 BCE, where there was a complete procession of free-standing lions on the entablature at the foot of the stepped pyramid roof (Lawrence 1983, 253 & 4). These lions numbered sixteen on each of the four elevations and they were set nose to tail from each corner so that at the middle two lions met face to face. At the corners they were tail to tail but with no attempt at combination tails (!) at least not according to the restoration by Waywell. A large number of sculpture fragments of lions lay around the site when it was first excavated in 1862 by Sir Charles Newton and many of these pieces are now in the British Museum. G. B. Waywell, who catalogued these items, considered the lion sculptures to be standing on the wide ledges of the threetier base of the monument. Most of the lions are in the range of 1.6m. to 1.4m. long and vary greatly in size of face, thickness of body and so on. The majority stand squarely on four feet with heads to one side and “their tails arching between their hind legs” (Waywell 1978, 28). The reconstruction (1978, fig. 4) has strong similarities to the lions of Airaq alAmir except that the latter appear fiercer in their facial expression (where still extant) and their legs are wider apart as if more ready to spring, more ready for action. The Qasr lions are on average larger than those of Halicarnassus, being about 2.5m.long and some 2.0m. high, while the average height of those at Halicarnassus is about 1.5m (see our fig.40).

Fig. 40, Lion from Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (from Waywell 1978, fig. 401)

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It is of special interest that there was a lioness at the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (the figure is now in the Istanbul Museum). Waywell is convinced it came from Halicarnassus as he has a hindquarter fragment of a lioness or female leopard, in similar detail, found at Halicarnassus (1978, 174, no. 374). He opines “Quite what the significance may have been of the inclusion of a lioness among the lions is hard to say” (1978, 28). There is no evidence of the inclusion of any cubs with the lioness. There were a number of other feline figures at Halicarnassus, which Waywell classifies as leopards rather than panthers. He says the term panther was often applied in the past but claims that there were no true panthers in Ancient Greece (1978, 173, n.1). Halicarnassus (now Bodrum) however was in Asia Minor where panthers may have existed, as they did in Syria and Jordan. The point at issue here is that figures of lions (and perhaps a lioness) and leopards/panthers were attached to the funerary monument of the tyrant Mausolus at Halicarnassus, built slightly before the Hellenistic period. At Cnidos, 30km. south across the water from Halicarnassus, is the Lion Tomb, probably an imitation of the Mausoleum. It is a rather severe square building surmounted by a stepped pyramidal roof, topped by a heavy plinth and finished off with a large glum-looking lion, now in the British Museum (BM. GR sculpture 1350). The tomb was nearly 20m.high and the lion is just over 3m.long (Lawrence 1983, fig.227). The building “contained a circular room with eleven small burial chambers radiating therefrom” and may have commemorated a naval battle, it being sited to overlook the sea (Lawrence 1983, 254). The building is variously dated from the fourth to the second century BCE (1983, 391, n.11) while the British Museum caption credits it to c. 350-200 BCE (our fig.41).

Fig. 41, Lion from tomb at Cnidos, British Museum (photograph 2001, GR. Sculpture 1350) 123

According to Fraser (1977), writing about the funerary monuments of Rhodes, “it is probable at all events that, at least as sepulchral decoration, the lion was a popular subject in the area (Caria and Rhodes) from the Archaic age onwards”. It was represented at Rhodes by two standing lions at the necropolis of Ialysos, and one now set up in the Rhodes Museum, probably of Hellenistic date (Fraser 1977, 37). Fraser shows photographs of these funereal lions, mostly recumbent, in his figs. 100 (a) & (b) and 101 (a) to (f). According to Kurtz and Boardman “by far the commonest animal marker (of a Greek tomb) was a lion” (1971, 238). It appears that the Greek and Hellenistic lion symbol on funerary monuments goes back to an extremely ancient source. In 1907 at the socalled “Tomb of Nestor” at Morca in Greece, Arthur Evans came across a signet ring with a design showing “a glimpse into the world beyond as conceived by the Minoans” (Evans 1976, 215 and pl.17). It will be seen that the underworld is presided over by a lion figure reclining comfortably on a large couch and adored by two kneeling females (our fig.42). Evans refers to the lion figure as “the Lion Guardian of the Underworld” and dates it to the second millenium BCE (Evans 1976, 216). This is indeed an early forerunner, perhaps the earliest, of the Greek funerary lion, which was so prevalent in Greek art from the late seventh century BCE onwards (Boardman 1973, fig.75).

Fig. 42, Lion from the Ring of Nestor presiding over the Underworld (from Evans 1976, 213) Goodenough in his monumental work on Jewish Symbols in the GrecoRoman period warns against the over-simplification of seeing the lion as “a symbol of Jewish royalty” or as “the power of God. . . the power of the Torah” in synagogue art (1958, VII, 37). He sees the lion as a symbol that 124

came into Palestine in the Persian Period, illustrated by a seal from Gush Halav in the Galilee, showing a king standing on an antelope and “holding a lion in each hand”, which he takes to show the lion as “a power that conquers death” (VII, 41). In Egypt the lion was also associated with divinity and royalty but had another function as a saviour of the dead. The couches that carried the dead person to their final destination had lion feet and a lion’s head. As Goodenough says, “the lion saved the deceased by being one of the psychopomps of Egyptian fantasy” (VII, 48). In the Greek world, as in Egypt, lions “were proper at gates”, presumably in a guardian function. “But the lion also guards the dead” says Goodenough and attributes the idea to Evans, who thought it came to Mycenae from Egypt (VII, 53). Lions were common on Greek tombs and “were considered especially appropriate for the graves of warriors” as exemplified by the pair of golden lions that guarded the burial chambers of Alexander the Great (VII, 54). In his summary Goodenough sees the lion associated with the cult of Dionysus, who took the human soul with him on his journey to the next world, and who uses the lion to symbolize the death of the individual and his rebirth into another life (VII, 57). Although Goodenough’s analysis of the lion may appear to be speculative and indeed fanciful, he is only re-expressing the ideas we have shown above to be derived from Greek and Minoan sources, that lions are directly associated with aspects of life beyond the tomb. Goodenough extends the ideas to Egypt, where the symbolism of death is so highly developed. As far as the Qasr is concerned, the symbolism of the lion will have derived from the tomb architecture of Lycia and Southern Turkey, as we indicate later (pp.157-160) which was directly linked to Alexandria under the Ptolemies (see p.110). So much for the lions; what about the eagle? The first thing to say about the eagles is that they have a clear connection with the Ptolemies, who used the eagle on the reverse of their coins (our fig.30). Their use of this symbol was obviously to impart a certain degree of grandeur or royalty to their dynasty. The eagle was the symbol of Zeus and all this has been adequately explained by Queyrel (see p.100). So here we want to look at another, less obvious, symbolism of the eagle. One feature of Greek architecture was the use of bucrania (ox-skulls) in the metopes between the triglyphs of a Doric frieze. They were a feature of funerary monuments though also used as general decorative elements. In special cases, such as the Temple of Athena, the bucrania alternated with eagles (Fraser 1977, 27), which indicates that the eagles also carried funerary overtones. Regarding eagles, Goodenough however, goes much further. He devotes a whole section of his work to what he calls psychopomps, that is, the guides who conduct the soul to the next world (Goodenough 1958, VIII, 121) and chief among these he cites the eagle. The popular idea that the Jews hated 125

the eagle is softened by Goodenough. He particularly brings the case of the eagle erected over the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem. Although Josephus twice brings the account of an attack by Jews on this eagle, the conclusion seems to have been that the attack on the eagle was just an excuse for an attack on Herod, and the population as a whole dissociated themselves from the fanatics (Josephus War I, 648-655 and Ant. XVII, 149-157). That there was little resistance to the image of an eagle is shown, says Goodenough, by its representation on coins of the period, to which there was no objection (1958, VIII, 124). Neither the eagle of Herod on the coin, nor that on the Temple, were considered to be, nor could they be, an object of worship. We may note here in passing that on this question of eagles, Goodenough makes reference, and it is his only reference, to the Qasr al-Abd in a footnote where he says, “the great building whose ruins are at Kasr il-Abd near Jericho (is) a building where there are many animals, including eagles, and where an eagle was over the gateway opening toward the main ruins. . . .what the building was has not been determined” (VIII, 125, n.35). Disappointingly, Goodenough makes no reference to the lions at the Qasr. The panther would not have been known to him in 1958, as it was only discovered by Lapp in 1962. The Greeks and Romans thought of the eagle coming to take their heroes to heaven, like Zeus, in the form of an eagle, abducting the beautiful youth Ganymede, and of eagles taking the Roman Emperors to heaven, as at the death of Augustus (Cassius Dio, Bk. 56:42). It may be noted that eagles carrying off children are not confined to antiquity. Only recently a young bald eagle was seen to swoop down on a three-year old girl on Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, USA, in an attempt to lift her aloft, in which action it was unsuccessful. The eagle was only 14 months old, and the child was luckily unhurt (photograph, The Times, London, 23 Aug. 2001). In later times, the solar eagle became the royal eagle and as such appeared on coins of the Hellenistic kings and of the Ptolemies (Goodenough 1958, VIII, 128). Goodenough describes the funerary eagles that appear at the cemetery in Sheikh lbreiq and in Beth Shearim (Avigad 1954, 95). There they are the eagles that “bring the wealth of victory or immortality to the dead” (VIII, 129). These eagles appear “on a large number of Syrian funerary monuments” (VIII, 131) and “on the Temple of Baalbek. . . . the eagle is the bird of salvation that takes the soul to heaven. It bears the crown with the same symbolism of triumph after death” (VIII, 132). Avi-Yonah, in describing a third-century CE lead coffin from Bethany, notes that the eagle depicted on it “is the Syrian funerary eagle, charged in Oriental symbolism with carrying the souls of the deceased to heaven, and adopted by the Romans” (Avi-Yonah 1981, 237). The Bible adopts a similar attitude when it says (after the Exodus) “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me” (Exod. 19:4) that is, direct to My heaven. This idea was also prevalent in Greece, as

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Plato’s tomb “was said to have been marked by an eagle – the symbol of his soul, flown to Olympus” (Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 238). In fact, Goodenough’s ideas on the symbolism of the eagle, though somewhat far-fetched, are borne out by an example close to home. For an eagle on funerary art exactly contemporary with the Qasr al-Abd, we need only look again at Tomb I of the Maresha necropolis where the inner facade of this magnificent tomb has a large eagle painted either side of the main recess leading to the tomb (our fig.43). We can thus conclude that the eagle, like the lion, has considerable royal symbolism but equally it is closely linked with the after-life and with life in the next world. The eagle in particular is seen by the Hellenists of Maresha, the earlier Greeks, and the later Romans, as the “psychopomp” who carries the deceased to another existence with God in heaven.

Fig. 43, Eagles at Maresha, Niche & Doorway at East End of Tomb I (from Peters & Thiersch 1905, Frontpiece) That leaves us with the more difficult question of the symbolism of the feline fountain and indeed its function. What applies to lions presumably also applies to other felines but we should be able to take this particular panther a bit further. From Tomb I of the Necropolis of Maresha in Israel, dating to the second century BCE (as for the Qasr) we see on the right-hand side a frieze of ten animals which includes a lion and a female panther or leopard (our fig.26). The latter is shown rearing up on its hind legs attacking a rider on his horse and being struck by the rider’s arrow and threatened by his spear. This curious procession of animals (reflected by a further ten animals on the lefthand side of the tomb) obviously exhibits a series of creatures associated

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with funerary significance. In the case of the female feline the frieze has the word pardalis written alongside (Peters & Thiersch 1905, pl. VI) so presumably it is a leopard rather than a panther (contra Queyrel, see p.94). On the other hand if the description of this animal is “pardalis” then in Mishnaic Hebrew this is “a spotted beast, leopard or hyena” (Jastrow 1903, 1216 & 190) and in Greek it is “leopard or panther” (Liddell and Scott 1963, 529). Thus the distinction between leopard and panther is definitely a blurred one in lexicology as well as in iconography. Both animals are much balder than a lion and, unlike the tiger, they are spotted rather than striped. There is evidence that the leopard/panther inhabited this region from the earliest times. At the site of Ubeidya, just to the south of Lake Kinneret, fossil bones have been found of 150 different species, many now extinct, but including “carnivores such as panthers” (Nadel 1999, 12). These remains date from the Lower Paleolithic period, some one-and-a-half million years ago. Much later evidence, but still early in date, comes from a site in the Uvda valley in the Israeli Negev. The site is in a deserted area 40km. north of Elath and consists of a square-like enclosure, considered to be a Neolithic temple, with a small cult chamber at its north-west corner. Alongside the temple, to the east of it, are sixteen stone-delineated animals lying in a band from north to south and all facing to the eastern desert. Fifteen of the figures are elongated with square heads and long curved tails and are designated as leopards, while one is lozenge-shaped with horns and represents a gazelle (Yogev 1993, 1493-5). The temple is securely dated by charcoal remains to the 5th millennium BCE, to the pre-pottery Neolithic period. The purpose of the temple and the leopard representations, discovered in 1980, is still unclear (1993, 1495) but that they relate to the animals of the area is certain. The animal representations are on average 1.2m.long, which is close to the dimensions of the small local leopard. The gazelle is shown squeezed between two leopards and presumably is prey to them. The three southernmost figures seem to be females and between them lie two smaller figures which must be their cubs. Interpretations of this unusual and very early site are quite speculative and the excavator has described it as a small temple with representations by desert dwellers of figures (our fig.44) that they could not carve onto rocks, as there were none, but had to delineate on the ground instead (1993, 1495). Moreover it could be that this was the burial site of a nomadic tribe, with a shrine and cella facing west to the dying sun, and a series of graves marked by leopard figures facing east to the desert and the rising sun. The leopard may have been chosen to represent the after-life, as it was the leopard who caused death in the desert or who caused desecration of shallow graves, similar to the destructive jackal in Egypt becoming Anubis, the god that preserved the body of the deceased for the next world and guided their souls to paradise (Wallis Budge 1934, 211–4). Although much earlier than our period, this site demonstrates that the leopard played a cultic and probably funerary role at this early period. 128

Fig. 44, Leopards at Uvda Valley. 5 leopards and a cub (from NEAEHL, 1993, 1494) Much nearer to our period are miniature sculptures of the panther, presumably used for ornamental purposes. One is of the 3rd century BCE, in dark bronze with silver dot inlays and shows the animal with its head turned to the right, its right paw raised, with a typically long body and long tail curled around its hind legs. It is from the Leo Mildenberg Collection no. M.802 (Rimon 1999, 69). A similar figure is illustrated by Goodenough and described as a Roman bronze panther from the Rothschild Collection in Paris (1958, VII, fig. 94). It is however entwined with vine leaves and sitting on its rear haunches. The face is turned to the left with its left paw raised. It has a pained expression on its face, similar to that of the earlier panther, making them both appear as if captured or wounded in the hunt and pleading for their lives. The raised paw looks like a sign of helplessness, a plea for mercy, though it may be interpreted in another sense, of having rested on the head or body of a victim. In both the above miniatures the bronze is in a dark hue equivalent to the near black colour of the real panther.

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A third figure, possibly a panther, of the early Hellenistic period, of the second century BCE, is in the possession of the Israel Antiquities Authority (Peled 1976). One of three broken figures, it was found at Tel Kotlit in northern Israel. It is described as a lioness, rather than a lion, being without a mane, but as the head is missing, it could equally well be a type of leopard or panther. It was found in a group with a lion and a boar, all in very poor condition. On stylistic grounds they are dated to the second century BCE “when Greek influence on the provincial art in Syria was very much in evidence”. Peled further adds, “Perhaps the animal figures discussed here originate from one or more funerary monuments (my emphasis), where they symbolized the hunting prowess of the deceased” (1976, 53). A fourth miniature panther, exhibited in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 2001 (no cat. no.), also in bronze, shows it in springing or pouncing position, its mouth open to ravage its prey, the figure rearing up on hind legs and with a long tail curled over its legs. The body is covered in stylized “target” spots stamped into the bronze. It is similar to the Mildenberg panther (above) but looks Roman rather than Hellenistic in date. One of the glories of the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul is the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus discovered in 1887, in the royal underground necropolis at Sidon. This large stone coffin and lid is decorated with sculptures in high relief on all of its sides. The lid, formed like the pitched roof of a Greek temple, is guarded at its four corners by “open-mouthed recumbent lions, guardians of the tomb, and a common motif of Ionian art” (Pasinli, 1996, 89). The sarcophagus dates from the late 4th century BCE. The four sides of the coffin are decorated with battle and hunting scenes, and one of the short sides shows a panther hunt. “The panther is depicted with the conventional features of the period. Its head is very small for its long neck. Its paws are too long. The forequarters of the body are also too big and the hindquarters too small. It is shown in an indecisive stage of action” (1996, 86). It is a fair description of this life-size representation of the animal, which still retains a few traces of red-coloured paintwork. We would add that the whole appearance is rather greyhound-like and the animal has two of the features we have come to expect. One paw is raised and the tail is long and entwined around its rear legs. In addition it has very pronounced claws with long talons. It is obviously about to be killed by four determined huntsmen, all orientals, two with spears, one with an axe and one with shield and spear. Two of the other sides show battle scenes but the fourth, one of the long sides, shows a rather vicious lion hunt involving Greeks and oriental huntsmen, horses, an escaping antelope, and hunting dogs of the greyhound type. The lion is shown in particularly fierce mood sinking its teeth and claws into the horse of the leading hunter. It seems that Alexander (if it was he) wanted to depict his fighting prowess but also the fact that, after all their battles, the Greeks and the Persians could combine in the bloody sport of hunting wild animals (1996, 86). In addition to the lion and the panther, on this sarcophagus we also meet our friend the eagle. 130

“The uppermost line of the acroterion (figures on cornice and pediment) is composed of female heads and several eagles, which have not survived but for some restored pieces of their open wings. In Syria, the eagles are known as the birds which carry the souls of the dead to heaven” (1996, 89). So here we have it, guardian lions, psychopomp eagles, a lion hunt and a panther hunt, all on the sarcophagus of Alexander, as it is called (our fig. 45).

Fig. 45, The Alexander Sarcophagus, showing the Panther Hunt (Pasinili 1960, 100-101) So what were the two panthers doing on the Qasr, besides acting as water spouts? Or more precisely, if we already have a frieze of lions, and if lions in the Hellenistic period often acted as water spouts or gargoyles, why did the builders change to panthers in this location? So far, two answers have been given by the French. Queyrel has suggested that the panthers, which he claims as being ithyphallic, have an apotropaic or guardianship role and were used, together with the eagle and the lion, to transfer to Hyrcanus their symbols of power and royalty and to give him the requisite legitimacy (see p.101). Other members of the French Team saw the whole range of the bestiary as a reflection of the breeding of rare animals that took place on the site and which is described in the transactions between Zenon and the earlier Toubias. Hyrcanus was eager to show off his paradeisos and his control of wild animals as well as domesticated ones (Dentzer, Villenueve and Larché 1983, 147). In our opinion these views do not give the full picture. There is a curious connection between Hyrcanus and felines. It appears that tigers are known particularly from the distict of Hyrcania. Pliny mentions that “Hyrcania and India produce the tiger…..” and goes on to describe the curious method of their capture (Nat. History VIII, xxv.66). The Persian tiger, panthera tigris, is described as having come from the South Caspian coastal region, also known as Hyrcania. Prince Hussein Dowlatshali kept a Persian leopard, which he had captured as a cub in the south Caspian region, as a pet in the early 1960s. In 1955 he had presented to the Hagenbeck Zoo

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in Hamburg a Persian tigress “the last of the Hyrcanian tigers in captivity” (Azarpay 1999, 33; I am indebted to M. Gawlikowski for this reference). In some way the panthers (or leopards) are key elements, perhaps even more so than the lions and eagles. The latter we now see are accepted conventional symbols of (a) royalty and power and (b) the transfer of the soul to the next world. The panther is, in our view, something more personal. It was probably a domesticated companion or pet of the local ruler, Hyrcanus or his predecessor Tobiads, and possibly the mascot of the Tobiad clan. Could an animal like a panther be domesticated? It is difficult to believe but it seems that Ptolemy II Philadephos had a personal menagerie at his disposal (Tcherikover & Fuks, 1957, 128, refs.) and it is likely that he had felines as personal escorts. It could then be possible that Hyrcanus took one of his local panther cubs and trained it and even domesticated it. It is likely that at a certain age it would become uncontrollable and would have to be let back into the wild and another cub would be taken in its place. The fact that de Saulcy and his companions came across two panthers on this site (see p.62) shows that they were native to Airaq el-Amir, at least in the nineteenth century. It is known and recorded that King Faisal I of Iraq and Syria kept a pet leopard in 1925 (fig.46).

Fig. 46, Hashemite King Feisal I of Iraq with pet leopard, Baghdad, 1925 (from National Geographic (Hebrew) June 2003)

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Another indication of the frequency of felines in the area at a much earlier period is the name of the nearby town called Shunat Nimrin, the site of Tel Nimrin, only 12 km. due west of Airaq al-Amir. It is in the Wadi Nimr and is the probable site of Bet Nimrah (Numb. 32:36) and the Waters of Nimrim (Isa. 15:6; Jer. 48:34). Nimr in Arabic means “leopard”, as in the Hebrew namér. This was an area distinguished by the presence of wild felines. On the domestication of wild animals one passage in the Talmud may be relevant. There is a discussion on the liability of animals for the death of a man or woman and the question arises whether its owner is liable as well. The majority opinion is that wild animals do not have owners but one sage of the 3rd century CE, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (also known as Resh Lakish), contends they do, as they can be domesticated. The animals mentioned are “the wolf, the lion, the bear, the leopard, the panther and the snake” (B. Sanhedrin 15B). Resh Lakish may well have known what he was talking about because as a young man, we are told, he had participated in gladiatorial contests (J. Gittin 4:9). If indeed Hyrcanus or the Tobiads did have a panther or leopard as mascot then it makes sense for them to have a fountain at each side of the Qasr in the form of their emblematic animal. As we have seen, the Hellenistic water-spouting lion gargoyle was the symbol of a dangerous beast converted into a life-giving one. But the lion was already well represented on the main frieze so it was reasonable to use another feline, in this case the family mascot, in the symbolic role of providing water to the estate. The fountains themselves, whatever the source of the water or the animal that conveys it, have a certain clear symbolism. Water is the carrier of life and we have seen that the lion water spouts or gargoyles (as in fig.27), so typical of Hellenistic architecture, are used to show how the destructive force of the king of the jungle can be transmuted into a source of life, providing water to man and his fields. In the case of Airaq al-Amir, the flow of water was a constant wonder of nature, producing something like an oasis in the generally barren mountainside, and the feline fountains each side of the Qasr were a manifestation of the production of this precious resource. Water was to be found all over the site and although the fountains were only a very small element of the whole, the sight of water issuing from the mouths of the felines was an assurance that the Qasr was playing its part in the maintenance of the lake and the irrigation of the fields laid out below it, and thus in the well-being of the whole estate. The source of the water to the two fountains is discussed below in Chap.14 (p.139). In passing, we would note that the use of lion or feline protomes is much earlier than the Hellenistic period, in which they are so prevalent. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is a lion-head gargoyle from Egypt of the 12th Dynasty (1962-1928 BCE), which formed part of a spout that drained the flat roof of the funerary temple of Senwosret I at the 133

Lisht South Pyramid (Rogers Fund 09.180.530). We mention this not only for its early date but also as it appears here on a funerary temple. It is also common for lion-headed water spouts to be used in fifth-century BCE Greek fountain houses, such as at Athens and Sicyon, the lion head being the most common form (Wycherley 1949, 208). We can now sum up the symbolism of the Qasr menagerie. The eagles are a symbol of royal power but above all they are the agency for the transfer of the dead to the next life. The lions also represent royal power and in particular, guardianship, of the building, especially if the building is a tomb. And the emphasis on a tomb is even more so when they guard it, as here, at all four corners and not only at the entrance. The fountains represent a lifegiving force and, issuing as they do from the mouth of felines, they reinforce the symbolism of the lions for guardianship, for preservation of mortal remains and for their transmigration to the next life. All in all, we have here the symbolism, in the strongest possible terms, appropriate to a building that is a tomb of some kind.

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CHAPTER 14. The Qasr al-Abd, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? As the title suggests, in order to arrive at a proper designation for the Qasr, we need to look at three aspects of the building: (a) what do the animal sculptures signify? (b) what evidence is revealed by the stones ? (c) what does the Qasr signify in relation to the estate as a whole? By now it should be clear that the animals, particularly the eagles and the lions, all carry funereal overtones. Although they are also symbols of royalty, their qualities are exploited again and again in funereal monuments, and especially on tombs. In many cases, in the great work by Will and Larché, Queyrel is forced to say that, although the nearest parallels occur on funereal monuments, this cannot be the case in the Qasr, as that is a residential building (see pp.97-100). In other words, Will and Co. have made up their minds to ignore the funereal overtones of the bestiary and refuse to budge, but we beg to differ. We state categorically that the animal figures all point to a tomb-related building. What is the evidence of the stones, the construction, the architecture? The immediate effect of the Qasr is of a large structure built of oversize stones. In fact the stones are too large for the building and for some reason the structure appears simplistic, like something made out of a set of children’s building blocks. This is because whole panels, like those between the ground floor windows, are built of just one giant block. The portico columns are built in one piece, rather than in drums, as are the upper columns, in one piece and not segmental, and the frieze of lions is in one giant course of stonework. This “gigantism” makes the building look smaller than it is (just as oversize brick coursing reduces scale) while at close range the spectator is overawed by the size of the megaliths. Obviously the intention is to impress but it could be more; the originator wanted permanence and immobility. He knew that small blocks can easily be dismantled and carted away; not so these megaliths. There is a total discrepancy in construction between the ground floor (raised two metres above entry level) and the first floor. Of course the layout of the upper floor is not definitely known but its perimeter construction is clear. As opposed to the heavy and ponderous ground floor, it is all airy windows between slim columns with solid panels only at the corners and at two very small sections of the long walls. In fact the columns have had to be deepened from front to back so that they could present the slimmest possible face externally (see fig.47). The function of the upper floor must be totally different from that of the ground, and Ernest Will therefore suggests the upper level was for residence and entertainment, while the lower floor was 135

for storage and utility (see pp. 88-89). It may well be that the upper floor, full of light and airiness was for residential purposes, but can it be that the magnificent ground floor was only for the most mundane of purposes, for service and storage?

Fig. 47, Side Elevation (east) of Qasr (based on WL. II, pl. 17) The main ground floor was raised some two metres above entry level. This already suggests it would have been very inconvenient to use it for storage of heavy objects. From the remains of voussoirs on the site and the springing of arches along the inside faces of the external walls, it seems that the main rooms and their external ambulatory were arched over (WL.I, 117). We have then a curious paradox. The ambulatory corridor is brightly lit by the seven major openings on each side while the four inner rooms (rooms within a room) have no light whatsoever. It does look as if the corridor was for some kind of circulatory access but the rooms themselves were unlit and barely usable, even for storage. And why were they raised about two metres above entry level? There is another curious detail. The northern portico led to the north-east staircase that rose and opened to the raised ground floor, which makes sense. But the portico also led into another room, directly ahead, which had absolutely no access to the inner rooms or their corridor. It was therefore of little use. It was not the guard room, as that lay to the west side of the portico, so the first room (let us call it, as do the French, the internal vestibule), what was it for? On either side of it lay the plastered reservoirs to the panther fountains, so this inner vestibule was hemmed in on three sides, approachable only from the north portico, which one had to reenter to make one’s exit from this room (our fig.48).

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Fig. 48, Qasr al-Abd, Ground Floor Plan (as WL. II, pl. 9) At the south end also, the southern portico or opisthodomos, is blind, with no access at all to the central raised ground floor, although there is a doorway to the east with access to what may have been a south-eastern stairway. It does look therefore as if the main central part of the ground floor, being raised and not easily accessible, served some special purpose and we suggest that it was built to provide four chambers, each of them to be one or several tombs. These tombs needed no light but those who came to pay their respects could do so from the well-lit corridor on both sides, joined by a transverse corridor on the south, also well lit from the southern portico, with three openings of similar dimensions to those on the sides. The corridor did not continue on the fourth, or front, side, there it was interrupted by the upper part (or void) of the previously mentioned internal vestibule. That vestibule we suggest acted as some kind of prayer room for those coming to visit the tombs. It had no direct access to the tombs, the floor levels were too far apart and there was no room for a staircase, but there may have been openings at high level in the vestibule giving sight into the first tomb chamber. Alternatively, it was an ante-room or waiting room for visitors to the tombs to assemble. The French Team later refer to it as the cellar to the first room (their Room 1) but no stair between the two was found (FL, 20). After paying their respects to the dead, we presume the visitors would retrace their steps back to the north-east stairs and go up to the first floor, the floor of great light and airiness. In view of the lack of remains, it was impossible for the French team to restore the upper floor except to reconstruct a loggia with two major pillars over the north façade and one with six smaller pillars at the south. The corners may have been stub towers 137

and the long sides between them were defined by twenty narrow (but deep) ovoidal columns each side. It would be difficult to imagine a more open and airy façade. This lightness suggests that the upper level may have been in the form of a gallery around an open-air or hypaethral peristyle, though the wide central opening of nine metres may have been spanned by a velarium for part of the time to give shade or temporary protection against rain. It is also possible that the opening was spanned by light timber trusses as there is some evidence of these in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Kutbay 1998, 57). However if the roof were hypaethral it would account for a water supply to the feline fountains during times of heavy rain. It would have needed only a shallow channel each side, falling to the north, and then diverting slightly to the reservoirs on each side. Larché of the French Team has now published Volume II (FL) of their original work setting out his reconstruction of the first floor and we consider it in detail in Chap.15 below. The purpose of the upper floor would be for banqueting in honour of the dead. This was a common custom, as we can see from the later necropolises at Petra and Beidha in southern Jordan, and from triclinia throughout the Hellenistic and Roman world (see below). The preparation of food and drink could have been conducted in the “tower” chambers at the north-west and south-west corners, while the other two corners were taken up by staircases. With the large number of apertures on both long facades the diners would have had magnificent views over the whole estate, over the Wadi es-Sir and perhaps even down to the Wadi Kefrein. They would be dining in the middle of Hyrcanus’ paradeisos, the views of which would be reflected in the lake around them. For a possible plan of the upper floor see fig.49, which has been modified to reflect the reconstruction proposed by Larché in his Vol.II (FL).

Fig. 49, Qasr al-Abd, Upper Floor Plan (reconstructed, based on FL)

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The layout we show is based on contemporary examples. Vitruvius, writing in the first century BCE, has a chapter on the Greek house where he talks of Cyzicene dining rooms, used for holding men’s dinner parties, which opened off internal peristyles (VI, 7:4). These dining rooms normally contained three couches and were thus called triclinia. But the couches were for multiple use and might each accommodate three or more diners. Vitruvius says the “Cyzicene” dining room was a large wide living room (orkos) with windows facing north onto a garden. It was large enough to accommodate two sets of couches, facing each other and “on the right and left they have windows which open like folding doors, so that views of the garden may be had from the dining couches through the opened windows” (Vitruvius VI, 3:10). The Cyzicene dining room is found throughout the Roman world (McKay, 1975) but the rather special northern aspect “restricting the amount of entering sunlight…..strongly suggests an origin in a hot climate such as north Africa offers. The view of a garden…..suggests an Egyptian influence, where gardens had a long history in architecture” (Kutbay 1998, 54). From the example of Ptolemy IV’s state barge, the Thalamegos, built at the end of the third century BCE, Kutbay suggests that the Alexandrian palaces had multiple dining rooms, some with internal peristyles (1998, 51). We think it reasonable therefore to postulate that the upper storey of the Qasr consisted of two or more dining rooms (triclinia) around an open peristyle. They did not face northwards, but had open façades to the east and west to give views over the lake and terraced gardens; while the pillared elevations, open to east and west, enabled cross-currents to cool the diners. The central open peristyle would also serve to fill, during the rainy season, as we have said, the reservoirs behind the two feline fountains. Using rainwater from the roof or an open peristyle was standard practice in Roman and pre-Roman houses. One example is the House of Sallust in Pompeii, constructed in the late fourth or early third century BCE. The interior rooms were grouped around a central atrium. It was remodelled in the second century BCE and “a tufa (stone) impluvium (rainwater tank) set into the atrium with the cistern located in the back gardens” (McKay 1975, 39 and fig.12). In another later case, McKay says that the Pompeian Villa of the Mysteries had a bathroom and kitchens and the water supply came from a “catch basin (that) fed rainwater into a cistern beneath”, and the drawshaft for raising it appears alongside (1975, 63). It would therefore not be an innovation for the hypaethral (open-air) roofing at the Qasr to collect rainwater in a shallow tank (impluvium) and convey it to the two reservoirs behind the fountains. If the roof was not open, the same rainwater supply could have been effected by using gutters and downpipes, or judiciously directed gargoyle spouts. The latter were certainly in use in Hellenistic architecture as we have seen (p.95). Gutters and downpipes also existed though Vitruvius disapproved of them according to McKay (1975, 38).

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In the case of the Qasr, the proposed upper triclinia would relate directly to the tombs below. This is by no means unusual as the relationship is a feature of at least some Greek mausolea. The Nereid monument at Xanthos is a case in point (our fig.50). The building, now largely reconstructed in the British Museum, was a tomb about seven metres by ten metres in plan surmounted by a cella or inner chamber within a peristyle of sixteen columns, in the form of an Ionic temple. Within the cella were four kline couches making this into a small dining chamber, though it is largely symbolic as there was no access to it from the lower storey. The tomb is dated to the early fourth century BCE (Fedak 1990, 66-68). Although not shown on the reconstruction the spaces between the columns were filled with statues of “Nereids or Aurea (sea breezes)” which “here appear for the first known time in the intercolumnar spaces of a building of Greek form” (Fedak 1990, 67). And they appear thus on the reconstruction in the British Museum. To which we may add that the reconstruction includes two of the original four lions that stood at the corners of the temple surmounting this funerary monument.

Fig. 50, Nereid Monument, Xanthos, Cross-section showing upper Triclinium and Reconstructed View (from Fedak 1990, 296 & 297). Façade Restored at British Museum GR. 21 (B.M. Photograph 1988) 140

The Nereid monument is the tomb of the dynast Arbinas and one of the panels on the cella walls shows him reclining on a couch being served with a large drinking vessel or rhyton, all as part of a major celebratory banquet (Sturgeon 2000, 60 and fig.21), showing that the purpose of the upper cella was to celebrate the life of the dead in a banquet in which he himself participates. The symbolism of the four lions is clearly to guard the residence of the dead and the Nereids are “set to convey the deceased to the island of the Blessed” (Green 2000, 176). According to Cumont, the relationship between tomb and feasting (and indeed the hunt) goes back to the second half of the fifth century BCE, as shown on the Satrap Sarcophagus of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Pasinli 1996, 78-79). One side shows the satrap reclining on his couch, attended by his wife and two sons (or servants), one of whom is pouring him a drink and the other serving him food on a three-legged table. Another side shows the satrap out hunting a deer and then turning his horse to face a more formidable beast, a panther (!). Cumont describes it as: “le monument le plus ancient sur lequel la chasse soit associée à un repas ….. les basreliefs qui le décorent sont empruntés à la vie réelle. Le seigneur perse pour qui ce luxueux tombeau fut executé, s’y est fait réprésenter sur un des côtés luttant avec d’autres cavaliers contre une panthère, gibier redoubtable; puis ….. la chasse finie ….. ce “satrape” s’apprête à prendre un rhyton ….. ce sont probablement les deux plaisirs que le défunt avait gôutés pendant son passage sur la terre” (Cumont 1942, 444).

But not only is the meal associated with the hunt, it is also directly linked to the funerary monument, to the tomb of this pleasure-loving satrap. One can go so far as to say the tomb depicts the deceased’s favourite pastimes, which he hopes to enjoy in the afterlife. Even earlier than Cumont’s example are the Etruscan paintings of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE whose “prevailing theme may be said to be Elysium, with the dead imagined as enjoying ….. the pleasant pastimes of a well to-do and cultured people, feasting, fishing and fowling, athletic games, horsemanship, dancing and music …… Of all these motifs that of the symposium where the departed are seen reclining ….. at other-world banquets, was destined to enjoy the greatest vogue and longest history, far on into the story of Roman art” (Toynbee 1971, 12 and fig.1).

This quotation does not include the activity of hunting, but as we have seen above (pp.130-131) the example of the Alexander Sarcophus links the lion and panther hunting scenes directly to the deceased. A similar example comes from the royal tombs of Vergina in Macedonia. The so-called “Philip’s Tomb”, dated to the third century BCE, is surmounted by an extensive painted frieze depicting the hunt of a deer, a boar, a “lion” and a bear. The state of preservation of the panel is poor but the lion has a small head, is nearly bald, and the body is dark in colour. In the excavator’s

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drawing it looks more like a panther than a lion (Andronicos 1984, 100 and pl.56-63). Lion or panther, the link of the hunt to the deceased is clear. A typical later example of the deceased depicted as reclining and feasting on his tomb comes from Palmyra, from the hypogeum (underground tomb) of Bulha, which was constructed in 89 CE. The northern exedra (recess) of the chamber is a sculpture of a triclinium with a “banquet relief” of the deceased with his wife and three children (Tanabe 1986, 29, pl. 187 - 191). We illustrate pl.189 in our fig.51.

Fig. 51, Triclinium (Tomb Banquet) at Palmyra, Hypogeum of Bulha, 89CE (from Tanabe 1986, 222, no. 189) How exactly and when the banquets were planned to take place on the upper level of the Qasr is of course a matter of conjecture. It is our opinion that they were to be pleasurable occasions but of necessity linked intimately to the tombs below. As such they may have taken place at the interment of a particular individual or at the anniversary of the entombment. In the Hellenistic world several possibilities existed. As far as later Jewish custom went, there would have been a family meal for the mourners immediately after the burial, the Seudat Havra’ah was served to them on couches (M. Moed Katan 3:7 and B. Moed Katan 27b; M. Sanhedrin 2:1). In the case of the High Priest the Talmud elaborates that as a mourner he need not sit on the ground but may recline on a dargesh, a kind of small couch (B. Sanhedrin 20A). The prophet Ezekiel is specifically commanded, on the death of his wife, not to mourn in the normal way and not to eat the mourner’s bread (Ezek. 24:17). We cannot be sure how early this custom came into being, but under Jewish halakhic law the mourners’ meal could not have taken place in a dining room adjoining the tomb. An exception would be where the air space above the tomb is sufficiently large to stop the 142

passage of ritual impurity to the upper level (M. Parah 3:2; Ohaloth 3:7) and that would have been the case in the Qasr, as the ground floor had a headroom of approximately four metres (thirteen feet). However, these Halakhic laws, though based on earlier practice, were only formulated some 300 years after the Hellenistic era. Now, if Hyrcanus followed Hellenistic custom, as we suspect he did, then he would have seen to it that there was plenty of water around to protect the living from pollution by the dead (Kurtz & Boardman 1971, 149; Lindsay 1998, 67). In the classical Greek practice, after the water purification ceremonies, “the ritual meal was shared by all the dead man’s relatives ….. This would be held normally immediately after the burial ….. the bereaved would wear garlands and deliver eulogies ….. the dead man himself was believed to be present” (Lindsay 1998, 68).

Food also played an important role in later Roman death rites. “On return from a Roman funeral those who participated …..had to be purified with fire and water” and the subsequent ceremonies “consisted of two components, the sacrifice itself and the subsequent banquet” (Lindsay 1998, 73). In Hellenistic custom there appear to have been three essential practices after the burial: (a) (b) (c)

purification of mourners by water, sacrifice in honour of the dead (to provide the deceased with sustenance?), a subsequent banquet of the mourners.

We suggest that the plans of the Qasr provided for all three. The first was catered for by the fountains and the lake; the second could have been a ceremony (not necessarily a sacrifice) in the internal vestibule at ground floor (our fig.48) which adjoined the tombs; and the third was accommodated in the triclinia on the upper floor. Most importantly the tombs themselves would have been provided in the four unlit chambers of the ground floor. Having described the built elements, we now need to look at the provision for water and we have to address the question of the lake. There seems to be some argument as to whether there was or was not a lake, and even whether there ever could have been one. The French team claim to have tested the subsoil and found it to be porous (F. Larché, p.c. Feb. 2001, see also FL,15), while the Americans say there was an underlying stratum of clay, which would have been impermeable to water and allowed the lake to form.

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“The extensive clay pan which lay beneath the topsoil has demonstrated conclusively that throughout the Byzantine period, and probably in earlier periods as well, a large standing body of water existed in the area around the Qasr, if not all year round at least on a seasonal basis” (Brown 1983, 114).

I have walked around the area in the wet season and one encounters in the fields the mud (that the Israelis call “botz”), which usually indicates a mixture of fine soil and heavy clay. Whatever the nature of the soil, the main evidence for a lake comes from another quarter. Indirect but clear evidence for the lake is the enormous retaining wall or Dyke to the south and east of the Qasr. Obviously a tremendous amount of effort went into retaining the “lake” and one presumes that tests were carried out by Hyrcanus before commissioning the Dyke. It is doubtful that his engineers would have got it wrong and the intention must have been to have a lake around the Qasr. The amount of water flowing into the area, from the direction of the cliffs, is very considerable even today, and there is no doubt that the lake could easily have been filled. Details of the Dyke are described below on pp.167 ff. There is also the question of the jetty that connects to the Qasr on its east side. Most scholars seem to agree that this was a necessary land line to bring materials to the site, as the giant stones must have been loaded to the Qasr on this side, and that the final intention (never achieved) would have been to remove this spur and enable the lake to surround the Qasr on all sides. What then could have been the purpose of the Qasr if it was to be completely surrounded by water? Netzer has suggested the romantic image of a floating palace accessible by boat (2000, 344-7). He compares it to the Thalamegos or floating palace of Ptolemy IV (Nielsen 1994, 137) but that ship set sail from Alexandria, or docked along the Nile to pick up the royal party and their necessary supplies and servants (Nielsen 1994, 137). Ptolemy IV Philopator (222 – 205 BCE) and his queen Arsinoe III ran a very substantial empire, especially after his surprising victory over Antiochus III at Raphia in 217 BCE (Edouard Will 1982, 38). He traded in Africa, with Rome, Greece and Asia Minor, and would have had need of substantial facilities for entertaining local and foreign guests. For them the luxurious floating palace with multiple dining rooms would have made economic sense. For Hyrcanus, living in a backwater in Transjordan, with only his own cleruchs, his family and bandit nomads for company, with the occasional caravan for diversion, what could have been the point of a formidably expensive palace set in a sizable lake created by a vast costly embankment? An impressive if inaccessible location for entertainment it could well have been, but for entertaining whom? A few foreign mercenaries, a band of Bedouins, a High Priest (Jason) on the run from Jerusalem? Hyrcanus may have had delusions of grandeur, the megaliths of the Qasr certainly underline that, but setting up a 144

grand monument of stonework set to last for ever, and leaving it inaccessible in an extensive lake smacks much more of permanence for the dead than of light entertainment for the living. In the case of the Qasr, when completed according to plan, everything would have had to be brought by light boats, which would have made any continued use quite impractical. If, as we have suggested, the Qasr had triclinia or banqueting rooms on the upper floor, that difficulty would also have applied. However, the feasts were in honour of the dead and quite infrequent, and if the Qasr was really a mausoleum, then the isolation created by a lake would have made absolute sense and added considerable dignity to the last resting place of the Tobiads that lay there. The idea of an isolated Island of the Dead would not perhaps have been too far-fetched in Antiquity. There was always the ideal of protecting the dead and their tombs from casual and concerted robbery and the protection of a lake (Josephus calls it a moat) would have been ideal. It would also explain the row of seven slot-like openings on each long façade, which would have enabled visitors on the bank to view the tomb chambers from a distance. Clearly, as the Qasr was never completely finished, the spur of land, or jetty, was never removed but we can safely assume, from the evidence of the Dyke, that the intention was to remove it and create a lake around the Qasr. Three-quarters of one must have already existed at least in the wet season, around the monument. We have, as so many others, rejected the temple hypothesis for many good reasons, but in one sense the Qasr does conform to one criterion of a temple, and that is in its very formal layout and its isolation. As a building it is symmetrical on its north-south axis, and nearly symmetrical on the east-west axis as well (see fig.48). If it were not for the additional northern bay housing the two fountain reservoirs, and the inner vestibule, it would indeed exhibit a double symmetry, that is, be symmetrical on both axes. That neardouble symmetry gives the building great formality, and imposes such great restrictions on layout that it could not be a residential building. Great palatial residences are always a complex of buildings with outhouses, kitchens, servants’ quarters, stables and so on attached to the main building or at a short distance from it. The Qasr has no such conveniences attached and, as it was planned to sit on an island, it could not have had these in the past. It is in fact an isolated monument of considerable dignity and formality, not hiding or sheltering any additions on any of its sides, and as such it is an isolated structure of the kind typical only of a temple or a tomb. And it certainly was not a temple. As a tomb the Qasr in its form has no exact parallel that we know, but then the building itself is full of novel technical devices not known from elsewhere. It looks as if Hyrcanus lived a rather isolated existence on his estate and, although he had had connections with Ptolemaic Alexandria, he was cut off from this source in his later years. While Jerusalem moved more 145

and more into the Seleucid camp, he was left to his own devices and developed, with his craftsmen, a certain original genius for building in the mixed or baroque form of the Hellenistic style (cf. Lyttleton 1974, 68). We have already remarked on the unusual foundations (p.82) and we should now also look at several other original technical features such as: a) b) c) d)

the panel walls at ground level, the construction of the main staircase, the placement of the megaliths, the “ideal” dimensions of the Qasr in plan and elevation.

By the panel walls I mean the sections of wall between the seven ground floor slotted openings on both sides of the Qasr. In approximate terms, each block is 1.8m. by 1m. in plan and nearly 3m. high. The French Team designates these dimensions as 3.5 cubits by 2 cubits by 5 cubits high (WL.II, pl.36). The weight of each block would be about 13 tonnes. What is remarkable is that the builders made these in one piece, one megalith, while the normal practice would have been to build up the panels between the openings in stone courses of say 30cm. in height or 60cm. at most. And the extraordinary thing is that these mighty stones, because they are placed in an upright fashion, are in themselves inherently unstable. Their slenderness ratio (as viewed from the side) is 3:1 which makes them very vulnerable to overturning, more so than a wall of the same dimensions built of individual stones or bricks, each laid on a base greater than its height. The fact that the stones were set on the course below with a pair of tenons set into a recess, as recorded by de Luynes (1871-6, 142) and others, served only for location and would not have prevented overturning. To have moved and set up these giant panels must have required superhuman effort but the paradox is that they were nevertheless less stable than more conventional construction would have been. These upright monoliths were to be stabilized in two directions, by their head lintels and by the upper floor that spanned (or more probably arched) on to those lintels, so the construction as a whole when complete was stable, but if the upper floor was left unbuilt or removed, by earthquake or enemy action, then the panel walls would become very vulnerable to collapse. That this was the case can be seen from the fact that all the panels on the west side had fallen outwards like a pack of cards (WL.II, fig. 4, reproduced as our fig.52).

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Fig. 52, Collapsed Plan of Qasr al-Abd as of September 1976 (as WL. II, pl. 4) The main staircase lies in the north-east corner of the Qasr in what some describe as a tower. The internal dimensions of the well are approximately 5m. by 4m.(10 cubits by 8) and the rectangular stair rises in four flights around a central pillar of about 2m. by 1m.(4 cubits by 2). There were four risers on each short side and seven on the longer sides. One complete turn would have encompassed (2 x 4) + (2 x 7) = 22 risers with a quarter landing at each turn. This in itself is quite unremarkable; what is unusual is that the stair flights were, so to speak, “precast”. That is, they were cut off site and then placed in recesses prepared in the external walls and in the central pillar. Although many of the flights have gone, the recesses are plain to see (see fig.53). This is a most sophisticated system of construction, reminiscent of present-day concrete technology, where a flight of stairs is precast in the factory and lifted by crane into prepared slots on site. It is an excellent system but how Hyrcanus achieved it without cranes leaves one guessing. It must have been done off the walls of the “tower” and the central pillar, using heavy tackle to lift the prepared flights from one section to the next. In the north-east corner, where the staircase starts, the first few risers are cut into the bedrock (fig.54) and this probably explains why the stair is just here: it may also explain why this was chosen as the exact location of the Qasr, founded on a piece of bedrock rising from the lowlying basin around it (see also Chap.19).

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Fig. 53, Stair Recesses of Qasr, showing rebate in walls to take precut stair fights and landings

Fig. 54, Bedrock at base of staircase (northeast) The stairwell has no windows as such, though it may have been lit by an open colonnaded loggia at the summit. The light would not have penetrated to the lower levels so the designers provided small port-hole type windows at each level and each turn. These apertures were very cunningly designed so as to be quite unobtrusive from the outside. As they occur within the massive lower and upper monoliths, to have had a sizeable window would have destroyed the scale of the building and its “towers”. The designers therefore provide a tapered detail, small outside and large inside (see fig.55), like a medieval window embrasure. As such the opening was virtually unseen from the exterior. But while that was done in the Middle Ages for defensive purposes, here at the Qasr it was done, a thousand years and more earlier, for aesthetic reasons. The extent of the effect can be judged when

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we see that the inside opening was five times the width of the external, and almost three times the height. It is such a striking and subtle feature that de Saulcy, Conder and Butler all drew details of it. Butler points out that the openings were so cleverly concealed that one of them appeared externally exactly between the hind legs of one of the lions (1907, 14). As only one of the four “towers” had these windows, their invisibility did not spoil the symmetry of the whole. The north-west “tower” has just one similar window-slot, which is also virtually unseen from the outside, to light the corner chamber.

Fig. 55, Loophole Window, scale 1:20 We come now to the perennial problem of ancient megalithic building, how did the builders move these stones? We are not at the earliest periods any more but in the sophisticated age of the Hellenists when lifting devices of timber and rope were in existence (Vitruvius X, 2). The upright panels, as we have said, weighed some 13 tonnes but the two lower courses of monoliths were two or three times that size, some 6m.long by 2m.high by 1m.thick or twelve cubic metres, weighing about 28 tonnes apiece, and the lowest course was even larger. The first question is then, how were these blocks transported to site? The answer seems to lie in the cippi stone pillars, as described by Conder and Butler (see pp.66 & 71). Though de Saulcy conjectured that they defined a sacred path from the Qasr up to the cliffs, the opposite was probably true, it was a slipway for the monoliths from the quarry (at the cliffs) to the Qasr. The route is downhill all the way, there is a total difference in elevation of some 69m. in a distance of about 750m. or an average gradient of 1 in 11. This would be sufficient to slide the monoliths on rollers quite easily down the slope if the surface were regular and free of obstructions; if carriage could be achieved by using timber rollers or a 149

sledge; and provided the ground was firm enough to take the weight all the way. The cippi (according to de Saulcy and Conder) do in fact follow what looks like the roadway in use today and at certain places the cippi are still visible, not in situ but in secondary use in adjoining boundary walls and local terracing (fig.56). When standing, the cippi stones were set in pairs about 1m. apart and at intervals varying from 10m. to 18m. (as pp.61 & 67). Each cippus had a circular hole at its head which may have carried a timber pole spanning to the next marker, like a fence made of horizontal (or inclined) bars between uprights. As the gradient was considerable it was probably necessary to guide the monoliths along the path and, though the cippi fence would not have been strong enough to prevent disaster, it probably served as a track marker and a safety barrier rather than one giving total restraint. One can imagine workers standing either side of the designated slipway, behind the fencing, with large poles to guide the monolith on its way. The early explorers also saw one large stone monolith dumped alongside this slipway, presumably one that had slipped off the pathway. Or, as Butler thought, it was found to be surplus to requirements (1907, 19). That is unlikely, as who would have cut it and launched it before checking if it was really required?

Fig. 56, Cippus in secondary use in Boundary Wall One should rather say that this rogue block, still seen by Butler in 1907 but no longer visible today, had slipped off the designated pathway and was not retrievable by ordinary means. It was therefore left abandoned. Paul Lapp does not mention it, as by his time (1961–63) it had presumably been cut up 150

and used elsewhere. Nor does Lapp mark many of the cippi on his plan (1962, fig.1) only five pairs are shown. Today the remaining ones, not in secondary use elsewhere, are stored in the compound around the Qasr (fig.21). The abandoned block, last seen by Butler, demonstrates that the moving of these huge megaliths was not as simple as we made it sound above. The gradient was unlikely to be regular and there must have been pockets of ground where the great weight of the stones caused them to sink locally. It is then that we think the cippi really came into play. Conder outlined their purpose, in our opinion correctly, thus: “A curious feature of the ruin is the occurrence of pairs of stone cippi, placed at intervals of about twenty yards, each pair three or four feet apart ….. these pairs of stones were traced all along the mound leading to the palace ….. there were at least seventeen pairs. Near one lay a stone, 25 feet long, 8 feet high and 2 feet 3 inches thick, and this seemed to suggest the original use of the cippi. They were no doubt intended to aid in the removal of the huge stones from the cliff or caves where they were quarried to the palace standing in the lower ground. The holes may have served as rude pulleys through which ropes were passed, and the stone, placed on rollers, would be hauled towards the pair of cippi in front of it …..” (Conder 1885, 173).

The block of stone left by the wayside, judging by its size, would have comprised nearly 13 cubic metres and weighed in the region of 30 tonnes. We definitely agree with Conder that its location indicates the involvement of the cippi route in the transportation of the megaliths. But this could not have been done purely by the use of pulleys operated by manual labour. A similar problem has been investigated by Warszawski and Peretz (1992, 3– 46) in connection with the moving of the megaliths for the retaining wall of the Herodian Temple in Jerusalem. Admittedly that work started only in 19 BCE but the technology would have been available 150 years earlier to Hyrcanus, as it is already partially described in Vitruvius, architect of the early part of the first century BCE, and ascribed by him to earlier Greek artisans (X, 2:8–15). Vitruvius speaks mainly of pulleys used for lifting and Warszawski and Peretz show how these ideas can be adapted to horizontal motion. They have calculated that the retaining walls of the Temple Mount entailed the moving of 100,000m3 of large stones (average 1.5m. x 1m. x 2m.) weighing about 7 tonnes each, and 15,000m3 of the largest stones (up to 12m. long) which could have weighed up to 50 tonnes (1992, 18, table). They demonstrate how these megaliths could be drawn by teams of oxen operating on ropes connected to pulleys attached to posts in the ground. In this way one pair of oxen on each side of a stone on rollers could draw the 7 tonne loads, or ten pairs of oxen the 50 tonne loads (1992, 26). The posts shown by Warszawski and Peretz at each side of the path of the rollers (1992, 25) are set at centres about 9m. from pair to pair and the pairs about 1.5m. apart. This is different from Conder’s intervals of 20 yards (18m.) and 3 to 4 ft. (1m.) apart but not greatly so. His interval distances may have been slightly exaggerated as Butler in fact gives them at half the distance or “about 10m. apart” (1907, II, 18). De Saulcy’s plan shows them at intervals

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of about 15m. (1865, 216–7). We have no doubt that these stones, described by Conder as cippi, served to haul the megaliths from the cliff quarry to the site of the Qasr, that they were equipped with ropes and pulleys and that in all probability pairs of oxen were used to drag the megaliths on rollers (our fig.57). As the pathway was an inclined one (see above) that would make the work considerably easier, but the great weight and irregularities in the ground would have required the use of these or similar technical devices.

Fig. 57, Transportation of Megalith on rollers pulled by 2 pairs of oxen operating on 2x1 pulleys attached to one pair of cippi

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Fig. 58, Scaffold Tower showing lion block being lifted from jetty The possible use of oxen for his work at the Qasr may explain a curious story that Josephus relates about Hyrcanus. To test the boy’s initiative, his father Joseph sends him with three hundred yoke of oxen to plough in the wilderness but deliberately omits to provide him with yoke straps. Hyrcanus improvises by killing ten of the oxen and using their hides for straps and so completes the work in record time and gains his father’s delighted approval (Ant. XII, 192–195). Could this curious story be a reflection of Hyrcanus’s initiative in using teams of oxen (three hundred?) to drag the stones from the quarry to the Qasr? As such, it may have been concocted to indicate that his prowess in building stemmed from an early age. That the source of the stones is from the adjoining cliffs is shown by the curious cutaway sections of the two-storey caves and the remaining uncut megalith alongside, which will be described in Chap.16 (p.180) together with a geological analysis of the limestone involved, in the Appendix on p.220. The cliffs to the west of the Qasr show signs of quarrying but our opinion is that this source was only used for the smaller pieces, as 153

transportation from here to the Qasr would have been highly problematic for the large megaliths. Before leaving the cippi, we would mention that similar stones of this type, known as shfifonim have been identified as dummy anchors and dated to the Early Bronze age. They appear mainly in the southern half of the region around the Sea of Galilee in Israel; and a similar later one was used as a cult object under the altar of the Byzantine church at the summit of Mt. Berenice in Tiberias (Hirschfeld 1994, 128–129). The name shfifon (“pit-viper” as in Gen. 49:17) was jokingly given to the first one found in the area at Beth Yerah by Bar-Adon. To date, more than 35 specimens have been found. With a pierced hole at the top and a smooth upper section and unworked lower piece to be set in the ground, they are similar in size and appearance to our cippi. They are however attributed to a much earlier period, to Early Bronze Age II, although only four have been found in an archaeological context (Wachsmann 1997). However, as none have been found in actual use as anchors, their original function is still in doubt. It could be that a stone relic of this kind became available in Transjordan and was used by Hyrcanus as the prototype for his rather original pulley supports. The question remains as to how the monoliths were handled at the end of the track, where they would have landed on the projecting spur of land or jetty jutting out towards the Qasr. As we have noted (p.71), this was at an elevation of about 2m. above the ground level around the Qasr. As such, it was seen as a disadvantage by Butler (1907, 18), but it is quite the opposite. The loading bay, for such it was, was at just about the level of the Qasr ground floor. The first two courses of monoliths, the really heavy ones, were set below this level and so it was a matter of lowering them down from the jetty level, which could be done on the transport sledge, on wooden poles or an earth ramp. The large upright stone panels between the openings would be set up at the level of the jetty or just below it and they would have been slid into position and then tilted up by rope. The real problem would have been the massive lintels above these uprights and then the even larger monoliths above them, which constituted the lion frieze. The lintels average 3m. x 1.5m. x 1m. deep, weighing approximately 11 tonnes each. Each one would have had to be lifted about 3m. above jetty level and it may have been possible to tip them up step by step on a wooden scaffold or ramp from jetty level. It would have been necessary to construct a heavy timber scaffold around the building to take the lintels round on all sides on a sledge or perhaps even a low-wheeled cart. Although the blocks above the cornice, which made up the frieze of lions, were one-third larger and heavier than the lintels, their placement may have been easier once the first floor was in place. The lifting of the megaliths could also have been achieved by means of a wooden tower and lifting tackle, as described by Vitruvius (X, 2:4-7). The 154

method is well illustrated by Warszawski and Peretz (1992, 28, fig. 13, adapted as our fig.58). This is contra Larché, who claims that the lack of lifting recesses in the stones shows that earth ramps were used rather than timber scaffold towers (FL, 126), but we consider that method to have been unlikely, as it would have required a massive effort of earth moving, and would have left behind evidence of spoil heaps. A tower scaffold of the kind shown can climb with the building, and it can be combined with a horizontal scaffold between towers to take the monoliths horizontally, or they could be placed on the wall and then levered along horizontally. Once the lintels were in position, and once the interior walls, made of normal-size ashlars, were constructed, the builders could construct the vaults to make the upper floor. They would serve several purposes, besides the floor itself. The construction would tie the external fabric to the inner walls and stabilize it in both directions and, most importantly, create a working platform from which to continue building upwards. The placement of the frieze of lion monoliths could then proceed from this floor. They would have to be lifted (by block and tackle) or slid up to this working level from the scaffold, and once they were on the platform they could be tilted into position by brute force and levers. At certain points, of course, greater difficulties would be encountered, as for instance at the staircase, where there were no inner floors. But in practice, the creation of the upper floor as a working platform would enable the perimeter work to proceed. There is some doubt however if the first floor, whether on arches or not, was ever built. Ernest Will was of the opinion that it was never achieved, certainly never completed (WL.I, 115). If he is right, then of course the first floor could not have aided in the construction of the upper walls. However, his theory of the external walls standing up for two major storeys without lateral supports is hard to believe. If in fact the upper floor was not built, then we would say it must have been decked over in heavy timber scaffold which would impart stability to the lower walls and also provide a working platform at first floor level. However Larché has now confirmed that the first floor was definitely completed (FL, 77). The raising of the external curtain of the upper oval columns would not have been a major problem. They would have weighed 2 tonnes each if in one piece and, as the majority were in two sections or more, a one-tonne lift by block and tackle stationed on the upper floor would have been sufficient. Lifting the upper entablature above the slender columns may have been a greater problem, but as far as one can see from the French restoration drawings, the size of stones is now relatively modest (see fig.47). The roof timbers would not have caused a problem and if the centre of the building was hypaethral, as we have suggested above, then there would not have been much to lift beyond the peristyle and inner roof-level entablatures.

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The Qasr exhibits its “ideal” dimensions in several ways. It is a trait peculiar to important buildings, particularly temples and public buildings, where the involvement of an architect or master builder ensured that the building was based on a system of rational dimensions. In the East, at this and earlier periods, the cubit was dominant as the basic building dimension. Much has been written on this subject and it is known that there was a standard and a royal cubit (Scott 1970, 349). The standard cubit was 6 handbreadths and the royal cubit 7 handbreadths. In practice the first was about 45cm. and the second about 52cm. Of course considerable variation occurred from place to place and period to period but it is worth recording that the Mishna (codified in c. 220 CE) claims that a standard cubit was engraved on the walls of the Golden Gate of the Jerusalem Temple, together with a representation of the city of Shushan, in the Persian period of c. 400 BCE (M. Kelim 17:9). It could well be that this Persian (or royal) cubit held sway in the satrapies even after the Greek conquest. The royal cubit was equivalent to the Egyptian cubit (Scott 1970, 347) and the French Team has calculated that it was this unit of about 50-52cm that was used at the Qasr. We find the work of the French Team in this connection to be both accurate and convincing. The first “ideal” dimension of the Qasr is that its plan is a double square of, on average, 38.0m.long by 19.0m.wide. Exact dimensions are difficult to establish because of the ruined state of the building and its reconstruction can well have introduced slight differences in small elements such as the mortar joints or lack of joints. The dimensions, as found by Will and Larché, would give an overall layout of 72 cubits by 36 cubits, which gives wide scope for rational divisions and sub-divisions. This simple relationship of 2:1 for length to width is rare in Greek temples but does exist at the vast temple of Apollo at Didyma (near Miletus), which measures 59m.by 118m. across the stepped plinth (Lawrence 1983, 263). It was started in 313 BCE. Several more “double-square” temples exist in Hellenistic Ionia, at Teos, Ephesus and Priene (as Freely 1990, 45, 48 and 60); it may be significant that these, including Didyma, are all in Asia Minor rather than on the Greek mainland. On the other hand, the double square is an “ideal” dimension in Biblical shrines, as the hekhal (sanctuary, without Holy of Holies) of Solomon’s Temple is given as 40 cubits by 20 cubits (I Kgs. 6:2), based on the 20 cubits by 10 of the Tabernacle (Exod. 26:16ff). To find it in the flesh at the Qasr is surprising. But it does indicate that the building was made to serve some ideal function, such as a temple or funereal monument, rather than a plain residential building or château, whose domestic requirements will always dictate some divergence from the ideal. This also tells us that the four chambers on the ground floor could not really have been just stores or utility rooms. They are exactly located centrally in the building in both directions. Though the building is not quite symmetrical in the north-south direction, the internal vestibule and reservoirs on the north are reflected in the additional corridor on the south, so the four inner chambers are indeed located centrally (see fig.48) and they themselves are practically twice as 156

long as wide when considered as one block, so it would appear that they, like the dimensions of the Qasr itself, carry some particular significance. The French Team has shown that the façades indicate a progression of simple ratios from the base upwards. From the stylobate (pillar plinths) to the cornice line below the lion frieze is 6m.plus, from there to the cornice line below the eagles is 4.5m.plus, and from there to the cornice line of the pediments is 3m.plus; giving us the simple ratio of 4:3:2. Concerning the lateral dimensions of the north and south facades we have already mentioned that the width of the Qasr is equivalent to 36 cubits and the façade is split into three equal sections, solid corner, portico, solid corner; and these are in the proportion of 12 cubits to 12 cubits to 12 cubits. Similarly the side elevations are split into 6 lengths of 12 cubits each (as fig.47). The corner sets of lions, one lion plus one lioness, make up 12 cubits in length at each end, with 48 cubits (4x12) between them. This kind of geometry is sometimes artificially imposed by analysts on ancient building structures, but in this case it is quite clear that the builders were working to a preconceived design that was both simple and straightforward (fig.59).

Fig. 59, Qasr South Façade showing subdivision in Cubits (based on WL. II pl. 37) We have designated the Qasr as a funerary monument or mausoleum and it would be difficult to find exact parallels of this genre that show similarities with the Qasr. The tombs of Alexander, and later of Augustus and Hadrian, were vast circular buildings (Magness 1998, 322-323). However, the earlier famous mausolea of Halicarnassus (c.330 BCE, the mausoleum par excellence, being the last resting place of Mausolus), the Lion Tomb of Cnidos (c.300 BCE) and the Nereid monument at Xanthos (c.400 BCE) 157

were all rectangular buildings, though nearer to square in plan than the Qasr (see fig.60). These monuments all display a large solid podium surmounted by a lighter structure. In the case of Cnidos the upper section is just a pyramidal roof, but at Halicarnassus it was a 36-piece colonnade between the high podium and the pyramidal roof. At Xanthos there was a 16 column temple-like structure above the high plinth and the similarity to the Qasr is clear (as above, p.135) being a light colonnaded structure atop the heavy megalithic floor. Although there are slot-like openings in the Qasr storeyheight podium, the effect is of solidity and invites comparison with Halicarnassus and Xanthos. No Hellenistic or Greek residence was ever built like this, with a lightweight structure on top of a massive storey-height plinth.

Fig. 60, Mausolea at Belevi, Cnidos and Halicarnassus (Halicarnassus & Cnidos from Lawrence 1983, 253 & 255. Belevi from Fyfe 1936, 52) We should mention another example of a mausoleum that is closer in date, size and location to the Qasr. This is the tomb of Belevi (see fig.60) near Ephesus. It is dated to a century later than Halicarnassus, that is, to about 230 BCE. In area it is very similar to the Qasr, though the proportions are different. Belevi is 98 ft. (30m.) by 78 ft. (24m.) overall, giving an area of 720m2. The Qasr, at 19m. by 38m., covers 722m2. And there is another similarity. Belevi is situated on a hillock overlooking a “considerable lake” (Fyfe 1936, 50 – 53) though it is not on an island, as the Qasr was planned to be. It is significant that all these mausolea stood overlooking the water. At Halicarnassus, the Mausoleum overlooked the bay of Bodrum; near Cnidos, the Lion Tomb stood on a steep promontory overlooking the Dorian Gulf, on the Aslanci Burun (Lion Cape) and can be reached only by boat. At Xanthos, the Nereid Monument figures have sea-creatures at their feet (Lawrence 1983, 247) and the whole stood on a cliff overlooking the river Xanthos, with a distant view of the Mediterranean. As we have said above, the Nereids are there “to convey the deceased to the Islands of the Blessed”

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(Green 2000, 176). The Belevi monument, perhaps that of Antiochus II Theos, stood at the edge of a large lake. In other words, all these tombs were sited close to water, as that was the preferred method of purification of the dead before entering the next world (Kurtz & Boardman 1971, 149). So it is no wonder that Hyrcanus found it desirable to set his mausoleum in a lake. It has been said that Hyrcanus in his architectural work followed the Alexandrian model (e.g. WL. I, 160). That may well be so but it now appears that he was also following an Asia Minor model, basing his mausoleum on those of Halicarnassus, Xanthos, Cnidos and particularly Belevi. But this is no contradiction as we find that the architects of Asia Minor worked in Alexandria. For, instance, the famous Pharos, the lighthouse outside Alexandria, was designed in c.270 BCE by Sostratus of Cnidos (Pliny XXXVI, 83; Lawrence 1983, 310). It seems that some of the best architects were based on the Ionian Peninsula and were obviously in demand in other ambitious centres of the Hellenistic World. The Tobiads had direct relations with Asia Minor as the Zenon Papyri tell us that one of the cleruchs at Tyros, who was witness to the sale of a slave girl (Document No.1) was “Nikanor, son of Xenokles, a Knidian, in the service of Toubias”, that is, a Greek from Cnidos (Tcherikover and Fuks 1957, 120-121). From an architectural point of view, the matter goes further. We have already seen the similarity between the framed doorway next to the eastern TOBYAH inscription and the tombs of Limyra (see p.109). We now see that the classical mausolea are from the same region of southern Turkey, the area called Lycia. As mentioned (p.110), this was part of the early Ptolemaic empire, so there were close relations between Lycia and Alexandria, but why were the architects of Lycia so influential in Egypt and, by extension, in Airaq al-Amir? Lycia had strong connections with the Greek world, thanks to its maritime location across the water from the Greek islands. “As the Pelopennesian War (431-404 BCE) dragged on in Greece, they (the Lycians) readily opened their territories to refugees from the west. A number of people who found shelter and employment in Lycia were craftsmen and artisans, whose activities were usually restricted in war. Acceptance of them created a situation that was favourable for modifications and new developments in various fields, including that of funerary architecture” (Fedak, 1990, 66).

Fedak goes on to suggest that the Lycian nobles, so far restricted to rock-cut tombs on their death, now hankered after “the majestic Greek temple form, especially if well elevated above ground and sumptuously decorated”, so that they could remain a visible and dominant part of the community even after death (1990, 66). We find that this idea was eventually transferred, perhaps via Alexandria, to Airaq al-Amir, to Hyrcanus and his Tobiad Mausoleum. 159

Hyrcanus was therefore not just a slavish imitator of Alexandria but was using an architect with knowledge of the Greek arts, such as were practised in Ionia. With this in mind, we believe that at the Qasr the slot-like openings, of which there were seven on each side and three at the south end, all at the lower level, were not light openings but were destined to contain human figures. The voids are exactly the right size (1m.wide by 2m.high) to contain one life-size statue each (as fig. 61). It was sometimes the practice to fill such openings with a human figure, as at the Pergamon altar to Zeus, and particularly the sculptures of the Altar of Athena at Priene, which is dated to the third century BCE, and whose style has been compared to that of Alexandria and Rhodes (Carter 1984, 757). This is a highly speculative suggestion but in support, we show an illustration of one of the figures at Priene (our fig.62). It is however not a figure in the round as that at the Qasr would have had to be. Such a figure would have been extremely costly to install and it could well be that Hyrcanus made provision for something that he could not actually achieve. Why there should be seventeen locations (7 + 7 + 3) is not at all clear, but we just note that the interior rooms of the ground floor, as reconstructed by the French team (see fig.48) and which we claim were tomb repositories, had a total of seventeen doorways. Was Hyrcanus providing for the remains (and statues) of seventeen ancestors?

Fig. 61, Human figure in Qasr “window” Fig. 62, Relief Figure in recess at Altar of Athena at Priene (from Carter 1984, fig. 3)

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The idea that the Qasr al-Abd is a mausoleum was at one stage rejected out of hand by Paul Lapp and his expedition, who considered the building to be a temple (see p.79). It is not clear why Lapp rejected the mausoleum proposal so peremptorily, nor why no-one besides Albright had considered the idea. Nancy Lapp could not recall exactly why her husband had rejected the suggestion in 1962, nor why at a later date he still supported the temple hypothesis (NEAEHL 1993, 648a). She added that in her opinion the question was still an open one, and that Albright used to come up with spontaneous and inspired ideas that often proved to be correct (p.c. June 2002). We think that the mausoleum idea has not been considered previously for several reasons: a)

b) c) d)

Josephus’s designation of the building as a Baris has misled scholars to see it in the category of a “fortified” monument closer to castle, château or even temple. We have met this contradiction by seeing the term “Baris” applied to the estate as a whole, rather than to the Qasr itself (see pp. 117). There was no apparent parallel in building terms to a mausoleum until our comparison with the mausolea of Ionia and Lycia, all having a heavy base topped by a lighter structure (see pp. 158ff.). This similarity may not have been apparent until the reconstruction by the French team, but even the French did not make the connection. The impracticality of the surrounding lake was not taken into account, nor was its symbolism realised (see p.158).

Jewish monumental mausolea of the second century BCE were not a rarity. The First Book of Maccabees tells us that Simon Maccabaeus built, “a high monument (taphos) over the tomb of his father and brothers, visible at a great distance, faced back and front with polished stone. He erected seven pyramids, those for his father and mother and his four brothers arranged in pairs ….. he surrounded them with great columns surmounted with trophies of armour ….. and between the trophies carved ships, plainly visible to all at sea. This mausoleum (taphos) which he made at Modin stands to this day” (13:27 – 30).

Unfortunately it does not stand to this day, but Josephus also records this same magnificent family mausoleum (Ant. XIII, 211). Hyrcanus did not follow conventional models. He built a tomb or set of tombs with a banqueting suite above it, original and practical as well. The upper level triclinium or triclinia had a beautiful location. And so did the tombs below, but whose tombs were they, or rather, whose were they planned to be? There are four chambers and it is possible they were destined for four persons or perhaps for four couples or more. We can 161

surely assume that one was for Hyrcanus or Hyrcanus and his wife, if he had one. Maybe the others were for his mother and perhaps even for Joseph his father or other relatives, who can say? We have no idea if Hyrcanus had a wife or not but even if he did, perhaps he had no sons to carry on the Tobiad line in Airaq al-Amir, and so he wanted a magnificent tomb to preserve the name and memory of the Tobiads, for did not Absalom, son of David, have the same intent? “And Absalom took and set up in his lifetime the pillar-monument which is in the valley of the king, for he said, I have no son that my name should be remembered, and he called the pillar-monument by his name, and it is called Yad-Absalom to this day” (2 Sam. 18:18).

The tomb in the Kidron Valley of Jerusalem that is today called the Pillar of Absalom (but has little to do with him) is a tomb of the late Hellenistic period or even later (Bahat 1990, 51), with a constructed capping on top of a blind colonnaded rock-cut base. In the Hellenistic age, it seems, monumental tomb building was in the air. As Rostovtzeff puts it: “Moreover, they (the Hellenistic kings) certainly built all over the Hellenistic world stupendous mausolea for themselves and their ancestors, in the style of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus” (1941, 1231).

So, it seems, did their imitators.

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CHAPTER 15. The First Floor of the Qasr as described by the French Team The second volume of the French Team’s monumental work has now been published by Francois Larché and refers mainly to his reconstruction (on paper) of the first floor of the Qasr al-Abd. It also addresses other matters not fully covered in Volume I. It does not benefit from the work of the original co-author Ernest Will, who died in 1995, but it includes contributions by F.Braemer and B.Geyer, both retired scholars of IFAPO (FL, 14). The work claims again that the building was a residence, as maintained by Will (FL, xii). Larché points out that the building was completed (xiii) though later, in his conclusions, he remarks that this refers to the carcassing being complete, rather than all the finishings (133). It appears that the upper storey was more complete than the lower, as its stonework shows traces of painted plaster, whereas that of the lower floor does not (xiii). This could well indicate that the upper floor was for entertainment and the lower for the tombs, as we claim, though it would also support Will’s contention that the upper floor was residential and the lower for storage only. It appears that Geyer visited the site in 1986 and concluded that the triplestepped retaining wall to the south of the Qasr could not have been capable of holding back a potential lake around the monument. He gives two major reasons, 1.

the barrage wall was poorly constructed of large stones without the use of mortar, poorly squared off at key points (like the changes in direction) and not watertight; any penetration of water would have destabilised the walls and caused their collapse.

2.

a sondage inside the wall showed a surface of fine hardcore and pebbles set in a matrix of chalk and gravel, unsuited to retain water.

In Geyer’s opinion, the purpose of the stepped retaining walls (see our fig.66) was to provide a level plateau around the Qasr to allow for a promenade and garden at the upper level, and another access route at the lower level. He agrees that there may have been a shallow moat around the Qasr but in no way was a lake planned or possible. Geyer presents a serious argument against the lake but it is an incomplete one. His investigations of the wall and the soil were limited and not exactly to the point. In particular, we must indicate that the construction of the wall was not to retain water, as a dam might have been, but to retain the weight of soil piled up behind the wall, to provide scope for the basin of water. That 163

basin was of no considerable depth, it was at most to be two metres deep (judging by the present levels of the ground) and it was for the surrounding soil, rather than the stonework, to retain the water. To clarify this point, the real need is for a number of soil samples to be taken well beyond the wall, towards the “lake” area, rather than the sample sondage conducted by Geyer just inside the retaining wall, where one would expect to find only fill material, as he did. One must also add that Geyer’s findings do not rule out a shallow band of water around the Qasr, as he himself admits (FL,15), or even a more considerable lake as we, and others, have suggested (our p.167). The designation by Josephus of a “moat” (bathin, Ant. XII, 230) could apply to either. One further point, for the subsoil of the “lake” area to retain water, quite apart from the retaining wall or Dyke, it should consist of non-porous material such as clay. Larché himself points out, when describing the method of transporting the megaliths, that the roadway could have been made suitably smooth and slippery by the application of clay (“argile”) to the surface, “qui est particulièrement abondante dans la dépression qui entoure la plate-forme sur laquelle est construit le palais” (FL,121). In other words, the soil around the Qasr is capable of retaining water, and the Dyke is there to retain the soil. The 1976 ASOR Expedition also found the soil to be capable of retaining water (see p.84). Larché is now certain that the first floor was built before the upper walls could be erected (FL, 77) for, as we have previously indicated, the floor was necessary to stabilise the lower walls and to form a platform from which the upper walls could be built (our p.155). The floor was of arched construction, but the north and south vestibules were floored with enormous flat slabs which are still in evidence, though the French team were unable to lift them into place. There were no such slabs for the internal rooms, rather they were all vaulted as part of the original Hellenistic construction (FL, 77). Many of the original voussoirs, having been dislodged by earthquake action, were found in secondary use. No vaults remained in the central rooms but evidence of their seatings was clear. Being small in size, the fallen voussoirs were the first to be used elsewhere (FL, 78). As normal in Hellenistic work the arches were set without mortar, and this aided their collapse (FL, 82). Larché points out that construction of vaults was nothing new in the Hellenistic period. In Egypt stone vaults go back to 750 BCE and derive from much earlier brick construction. In Greece and Asia Minor the use of stone vaults in residential building developed at the beginning of the third century BCE. The extensive use of vaults in Alexandria is attributed to the scarcity of timber and it seems that it was from Egypt that the fashion spread to other areas in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (FL, 86).

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The first floor has been reconstructed by Larché with a central colonnaded chamber and a southern room, surrounded by corridors on all four sides. At the south, the corridor opens straight off the lobby but at the north there is a further inner hall that connects to the outer lobby (see fig. 49). The central room, based on Larché, is 8.5m.square, or 17 cubits by 17 cubits, and its internal walls are lined with 16 engaged columns. The corridors are approximately 3m. (6 cubits) wide internally, on all sides. The problem of the roofing to the central room is discussed, as the span of 8.5m.would have required timber trussing, unlike the use of straight timber roofing elsewhere in the Qasr. As this is problematic, Larché suggests that the room may have been hypaethral, that is, open to the sky. It would solve the problem of lighting to this internal chamber (FL, 99) and the disposal of incoming rainwater could be solved by channelling it to the two reservoirs behind the panther fountains, as we have previously suggested (our p.139).

Fig. 63, Axonometric View of the reconstructed Qasr (FL, ill. 27) We respect the proposed reconstruction by Larché (see fig.63), but we discern two fundamental problems. His plan shows one generous central room, one small southern room, and about 60m.of corridor. In addition there are two open lobbies, two staircases and four small corner chambers. Such an abundance of corridor and paucity of usable rooms hardly makes for a grand residence. If anything, it favours our idea of a set of three or four triclinia around a central open-air peristyle courtyard with two or three service rooms alongside (our fig.49). The second objection to a residence is that virtually the whole of the perimeter wall is an open colonnade, with more openings than stonework. This may work very well in summertime but in winter and at night it leaves most of the spaces unprotected from the cold and makes them virtually unusable for several months of the year. The extreme openness also militates against privacy. Again, these would not be 165

problems for banqueting rooms or triclinia, whose use could be geared to the climate, and which do not require to be so sheltered from the inquisitive gaze. In conclusion to this volume, Larché makes a number of important technical points (FL, 133-138): 1. The stonework construction is based on contemporary Greek methods such as the use of mortice and tenon joints, though the use of solid stone tenons is archaic. 2. There was a degree of prefabrication of the metopes and triglyphs to avoid irregular jointing. 3. The stonework of the interior walls of the ground floor reverted to Iron-Age Palestinian techniques with the use of occasional timber coursing. 4. The use of softer and harder limestone was specifically related to structural requirements (the arch voussoirs were in the softer material). 5. The megaliths were placed in position by very exact methods. 6. The filling of voids in the stonework with liquid mortar was essential to maintain structural integrity. 7. Construction of the Qasr was a continual process which only stopped short of final decorative elements and flooring. 8. The vaulting forming the first floor was essentially complete to enable the upper walls to proceed. 9. The level of the foundations does not indicate finished groundfloor levels, which can be seen to be 1.80m. above entry level, as indicated by certain door thresholds. 10. The northern sections of the building were more completely finished than the southern, indicating their greater importance. 11. The planned symmetry of the building was not always achieved, but the exact number of metopes and triglyphs must have been the result of precise design. 12. The influence of the Alexandria of the Ptolemies is evident in the design. Larché does not describe the construction of the roof (which, from his drawings, can be implied to be of timber) nor whether there was any evidence of access to, or use of, the roof.

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CHAPTER 16. Other Buildings and Sites at Airaq In order to understand the place of the Qasr in the estate, we need to consider the other building elements at Airaq al-Amir. These are: the Dyke and Monumental Gate, the Square Building, the Caves and Dovecote, the Village Tel and the Fortlet, the Fountainhead Basin and Burial Cave. These constructions have already been briefly described in Chap.1 (pp.312), but we need to look at them again in greater detail. Directly south of the Qasr is a large Dyke or embankment topped by a path or causeway. This earthwork is of a very considerable size. It starts in the west and continues in a straight line to the east for 200m. when it turns northwards (pointing north-east) through an angle of about 45o and runs for about 90m. when it turns again, this time through nearly 90o (now pointing north-west) and runs for another 110m. to reach the Monumental Gate, where it is in line with the north-east corner of the Qasr (see fig.3). Having started some 125m. to the south-west of the Qasr this massive Dyke has progressed round to the opposite corner of the Qasr, where it is 100m. from its north-east corner. The massive Dyke seems to have had three purposes. First, it retains the soil that allows the waters to spread around the Qasr and prevents them draining down the steep valley to the Wadi es-Sir and on to the Wadi Kefrein. Secondly, it acted as a defensive wall, running from the western cliffs of Tyros (Airaq al-Amir) round to the Monumental Gate, though by the time it reaches the Gate the wall is no more than a few metres above ground level (and unlikely to have been much higher in the past). Thirdly, the causeway on top of the wall gives unparalleled views of the Qasr from all sides except the north, providing a scenic promenade of some 400m.from end to end. It looks as if visitors were meant to start at the west end, walk the causeway and then enter the site at the Monumental Gateway, a kind of walk in the picturesque fashion of the exotic that existed in Ptolemaic Alexandria as much as it did in the late Italian Renaissance. If the Qasr was indeed surrounded by a lake, this perambulation would have given extraordinary pleasure to its visitors and great pride to its creator (Netzer 2001, 136, fig.175). That the top of the wall was laid out as a causeway can be seen from the finishing of the stonework, still visible today (fig.64).

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Fig. 64, Present top course of Dyke, upper section, showing headers in position

Fig. 65, Corner of Dyke, showing cut stone at southeast corner But this picturesque walk could not have been the primary purpose of the Dyke. The top of the embankment is about 4m. above the land sloping towards the Qasr and about 8m. above the pathway at its base towards the Wadi. The internal side is silted over but the southern side is visible and faced with cyclopean stonework of rough workmanship, laid in regular horizontal courses, with heavy megaliths at the corners and at each change in direction (see fig.65). The face of the wall is built to a batter of about 1 in

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5 and the facing quality improves the nearer the wall gets to the Monumental Gate. There the wall is (at present) at its lowest but the stonework is heavy and well coursed, with a far smaller element of chinking stones than in the main southern portion. As a whole the wall presents the kind of appearance typical of rough city walls of the Iron Age or boundary walls of the Byzantine, but with its integral positioning around the Qasr there can be little doubt it is Hellenistic work contemporary with the monument. The French Team have surveyed the Dyke, as can be seen by levelling marks on the stonework, but have not yet published their results. Butler states that the causeway and Dyke were built in three stepped parallel walls “each about 3m.higher than the one below it, and about 7m. apart with terraces between them” (Butler 1907, 24). There is indeed evidence that the Dyke was built as a series of stepped retaining walls with berms between and this is a very economical form of construction and good engineering practice (see fig.66). The French claim to have found a series of valves and sluices in the Dyke (WL.I, 38, n.157) which suggests that there was a system of controlling the level of the lake and perhaps a method of avoiding any overfill, which could have been dangerous to the stability of the wall (Larché, p.c. Feb. 2001). However it is difficult to see how such valves would have been operated and one must doubt their existence. Netzer has estimated that the construction of the Dyke entailed the moving of 200,000 cubic metres of earth, a tremendous undertaking (Netzer 2000, 342). We agree his figure in principle though we might have set it somewhat lower. A reasonable calculation can be made by the area of the fields below, multiplied by the average of their cut into the sloping ground (see fig.67). There is also the question, discussed above, of whether the subsoil around the Qasr was porous or not, there being some disagreement on this between the French team and the ASOR excavations of 1976 (see p.84). But whatever the results of these investigations, the existence of the massive Dyke, the result of so much labour and expenditure, must imply that the intention was to have at least a shallow lake around the Qasr. On present topographical features, the lake would have covered an approximate area of 270m. by 150m., being about 4 hectares or 10 acres in extent. Netzer has suggested an area of 6 hectares (2001, 137) but we find that to be excessive.

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Fig. 66, Typical Section through Dyke

Fig. 67, Cut and Fill Diagram of Dyke Construction As for the tremendous effort expended in building the massive Dyke, the work may well have been conducted like a military operation. We know that the Tyros estate was and always had been a military establishment. From at least the time of Zenon, it is clear that there were considerable numbers of soldiers of different nationalities stationed at Airaq al-Amir (see pp.18-20). This must have remained the case as we find in later times, as the Maccabean records show, there were cavalrymen of the Tobiad fraternity involved in the fight with Timotheus and the Seluicids (see p.43). As with all army units they were trained to fight but long periods must have intervened when there were no battles to prosecute. It was probably in those periods of inaction that the major projects were undertaken, and the army used to build the embankment and Dyke. It may well be that it was also the 170

soldiers and ex-soldiers who were employed in the construction of the massive walls of the Qasr, under the direction of the master-builders, the architect and his craftsmen. It is doubtful that slave labour was employed on this enterprise. Although slave labour was used extensively in the Hellenistic world, particularly in the Greek cities, the Ptolemies did not favour it (Rostotvzeff 1941, 1260). As the Ptolemiac model was probably applied at Tyros, and as there is no evidence there of the housing of large numbers of slaves, that left the military cleruchs, and any personal slaves that they had, to provide the building force. The north-eastern end of the Dyke connects directly onto the west jamb or pylon of the Monumental Gate but the masonry of the wall and the gate are not bonded together. In fact, the large gateway stands in splendid isolation and its size gives it the apt name of Monumental Gate, or Porte Monumentale, coined by de Saulcy (1865, 223). The French team investigated it thoroughly in 1977 and 1978 (Dentzer et al. 1983, 133–148), as we have described it in Chap. 9 (pp. 85-87) and where we have shown figures of the restoration drawing by the French (our fig. 25) and a photograph of one of the lion sculptures (fig.24). Here we will just add fig.68, which shows the gate in its present setting and fig.69, a photograph of the piece of entablature, as illustrated by Conder and by Butler and as restored on the French elevation (fig.25). These fragments show that the restoration by the French Team is an accurate reflection of how this imposing gate must have looked originally.

Fig. 68, Monumental Gate (note Lion block standing at left)

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Fig. 69, Entablature of Monumental Gate, lying upside down Standing well above the Qasr and to the north of it, is the Square Building, so called by Butler and Lapp. The building is small, 6.80m.by 6.80m. and in a state of complete ruin. Lapp investigated it (see pp.79-80) and found three phases. He did not commit himself as to its use; that he left to the imagination of his predecessors. The first explorers, Irby and Mangles, called it “a small temple”; de Saulcy calls it an “édicule”; de Vogüé and Conder do not mention it. Butler goes into more detail. He notes it is square and thinks that it had perhaps a pyramidal roof and that it was either an aedicule or a tomb (1907, 22-3). Having seen pieces of column and Doric entablature lying about the site (as elsewhere) he thinks it may have been a small temple or shrine, built dystile in antis (two columns between wing walls).

It is significant that Butler found three pieces of entablature totalling 5.17m in length but, as one piece was broken, the total was probably 3 x 1.97 = 5.91m., making up the façade of the east side, which he restores (1907, ill.14B). This would mean a building some 5.9m square sitting on a plinth or base of 6.80m, a perfect little shrine. Today there is only one piece of entablature visible (figs.4 & 70), but there is evidence of the three solid rear walls and drums of unfluted column (fig.71). Butler’s restoration (on paper) is too optimistic as the column, or columns, were more probably internal, as described below.

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Fig. 70, Entablature at Square Building (for detail see fig. 4)

Fig. 71, Square Building, walls, column drums and piece of cornice Lapp had not attempted to identify this building but he did uncover a drain alongside and it may be this proximity that has suggested to the French Team that it was a water installation (WL.I, 3, n.1) but this is not plausible. Of Lapp’s three phases, the last was Byzantine and the second associated with the Hellenistic remains and contemporary with the Qasr (see Chap. 9). There is no argument as to this dating, so it would be reasonable to speculate that the Square Building was, at least at the time of Hyrcanus, a small shrine. Significantly, Lapp found terrace walls attached to the building on

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the north and south sides and there is a large artificial terrace to the east of it (as shown in de Saulcy’s plan, our fig.20). The building walls are orientated approximately north, east, south and west, as for the Qasr, and the entrance portico was on the east, from the artificial terrace. At present the terrace is well watered and sown with vegetable crops (fig.72) but it could well be that this had been a kind of temenos, a military parade ground or both. In that case the shrine may have been served by an altar and other cultic paraphernalia from the terrace. Such a use, overlooking the Qasr, would have accorded well with the Qasr as a mausoleum (see below).

Fig. 72, Terrace by Square Building being ploughed by donkey

Fig. 73, Axes of Qasr, Gate & Square Building

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The Square Building stands on a promontory about 20m.above the Qasr, with a splendid view of it to the south, across what may have been the surrounding lake. The north-south axis of the Qasr passes very close to the Square Building and it cannot be accidental that the centre line of the Monumental Gate intersects the crossing of the Qasr axis with the east-west axis of the Square Building (see fig.73). It seems to us that Hyrcanus, who had all three of these elements built, planned some kind of axial symmetry between them. The Square Building of the Hyrcanus phase stood on an earlier base as demonstrated by Lapp (see p.79) and Hyrcanus used its location to tie in with the Qasr and his Monumental Gate. As the visitor entered the gate his eyes would be directed to the Square Building ahead of him, and then his gaze would be redirected down to the Qasr standing in the midst of its pool of water to the left. It appears to be the height of the picturesque but may also have had some cultic importance as, for instance, bringing sacrifices at the shrine in honour of the dead buried below in the Qasr. We know from earlier cases, such as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, that there was an altar directed towards the tomb and used for sepulchral sacrifices (Akurgal 1978, 251, fig.95c), and from later cases in Nabataean Petra, such as the High Place of sacrifice with its altars and water installations (Browning 1977, 210-211). But a shrine at Airaq al-Amir was not necessarily for the purpose of serving the dead. It may well have been even more necessary for the living, cut off as they were from Jerusalem. It is likely therefore that there was some kind of shrine on the estate and one must originally have been part of the complex on the Village Tel. De Saulcy shows a shrine at that location, on the east side of the Tel (see his plan, our fig.20), and describes it as being in the style of the Qasr (1865, 234), but it is no longer visible on site. The small Square Building is orientated to the west, slightly south of west, which would put it in line with Jerusalem, though such an “orientation” is unlikely to have been significant at this period, well before the synagogues of the late Roman period were built to face Jerusalem (Levine 2000, 179). More significant is the fact that is is virtually on an east-west axis, with the entrance from the east. This puts it on a par with the Temple of Jerusalem itself and even with the archetypal Tabernacle of the Wilderness, the rear of which faced the west (Exod. 26:22). Based on plans by Butler and Lapp, we have drawn a reconstruction of the plan of the Square Building with two internal columns (fig.74). Such a small square shrine is similar to the internal square cellae of early temples in this locality, such as at Ba’al Shamin (cella 9m.x 9m.) and the Nabataean Temple at Wadi Rum (6m.x 6m.) which faces west. Both are cited and illustrated by Busink (1970, 44 n.163; 1980, figs.274, 283). Similarly, the Nabataean temple at Khirbet Tannur has a square cella of about 4m.by 4m.set within another square outer wall of about 11m.by 11m. The temple existed up to the second century CE but its beginnings go back to the first century BCE (Glueck 1965, 89) and it is orientated nearly exactly east to 175

west (1965, 91) with the front facing east and the rear facing west (1965, plans A, H). The temple is dedicated to the aniconic Nabataean god DhuShara or Dushara, whom Glueck equates with the Greek Dionysus (1965, 86). Khirbet Tannur is approximately 100 km. due south of Airaq al-Amir.

Fig. 74, Square Building: Reconstruction, Plan and Front Elevation These parallels suggest that the Square Building may indeed have been a local shrine to serve the Hyrcanus estate. Even if there had been an earlier shrine at the Village Tel, it is likely that Hyrcanus decided to build a new one, in the Hellenistic style, on the site overlooking his monumental Qasr. But there is no question that this “shrine” was a kind of synagogue. Although some very early proseuche are attested in Egypt in the third century BCE, these and other later synagogues were in practice community centres for the Jewish population in a gentile world (Modrzejewski 1995, 94-97). Such a function would not have applied at Tyros.

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The caves form an essential element of the Tobias estate. Not only do they give their name to Airaq al-Amir, “Cliff of the Prince”, but they carry the earliest specific indication of the Tobiad presence, the name TOBYAH inscribed on two of the cave facades. As pointed out above, each name is at a doorway with an artificially carved interior, as already remarked by Conder and Mantell (see p.66). In fact we cannot go much further than these two explorers did, as today the main caves are securely barred and locked because of the danger of falling rocks. This is enormously frustrating to visitors and also to the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism, who were in the process of opening up the caves to tourists quite recently and had gone so far as to build a staircase to the first and second terraces. From the exterior we can see that in the case of the two inscriptions and their associated caves, especially the eastern one, the rock face has been cut back to form a tidy straight facade, similar to many rock faces in Nabatean Petra. In the eastern case the upper rock was cut away and a considerable overhang was created at the actual doorway below (see fig.75). The doorway was cut with a double-rebated architrave (frame) and the inscription is to the right of the doorway, all as mentioned above (p.109). In the second case, the inscription is to the left of the doorway, not as clearly cut as in the first case, and the facade above is also more primitive.

Fig. 75, Rockface at Eastern cave with Inscription no.1, double-rebated doorway and three ring holes (see also figs. 14 and 36) As previously described (p.66), it seems that our first-mentioned cave and inscription is the one referred to by Conder and Mantell as cave no.13 (1889, 76). Although it was difficult to survey, Mantell considered it to be 60ft. by 30ft. (18m.by 9m.). It was an artificially cut cave of considerable size. The doorway, cut with rebates, was halfway up the room, which was accessed by a ramp, which may have concealed an original stairway. 177

Another possibility is that the upper rebated opening is only a window (see p.111) but it would be unusual to give a window such prominence. Our second (western) cave is Conder’s no.11 (1889, 75); he says it was called by the Arabs El-Weibdeh, “the cutting”, obviously for its artificial cut or enlargement. It was about 60ft. deep by 33ft. wide and 33ft. high to the apex (18m.by 10m.by 10m.). The ceiling is a shallow vault springing from a rebated cornice each side, indicating a chamber of some importance. Clearly these two caves, numbered 11 and 13 by Conder, were of special construction, with doorways and inscriptions, and therefore of extra significance. They were presumably banqueting rooms (or triclinia) as described by Josephus (Ant. XII, 231) and probably doubled as hiding places in time of danger. Concerning the inscriptions, we have already suggested above (p.30) that the word TOBYAH is not just a personal name, it can also be a place name rather than a theophoric form of the adjective Tob “good”. Thus, it may be that the name was placed on the face of caves at an early date to establish location as well as family ownership. The use of Tobyah as a place name may also explain its persistance in the family over a period of several hundred years (as p.30), in order to preserve the family connection with the estate. Handing it on from grandfather to grandson was not just the common practice of papponymy but also an act of personal land registration. Alternatively the inscription recorded the burial of a member of the family, as previously argued (p.113). We cannot say much more on these two caves, which are not now accessible, but to repeat what the early explorers and Butler saw. The most complete description is given by Conder, based on the survey and investigation by his colleague Mantell. They examined fifteen caves in all, six at the lower level and nine above (1889, 68). They were all drawn in outline (1889, figs.3–19) and three were of particular interest. First is the largest cave of the upper tier, which was a long deep hall and gallery, 143ft. (44m.) from front to back. It is Conder’s cave no.5, whose local name was “El-Hosn” (the horses?) and contained stone mangers, more than a hundred in all, cut into the rockface at about 90cm. centres, with rock-cut staples below, to which to tie the animals, presumably horses (1889, 69-71). This cave is accessible today (fig.76). On the lower level are the two caves already mentioned, numbered 11 and 13 by Conder. No.11 is shown in plan and two sections (1889, figs 16–18), but no.13, which was of similar size and shape, is not drawn. Instead, Conder has a sketch of its entrance wall, showing the rebated doorway, the inscription and the rock overhang (1889, fig.20).

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Fig. 76, Deep Cave showing Mangers and low-level staples

Butler was content to rely on Conder’s description of the caves, but he adds a note about their non-use as graves. He claims there was no evidence of niches, arcosolia (burial benches) or sarcophagi, which, he says, “distinguish the rock-hewn tombs of Syria from rock-hewn stables”. He therefore concludes that the caves were only for the domestic use of man and beast (Butler 1907, 24 –25). De Saulcy showed considerable interest in the caves and describes the deep one as, “une véritable écurie; c’est le plus profond de tous et il n’a pourtant pas trente mètres de longueur” (1865, 214). He therefore agrees with Conder as to its use, though he does not describe the mangers, and finds it less than 30m.deep, where Conder had 44m. Conder included the wider forecourt (1889, fig.7), whereas de Saulcy seems to have omitted it from his measurements. De Saulcy mentions that some of the other caves had traces of moulding (moulure) of “une simplicité toute primitive” (1865, 215), probably a reference to the simple cornices of Conder’s caves nos.11 and 13 mentioned above. Finally, de Saulcy also refers to “trois énormes demianneaux” above cave no.13, which we have referred to above (p.111) and which he had pointed out as probably being to hang a tent or “verandah”, that is, to protect a verandah or forecourt (our fig.36). De Saulcy adds that at the time of his visit in 1863 the caves were inhabited by some Christian families of Salt (that lies 14 km. to the north) and their animals. They were on good terms with the Adouan, the local Bedouin tribe who, he says, governed the territory (de Saulcy 1865, 217).

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At the west end of the caves, there stands a large monolith that looks as if it has broken away from the cliffs in some prehistoric age (fig.8). But the opposite may be true, the stone standing upright in situ while the face of the cliffs has eroded and receded. The lower sections of the cliff face have been cut to provide stonework for the Qasr (for analysis see Appendix). The solitary monolith is covered on one side with a series of 26 small cavities carefully chiselled into the rock. De Saulcy decided it was not a columbarium for pigeons or doves, as the recesses were too small, rather it was for small lights to guide pilgrims along the “sacred way” from the Qasr (his temple of Moloch) to the caves (1865, 217). Conder, though dismissing any idea of a sacred way, also thought it was for lights rather than for birds or skulls, though admitting this was only a conjecture (1889, 68). Conder considered the possibility of a columbarium for pigeons, as elsewhere in Palestine, or one for the skulls of hermits as at Burj er-Rus at Damascus, but dismisses both as the rock in question at Airaq al-Amir is out in the open, and columbaria for pigeons or skulls are normally under cover. For instance at Maresha (Marissa) there is a vast underground columbarium (Kloner 1996, 15) a little earlier than the main works at Airaq al-Amir. In this connection, we must mention a nearby site, which was described by both Butler and Conder, at Il Mu’allakah, which lies only a few kilometers north-east of Airaq in the Wadi es-Sir. Conder calls it Ed Deir (the Monastery) and describes it as a three-storey construction cut into the living rock, with many triangular recesses cut into the walls at each level (1889, 93-96). As there were monastic remains nearby, Conder inclines to the view that the recesses were for the hermits’ skulls, but he quotes the opinion of a Dr. Post, who sees the building as a dovecote. The niches (see fig.77) each measured 8ins.high by 7.5ins.wide at base and 8ins.deep (20cm.by 19cm.by 20cm.), which Conder felt to be on the small side for pigeons (1889, 95, note). At Airaq the niches are, on average, 11ins.high by 9ins.at the base by 6ins.deep (28cm.by 23cm.by 15cm.), so considerably larger but shallower. It is difficult to see why Conder dismisses the Airaq rock as unsuitable for doves or pigeons.

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Fig. 77, Columbarium at Ed-Deir (Il Mu’allakah) Butler also describes the Il Mu’allakah building, with more elaborate drawings, and he is astounded at the excellent workmanship of the chambers and niches cut into the solid rock (1907, 29-32). He finds the amazing number of 2,200 niches in all. Butler agrees with the idea of a columbarium for doves and points out that “the wild pigeon of this locality is much smaller than the domesticated bird with which we are familiar” (1907, 31). Butler finds that the meticulous workmanship and some of the stone details of this strange building connect it with the work at the Qasr (1907, 32) only 5 km. away as the pigeon flies. The connection is difficult to prove but it is an attractive theory. It could then be that the columbarium at Il-Mu’allakah was a breeding ground for the doves, which were used, according to Butler for “sacrificial purposes or … culinary convenience”. It certainly seems that the niched stone at our caves was for doves or pigeons, even though it is located in the open. The majority of the birds may have lived or perched in some of the caves themselves and some were perhaps enticed onto the rock by snippets of food. Seeing the site was a military camp and administrative centre of the Tobiad family, could it be that the birds were trained and used for the delivery of messages? That is not entirely unlikely at this date and it is also possible that the estate indulged in the sport of pigeon racing which is known in later Roman times and specifically frowned on in the Mishna of c.220 CE (M. Sanhedrin 3:3). It is possible that pigeons (or doves) were released at Il-Mu’allakah and flown to Tyros as part of the sporting activities of the estate. It seems that training pigeons for carrying messages is the same as for racing so it may indeed be that these pigeons were trained to carry messages. Pliny, writing in the first century CE, says that pigeons acted as messengers at the siege of Mutina in 43 BCE (Natural History X, 110). 181

But Butler’s idea that the pigeons were for “culinary convenience” must also be considered. Today there are many roofs at Airaq al-Amir covered in old concrete blocks and tins that serve to house pigeons or doves (see fig.78). The locals say these small birds (they are indeed smaller than our European varieties) are bred for food. They live in the open on the roofs where they are safer from dogs and cats. With our large stone Dovecote standing at one end of the gallery giving access to the caves, the provision of pigeons and their eggs could have served as a meat larder for anyone living in the caves.

Fig. 78, Pigeons on Roof with makeshift dovecotes On the general question of pigeons in the economy of the countryside, it appears that they played a considerable part, particularly in Egypt (Rostovtzeff 1941, 294). They were a cheap luxury food and produced good manure in large quantities. Pigeon-houses were so popular that the Ptolemaic kings taxed and derived good revenue from them (1941, 1386, n.97). Seeing the close relations that existed between Tyros and Ptolemaic Egypt, as evidenced by the Zenon papyri (see pp.17-20), it is possible that the caveside Dovecote dates from this period and may even have preceded the building activities of Hyrcanus. There is another possible link of the Dovecote with those of Maresha and indeed Alexandria. It has been claimed that the extensive underground columbaria at Maresha were for the raising of “sacred doves for the cult of Aphrodite-Atargatis” (Oren 1968, 61). This is due to the discovery there of conical pillars, which were symbols of this goddess. Oren suggests that the city of Maresha served as a centre for the cult of these sacred doves, similar

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to Aphrodite sanctuaries at “Ascalon, Sidon, Tyre, Alexandria etc” (1968, 61). At Airaq however, there is no sign of any conical pillars, and, with the niches being somewhat randomly placed in the open, it is unlikely that they served anything other than a utilitarian purpose. The evidence on the Village Tel is hard to summarise, because it is so sparse. Lapp made a number of trial holes and dug them to bedrock. On the west side he made a fuller investigation of a luxury building that he called the Plaster Building and which he dated to the Hellenistic Period, equivalent to the time of Hyrcanus (see Chap. 9). Elements of this building contained some very luxurious plasterwork décor (Groot 1983, 79) and it is clear that in the Hyrcanus period the state of many buildings on the Village Tel was of a high degree of comfort and even luxury. These buildings were of the type of grand Graeco-Roman houses built around a courtyard (Groot 1983, 76), exactly the aulas described by Josephus (Ant XII, 233). As the Village Tel has now been largely built over, it is difficult to assess the extent of the Hyrcanean development. Lapp had difficulty investigating some areas because of local family feuds as to ownership (see p. 76) and the French Team reported the same difficulties and indeed dangers (Larché, p.c. Feb. 2001) but if we look at de Saulcy’s plan (our fig.20), we see that the ancient development on the Tel was quite extensive: about 110m. from east to west by 120m. from north to south, covering an area of 1.3 hectares or 3.2 acres. In 1981 F.Villeneuve conducted preliminary excavations at the Village Tel, at the north-east corner (Lapp had worked at the north-west) and uncovered traces of an Iron-Age wall and a gateway possibly protected by twin towers, and found evidence of two later phases of this work (Villeneuve 1986, 160). In his opinion the Village Tel was protected and occupied from at least the Persian period to the late Hellenistic, though not necessarily continuously (1986, 161), which agrees with Lapp’s findings, though Lapp would extend the occupation further to the late Roman period (our p. 200). This Village Tel could certainly have served as a residence for the Tobiad family together with administrative offices and servants’ quarters. It is clear that this was the “palace” of Tyros. Furthermore, it was protected by substantial external walls, making it defensible in an emergency. De Saulcy’s plan shows it as “ruines d’habitations protégées par une enceinte” (1865, 216) with two further remarkable features. On the east side he shows a small building, similar in size to the Square Building, north of the Qasr, and labelled it “Edifice religieux?”. There is no way now of knowing if it was so or not. We have obviously to be on our guard, as we know de Saulcy’s propensity for sacred buildings. In the second feature he is on firmer ground. Right at the south-east corner of the fortified Village Tel he shows a staircase, “escalier et guérite (sentry-box) taillés dans le roc”. There is some evidence of rock-cut steps here down a very steep slope and their location is perfectly justified for, just below, we can see the ruins of an Iron-age fortlet, which will be described below. The curious thing is that this 183

ruin is not mentioned by any of our early travellers, nor is it mentioned by Lapp or the French Team. The ruins do seem to be out of view in the spring and summer when the vegetation is high, but in the autumn and winter they are highly visible. The fortlet may have been a contemporary of the early Village Tel development and this rock-cut staircase maintained the link between the two. To recapitulate on the Village Tel. There is evidence of Iron Age occupation, as Lapp discovered (see p.76) and then much later extensive building in the Hellenistic period, contemporary with Hyrcanus. After that, there was only a short break and continuity into the Roman period. But the Hyrcanus phase was extensive and luxurious and we would say there can be no doubt that this area was Hyrcanus’s palace and administrative centre. It was defensible and closely linked to the caves, only some 200m.away. The Village Tel stood above, and dominated, the route from Amman, which had previously been guarded by the Iron-Age Fortlet below the Tel. Standing at the high point of the well-watered estate, the Village Tel also dominated the view to the terraces of the south-west and ultimately the Wadi es-Sir, as it wound its way to the Wadi Kefrein. It is logical that when Hyrcanus came to the site he made the Village Tel his headquarters, while his auxiliary forces and others lived in the caves and temporary dwellings or tents. From the Village Tel, he commanded the view over the site of the monument that was to be the Tobiad Mausoleum, later to be called the Qasr al-Abd; and from this vantage point he directed all the work of the Qasr, the Dyke and causeway, the Monumental Gateway and the renovation of the Square Building and its adjoining terrace. Seeing that the Village Tel is now largely built over, with a modern mosque, a craft centre and several private houses or farms, it is fortunate that de Saulcy has left some record of its earlier state. Irby and Mangles (1823) do not mention it at all, and their travelling companion William Bankes was interested mainly in the Qasr and the caves (see pp.56-59). It is a pity that Conder does not show the Village Tel on his sketch plan (1889, 80,81); he just mentions “the ruins on the terrace…...apparently those of a small town or village” and goes on to describe foundations of “well-cut masonry, the stones of large size….fragments of simple cornice moulding…. on the south side. . .the rocks seem to have been artificially scarped” and he finds a place where they may have “formed the base of a small tower” (1889, 86). Conder also mentions a block of stone 13ft. (4m.) long with a 3ft. (1m.) wide “curious cutting” at the top, and seven niches of 7ins. (18mm.) each below. This sounds like the guardroom staircase shown on the map by de Saulcy, as mentioned above. His “escalier” was probably no more than a set of footholds cut into the rock.

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We should mention that certain wall foundations are visible at this southeastern corner of the Village Tel and they indicate what was probably an entrance or gateway from the south. This would be the reason for the sentry box (de Saulcy’s guérite) alongside and still visible today (fig. 79). A possible layout of this entrance based on present evidence is shown in our fig.80.

Fig. 79, Sentry box at south entrance to Village Tel

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Fig. 80, Sketch Plan of Southern Gateway to Village Tel

A number of column drums have been assembled at this part of the site, presumably by the French Team, but their original location is unclear, as the work has not been published. At the north end of the Village Tel perimeter there is a doorway formed by two jambs and a large threshold (fig. 81), which has original masonry remaining on the west side. The stonework has all the hallmarks of an Iron Age II dating, and the doorway probably belongs to part of the original boundary wall of the Village Tel. This must be the gateway mentioned by Villeneuve, as above. These fragments all point to the need for further investigatory work at this part of the site. Considerable areas of original stonework are in evidence in secondary use at the south end of the village (fig.82).

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Fig. 81, Village Tel, northern Doorway (original threshold and jamb, stonework walls rebuilt)

Fig. 82, Village Tel, reused masonry of boundary wall at southeast area Butler shows the Village Tel on his sketch plan (1907, frontispiece) and indicates seven modern houses on it, which he describes as a “very small and wretched modern settlement” (1907, 3). He adds that “all traces of the ancient edifices have disappeared, save a few building stones and some broken columns of the Doric order that have rolled down the slope”. He does however concede that the remains may be those of one of the “halls”

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(aulas) mentioned by Josephus. Short as they are, the descriptions by Conder and by Butler do underline that there were substantial Hellenistic remains on the Village Tel and give us confidence in the plan produced by de Saulcy and in the dating of Lapp (as pp.76-77). It is a tragedy that Lapp was not able to continue his work at Airaq al-Amir after 1962, as he was planning to proceed on to the Village Tel and the caves in 1964 (Lapp 1963, 39). But it was not to be, as his work at Wadi ed-Daliyah and Bab ed-Dra took precedence; moreover the funds for the work at Airaq al-Amir had dried up (N. Lapp p.c. June 2002). Whether the French Team will be able to resume work on the Village Tel and publish earlier findings is also doubtful. Their work on the Tel is partly published in Liber Annuus XXXI (Larché et al. 1981, 333-42) and XXXII (1982, 495-8) and then stops. Their intention was to proceed with work on the caves in 1983 (1982, 498) but we can find no record of it, and we presume it did not happen. The Village Tel stands on a very considerable bluff or rocky outcrop that provides excellent defence from the south and east. But the site is somewhat remote from and well above the ancient crossing of the Wadi es-Sir that carried the main track from ancient Amman (Rabbat Ammon, Philadelphia), so it is not surprising that below the Tel, on the south-east side, lay a Fortlet that was clearly there to stand guard over the river crossing-place. The remains are in a state of complete ruin and, as just mentioned, seem to have been overlooked by all travellers and expeditions, or at least have not been published by them to date. Judging from surface sherds (picked up in April 2001 by Y. Alexandre) the ruin dates from Iron Age II (c. 1050 BCE), which would correspond to the few scant Iron Age remains on the Village Tel itself. The Fortlet is approximately 20m.by 20m.overall and its four faces are orientated approximately to the points of the compass. The west and south sides of the fort had single walls but the north and east were casemates or a series of small rooms along the wall. There may have been a tower at the south-east corner and the entrance to the inner court was on the west side (figs.83, 84).

Fig. 83, Fortlet, view from Village Tel, looking south, entrance to right

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Fig. 84, Fortlet Plan This Fortlet was not the only one in the region. Three fortresses in the Wadi Kefrein were examined in 1995 by Prag and Barnes, one of which dates from Iron Age II (Prag and Barnes 1996, 41-42). It was located and described by Mallon in 1933 and revisited in 1995. The location has no name but it appears on the map by Prag and Barnes as a few kilometers below the Kefrein Dam, and about 12km. directly southwest of Airaq-alAmir (1996, 42). The fort as drawn by Mallon consists of a square enclosure with a defensive wall about 50m.long on each side with a heavy gateway on

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the east side and a 15m.square tower at the centre. It is possible that rooms lined the outer walls (1996, 47). From sherds collected in 1965 and 1995, Prag and Barnes date the ruined fort to the Iron Age II period (1996, 42). They point out that the fort lies on a flat section of land (it is therefore known as the Plateau Fort) and has “extensive and strategic views out across the Jordan Valley to the Wadi Adiama and the Dead Sea”. To the west it has a view of Tel al-Hamman, another Iron Age II site nearby. It seems clear then that there was a chain of forts along the Wadi Kefrein route to Amman in Iron Age II and our Fortlet at the foot of the Village Tel was probably an offshoot of this chain leading up to Airaq al-Amir or Tyros. These forts would have protected the route taken by Zenon in the third century BCE and many other caravans of an earlier date. They probably acted in this capacity also at a later date, when Hyrcanus was levying tolls and taxes on passing caravans. Further evidence of this string of forts is given in a paper by H. Gese (1958). He lists ten forts in an area west of Amman between the Wadi es-Sir and Na’ur, and points out that Nelson Glueck did not survey this area south of the line from Wadi es-Sir to Amman. He refers to the buildings as border forts (Grenzfestungen) and dates them to Iron Age I and II (1958, 56, 57). Characteristically they are all square buildings whose sides vary from 10m.to 30m.in length, with towers as part of the fort or standing nearby. Although our fort at Tyros is not listed by Gese (it is just outside his chosen area), it falls into his criteria for shape and date. Gese makes the point that these forts were inter-visible for defensive purposes. For this reason they were built on high ground but also had to be sited so as to look down into the adjoining wadis, often used for acces by infiltrators. The Airaq fort is admirably sited for the latter purpose, while for high-level viewing and signalling a nearby station on the Village Tel would have served.

Fig. 85, The Fountainhead Basin

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On the hillside above the caves, at a distance of about 350m. north of the Village Tel, lies a spring that apparently waters the whole estate (see fig.9) and alongside it has been built a stone-lined basin, about 3m.by 10m.with walls going down 1m.deep (fig.85). Small elements of columns, Doric cornice and entablature of the same form as found at the Qasr and the Square Building (fig.10) lie nearby and it can be assumed that some kind of structure had been built over or alongside the basin. Because of the similarity of the remaining pieces there can be little doubt that any structure would have belonged to the Hyrcanus period. However further details are difficult to establish, as the French team have roofed the basin over temporarily, to avoid further damage to what may have been a miniature nymphaeum. It would seem that the water source wells out of the mountain and then disappears underground (the karstic “swallow-hole” effect), while some of it was diverted to the basin. The water reappears again within the caves and at some positions along the roadway, and is than diverted westwards all along the settlement. It is a very abundant water supply and is the real source of the greenery of Airaq al-Amir. Contrary to earlier reports (Butler and others) there is little sign of a lengthy aqueduct tapping the Wadi es-Sir much higher in the valley and bringing water across to Airaq. That would have been a very lengthy and uneconomic procedure as the Wadi is far below the terraces of Airaq al-Amir, and some 60m.below the habitation level at the Village Tel. At present there is no visible sign of an aqueduct beyond the channels that run along the foot of the cliffs and slightly to the east of them. It seems all the water can be traced to the mountainside spring and the locals agree on this, and call it Ein Tarabil. This spring appears to be the raison-d’etre for the fertility of the area and the location of Tyros at this spot. Hyrcanus realised this and built alongside it a Fountainhead Basin, or miniature nymphaeum, part of his plan for the Hellenisation of the estate. Our final installation is a burial cave situated about 100m.above the water source, and hidden amongst some rather fine fruit trees. The Cave is a natural one but sealed at the mouth with a wall of rough field stones that give way to ashlars around a regular rectangular doorway. The lintel is nicely laid with notched bearings (our fig.11). There may have been a timber or even stone doorway in the past, though no fixings remain. The interior of the Cave has been extended to provide one shelf and several curiously shallow kokhim around a central preparation area with a drainage sump. There is a rough courtyard outside the doorway, defined by a line of stones. The size of the Cave is about 20m.by 10m.overall in plan. The main area is kidney-shaped, with a narrower extension of about 5m.by 5m.to the north (see fig.86). The Cave is from 2m.to 3m.high, the roof being formed by a natural layering in the limestone, with a very marked longitudinal cleft running its full length. On entering the Cave, there is a natural shelf on the rear wall opposite, with a trough at its south end. This could have been a preparation bench with a washing area alongside. Along the walls are four shallow rounded recesses that are too high and not deep enough to be real kokhim. Two similar recesses are cut in the northern extension. Although 191

the complex, with its forecourt, shelf and trough, looks like a burial cave, the shallow recesses are not suitable for burials, unless one could imagine a body set out in a standing position, which is obviously impractical. A completely different possibility might be that the Cave was used for stabling animals and that the shallow recesses had been used as mangers, but again their shape is not a practical one.

Fig. 86, Plan of Cave, north-west of Fountainhead Basin

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As to its dating, the Cave, except for a lack of real kokhim, looks like a typical burial cave of the Hasmonean period (first century BCE), and one cannot say more without further investigation. Although it is a simple affair, it did have a carefully built doorway (perhaps later) and it was located close to the important water source. Was it perhaps the temporary resting place for the bodies (besides his own) that Hyrcanus was preparing to lay to rest in his palatial mausoleum, the Qasr? It is not possible to pursue this argument, but I would like to think there is some validity in the suggestion. The alternative might be that parts of the main caves were reserved for the temporary burials but this is most unlikely, as they were in fairly intensive use and there was probably regular traffic between them and the Village Tel, which would have made the proximity of the dead unpleasant for the living, whether or not they conformed to the later religious requirement to bring the dead outside the habitable area (M. Baba Bathra 2:9). If our conjecture about the burial cave is right, then perhaps Joseph the tax farmer and his wife, or both wives (see p.16) were interred in this hillside grave, outside the estate limits. As the Qasr was never finished, it could well be that, after his death, Hyrcanus was also interred in this kind of temporary grave, which in the end became the last resting place of the powerful Tobiad clan. That would be some paradox, the magnificent Mausoleum unfinished and empty, the hillside Cave their final place of rest. “How are the mighty fallen” as David said of Saul (2 Sam.1:25 & 27), which brings us back to the place of the Qasr in the midst of this Hellenistic development. Hyrcanus had all he required in the estate. His court and residence were on the Village Tel, with extra rooms for men and animals in the nearby caves. An old Fortlet stood below to guard the roadway from Rabbat Ammon and the caravan route up the Wadi es-Sir. There was a good water supply from the mountainside spring and well-watered terraces for crops and orchards. There was a new shrine on the hill and a terrace for cult and miltary activity. A grand entrance led into the estate and connected with a simple boundary wall on one side and the Dyke on the other. Into this paradeisos, Hyrcanus decided to introduce a monument which would commemorate the long line of his Tobiad family. It was to be a magnificent family tomb or mausoleum, the Tobiad family Mausoleum, later to be called the Qasr al-Abd after his ancestor Tobyah, “the servant, the Ammonite”, the servant of the king. If Hyrcanus had been spared to finish the Qasr, and furnish it with the family tombs, it would truly have completed his design for a grand Hellenistic estate in the wild countryside alongside the Wadi es-Sir.

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CHAPTER 17.

Destruction, End of the Tobiads

The Tobiad Estate of Hyrcanus has come to an end, but how? Josephus makes it short and simple. On the accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Hyrcanus commits suicide and the Seleucid king takes over the estate. This makes it clear that the Tobiad estate as such comes to an end, when its master, Hyrcanus, comes to his unfortunate end. Josephus sees this as plausible because, on “seeing how great was the power which Antiochus had, and fearing that he might be captured by him and punished for what he had done to the Arabs, he ended his life by his own hand. And all his property was seized by Antiochus” (Ant.XII, 236). It is a convenient end to the Tobiad Saga and believable for some reasons but not believable for many others. It is believable because the Seleucid emperors before Antiochus IV had not been particularly active in this part of the world. Seleucus III (226–223 BCE) in his brief reign had not been active at all (Edouard Will 1979, 257) and his successor Antiochus III (223–187 BCE) had been happy to give the taxes of Palestine to the Ptolemies, by way of a dowry to his daughter Cleopatra, wife of Ptolemy IV, as Josephus himself says, just before the beginning of the Tobiad Saga (Ant. XII, 154). His successor, Seleucus IV Philopator (187–175 BCE), was a pale figure and a “do-nothing” (D.Schwartz 1998, 47). So Hyrcanus was probably left in peace on his remote estate by the reigning Seleucid power, at least until Antiochus IV Epiphanes came onto the throne in 175 BCE. But, as we have said before, the forces of Antiochus III did occupy Philadelphia for a brief period in 218217 BCE and then probably became aware of the Tobiad Estate (see pp. 3839) though they had to leave soon after, after losing the battle of Raphia to Ptolemy IV in 217 BCE. As Hyrcanus and his father were creatures of the Alexandrian Ptolemies, it is unlikely that either of them could flourish once Palestine (Coele-Syria) had fallen to their enemies, the Seleucids, after the battle of Panion in 200 BCE. So it was to be expected that Hyrcanus could hardly survive too long after that date. Josephus implies (but does not state explicitly) that Hyrcanus took over at least some of his father’s tax-farming activities on behalf of the Ptolemies (Tcherikover 1961, 136) and, assuming with Daniel Schwartz (1998, 50, 61) that, thanks to Cleopatra’s dowry, they still persisted after 200 BCE, these taxes could hardly continue after her father Antiochus III was replaced by his second son Antiochus IV, 25 years later. Thus Hyrcanus would at this time be losing his livelihood even if not his life. On the other hand, the end game postulated by Josephus is unlikely for other reasons. Although Antiochus IV came to power in 175 BCE, he was immediately caught up in dealing with insurrection in Egypt and had no 194

time to take an interest in Palestine, and certainly not in Transjordan, until at least six years later. His incursion into Egypt was not successful, or at least he was stopped in his tracks by the Romans, and when it was rumoured that he had died in Egypt, certain elements in Jerusalem, and also Jews elsewhere, rejoiced. For instance, Jason took the opportunity to re-install himself as High Priest in Jerusalem (Ant. XII, 239). But the rumours proved to be false and Antiochus IV Epiphanes came back to Jerusalem, to regroup and exact further money for another sortie into Egypt. He also took the opportunity to punish his previously rejoicing enemies. Jason had to flee, and it was then perhaps that Antiochus IV took notice of Hyrcanus on his remote estate. For this reason some put Hyrcanus’ death or even suicide, at 169 (Goldstein 1984, 208; Zayadine 1991, 23) or 168 BCE (Bar Kochva 1989, 83). But, even if this is correct, it was not the end of the estate because we learn from Second Maccabees that, on the return of Antiochus IV Epiphanes to Jerusalem, the High Priest Jason flees to Ammonite territory (4:26). It is unlikely therefore that this territory, probably the Tobiad Estate itself or an area close to it, had come under the active jurisdiction of Antiochus IV or had even been brought to his attention. Furthermore, the “Toubiad Jews” were still on site when attacked by the Seleucids under Timotheus (1Macc. 5:13) in 163 BCE. It seems therefore that we cannot really tell when Hyrcanus died, nor can we agree with Josephus that the estate came to an end with the death or suicide of Hyrcanus. It is quite likely that the Vorlage in front of Josephus came to an end at a date close to the accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and so Josephus is forced to bring his Saga, and its hero, to an end as well. It seems that Josephus had knowledge of the Book of Maccabees, certainly of the first Book, as he gives “a close paraphrase” of parts of First Maccabees (Grabbe 2002, 7), but he may not have connected its oblique references, as we shall see below, to the Tobiad estate at Tyros, and so considered the estate and Hyrcanus to have come to an end at the same time. As mentioned above (p.55), the “suicide” may have been just a convenient ploy to finish off the hero of the Tobiad Saga (Gera 1990, 30). In order to understand the end of Tyros, we need to look at the passages in both Books of Maccabees, which we have examined in pp. 42-47 in the light of comments by Goldstein (1976), Bar-Kochva (1989) and Gera (1998). It then becomes clear that the Tobiad estate, with or without its last scion, Hyrcanus, took part with the Maccabees in their revolt against the Seleucids, and was wiped out by the Seleucid general Timotheus in 163 BCE, shortly after Antiochus V Eupator had succeeded his father Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 164 BCE. It may be noted that Josephus, who gave us the whole Tobiad Saga, makes no mention of Tyros in his account of the Hasmonean War in Transjordan. 195

But he does mention that Judas Maccabeus went out against his enemies outside Judaea itself, attacking the Idumaeans, the Baanites (maybe the Moabites) and “then he set out from there against the Ammanites who had a great and numerous force, which was led by Timotheus. And when he had subdued them also, he took the city of Jazora, and after taking captive their wives and children, and burning the city, he returned to Judaea” (Ant. XII, 327 – 329). This seems to have parallels with the passage in 1 Macc. 5:9, except that there it is Timotheus who takes the wives and children captive while destroying the males. The Loeb edition of Josephus (R. Marcus 1943,) says Jazora or Jazer is identified by Père Abel with Khirbet Sâr, about 7 miles north-east of Airaq al-Amir (1943, 171, n.e). This site, a ruined fort, is located on the Wadi-es-Sir, that itself runs through the Tobiad estate. The point is further amplified by Marcus in his note ‘f’ which equates Josephus’ paragraph XII, 330, saying how the Jews fled to Dathema, with 1 Macc. 5:13. That seems to be very plausible and thus Josephus is underlining the account of First Maccabees that records the end of Tyros, though not mentioning it by name. It may be asked why First Maccabees uses the name Charax, and Josephus the name Jazora for what we believe to be the Tobiad estate of Tyros, today Airaq al-Amir. One answer could be that, although there was the rather specific location of the Village Tel, which must have had an ancient (now unknown) name, the estate as such was considerably larger and set in countryside of perhaps no specific designation. Josephus claims that Hyrcanus called it Tyros (Ant. XII, 233) but we know that name existed previously in the form Sarabit (see p. 17) and that Tyros has continued in a different form up to the present in the name of the Wadi es-Sir. Perhaps none of these names is particularly specific to the estate as a whole, as we see in the designation, “the people of Tubias” and so on. If the estate is known more for its inhabitants than its location name, it is likely that different names attached to it at different times. Charax was a name for it as a temporarily fortified camp, and Josephus found the name Jazora in First Maccabees where Judas fights the Idumaeans and “the Baeanites”, crosses over to the Ammonites and fights Timotheus and “after capturing Jazer and its dependent villages, he returned to Judaea” (1 Macc 5:3 – 8). These verses contain all the names cited by Josephus in the passage mentioned above (Ant. XII, 327-329). In summary, we would say that Hyrcanus died or was killed in 168 BCE, at the time that Antiochus IV returned to Jerusalem from Egypt. The estate however did not revert to the Seleucid emperor, but remained in the hands of the Tobiad Jews, until their defeat by Timotheus in 163 BCE. The number of Jewish inhabitants was considerable if we accept that First Maccabees is right in putting the count of the slaughtered at about “one thousand men” (1 Macc. 5:13). With women and children the total number might then have been some three thousand, rather a high figure for this country estate.

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If Timotheus did indeed defeat the Jews of Tubias in the estate of Tyros and did slaughter one thousand males there, it is not likely that he left the place itself intact. He would have toppled some of the standing stones of the Qasr and left the Village Tel in disrepair even if not in ruins. This might resolve several obvious questions, such as, why did the Hasmoneans make no use of Tyros? And why was the estate left deserted for 500 years or so until its Byzantine occupation? However, these questions are not quite valid, nor even accurate, as we shall see.

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CHAPTER 18.

Later Occupation

Netzer raises an important issue, why did the Hasmoneans make no use of Tyros? He puts it, quite rightly, in a less positive way. “Whether the Hasmoneans or Herod made use of this unique structure (the Qasr al-Abd), which served as a part of a villa or extensive palace, a sort of splendid wing for the reception of guests, remains an open question. In any event, Tyros was part of their realms.”

And he goes further: “The estate of the Tobiads at Tyros most probably served as one of the sources of inspiration for the construction of the palaces of the Hasmoneans and later, those of Herod” (Netzer 2001, 137).

We cannot agree that the Qasr al-Abd is a villa or palace, or part of one, but the question remains, did the Hasmoneans make use of this splendid building and the estate? Did Herod use it? And even if not, did they have knowledge of it and draw inspiration from it for their well-known palaces? We have said in the previous chapter that Timotheus and the Seleucids damaged Tyros in 163 BCE. At that stage the Hasmoneans, when they came to avenge the Jews, must have been aware of it, albeit in its state of considerable dereliction. The bones of the estate must have been visible, the caves, the Village Tel, the water source, the terraces and extensive ruins of the Hellenistic structures. There can be little doubt that they would have returned to it later, when the dust had settled, when the Hasmonean dynasty had established itself, and when the early ardent anti-Hellenists settled down and became eager Hellenists themselves. Considerable parts of Transjordan were conquered by Alexander Jannai. He subdued the Arabs of Moab and Gilead (Ant. XIII, 374) and, before his death in 76 BCE, the Hasmoneans had control of the lands east of the Jordan, including Heshbon of Moab (Ant. XIII, 397). Alexander Jannai built a fortress at Machaerus, which was subsequently extended by Herod (War VII, 171-2). Queen Shalomzion (Alexandra), Alexander Jannai’s widow, kept some of her most valuable treasures at Machaerus (Ant. XIII, 417). Heshbon (Josephus’s Essebonitis) is only 14km. south of Airaq alAmir and Machaerus is 42km. south as the crow flies. With their safe houses at Machaerus, the later Hasmonean kings and Herod must have been well aware of the Tobiad estate at Tyros. Both dynasties had winter residences at Jericho; Herod had three splendid palaces there (Netzer 2001, 13ff), only 30 km west of Tyros. Even before Alexander Jannai, his father John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE) had marched “into Transjordan and conquered Medeba after a siege of six 198

months” (Schürer I, 1973, 207), though it is not clear whether he was able to hold on to it for long. At a later date the whole area of Tyros became part of the province of Peraea, which Herod received from Rome in 40 BCE. After his death in 4 BCE, the territory, together with Galilee, went to his son Herod Antipas (Ant. XVII, 188, 319), but he was forced by the Romans to cede it to his brother Herod Agrippa in 39 CE (Ant. XVIII, 252). As a matter of interest, it was Herod Antipas, while he ruled in Galilee, who built a palace at Tiberias, “which contained representations of animals – such a style of architecture being forbidden by the laws” (Josephus, The Life, 65). It was this palace which Josephus, when he was commander in the Galilee, received permission to destroy on account of its heretical decoration, as ordered by his superiors in Jerusalem (The Life, 66). If this story is true, did the animals of the palace at Tiberias owe anything to those on the Qasr alAbd? One cannot say. Josephus describes Peraea as being inferior to Galilee for crops, but more extensive in area. Although part desert, and rugged, it is watered by “springs which never dry up” and which supply moisture when the rivers dwindle. It extends from Machaerus in the south to Pella in the north, and from the Jordan in the west to Philadelphia in the east, though it did not include that city (War III, 44-47). We know that the border ran west of Philadelphia, as there were bloody border disputes between the province of Peraea and Philadelphia over the village of Zia (Ant. XX, 2). Here, Josephus talks of the Jewish inhabitants of Peraea, while those of Philadelphia were obviously not Jews. The village of Zia was fifteen Roman miles (about 15km.) west of Philadelphia (Ant. XX, 2, n.f), which must have placed it very close to Airaq al-Amir. In fact, Airaq must have been close to the border and was thus an important outpost for the Hasmoneans on their eastern flank. From the above, it is clear that both the Hasmonean and the Herodian dynasties must have had knowledge of the area of the Tobiad estate. But did they use its facilities, whether destroyed or not? Here we have to make a distinction between the Qasr al-Abd and the Village Tel. According to Lapp there is no evidence that the Qasr was used after the Hellenistic phase (Stratum III) until the Byzantine period (Stratum II, see p. 78). But the Village Tel was different. Larché however found evidence of the use of the Qasr in the late Roman period (FL, 21) but does not comment on the Village Tel. Let us look first at the Qasr. According to Lapp, the Qasr was abandoned after the death of Hyrcanus, with no sign of reoccupation until the Byzantine period. The sequence was as follows (Lapp 1963, 32-33): stratum I, stratum II, stratum III,

Byzantine (after 365 to 500 CE) early Byzantine (c. 330 to 365 CE, earthquake) Hellenistic period (early second century BCE) 199

This indicates abandonment of the Qasr for several hundred years, but the French Team did not agree. According to Braemer, working with Larché (see p.163), there was evidence of the partly destroyed building being reused in the late-Roman (tardo-Romain) period. The evidence was the insertion of pillars to strengthen the first floor, repaving the floors at new levels (particularly the ground floor), reforming of the arched vaults and changes to doorways (FL, 19-21). There was also evidence of a different kind of plastering to some of the walls but its exact dating was difficult to establish. Braemer claims that this late-Roman occupation ended in a violent conflagration but with no traces of carbon remaining. He postulates that the lack of carbon evidence is due to the fires being set with straw or hay, rather than timber (FL, 21). As to the destruction of the Qasr before the late-Roman occupation, which Braemer attributes to an undated earthquake, we would rather say that this was the damage meted out by the Seleucids under Timotheus, who had attacked “our fellow Jews of Tubias” in 163 BCE (see pp.47 and 197). As to who was reusing the Qasr in the late-Roman period the only candidates that come to mind are the Nabataeans, though this would have been after the annexation of their territory by the Romans in 106 CE. It appears that the Hasmoneans, and equally so Herod, saw this splendid monument but did not go to the extent of repairing it and so were unable to use it, but Netzer is right to think that it may nevertheless have had an influence on their own architectural plans (Netzer 2001, 137). They will certainly have been impressed by the planned lake and its great embankment, running for some 400m. to the south of the Qasr. It is doubtful if there was at that time any lake in place, but even if there was, this would not have been a serious obstacle to reaching the Qasr, certainly not one to have deterred any energetic visitor. The Dyke constituted an impressive re-organization of the natural landscape, of the type that Herod undertook at many of his sites, such as Caesarea, Herodium and the Temple Mount. And the Qasr itself would have impressed later rulers with its oversize stonework and its massive slabs and columns, even though its state of semi-ruin would have discouraged any re-occupation. However, according to Braemer, unidentified late-Roman occupants did take the trouble to reinstate it to some extent. But as for the Village Tel, that was reused, and its history was quite different. Clearly the buildings there were damaged, if not destroyed, by the Seleucids at the same time as the Qasr, but Lapp’s excavations at the Village Tel show reoccupation after a fairly short period. His original early soundings established the following sequence (Lapp 1962, 20–24): stratum I , stratum II,

late Roman (c. 200 CE and later) Roman (second half of 1st century CE, 50-100 CE) 200

stratum IIIa, Roman (c. 0–50 CE) stratum IIIb, late Hellenistic (c. 100 BCE or earlier) stratum IV, Iron Age I (eleventh century BCE). These data were based on the soundings made in the north-west area of the village; Lapp noted that stratum IIIb was a major building phase (1962, 22– 23). In his later field work, however, these strata were modified and refined: stratum I ) stratum II ) stratum IIIa) stratum IIIb) stratum IV stratum V stratum VI

all as before an earlier Hellenistic phase (c. 175 BCE) (previous stratum IV) Iron Age I (c. 1050 BCE) limited Early Bronze surfaces (c. 1800 BCE?)

These data, given by Lapp (1963, 10), show that Stratum IV, the Hellenistic phase equivalent to the work at the Qasr, was followed not long after, certainly less than 100 years, by Stratum IIIb. From the limited evidence obtained by Lapp, it is clear that Stratum IV was cleared away and a new start made in Stratum IIIb, which was designated as “a major building phase”. There was a new plaster floor, “well-preserved over large areas”, considerable walls on this floor level, and “a large open paved area”. This Stratum IIIb “provided the basic structure from which Strata II and I systems develop” (1963, 10). Clearly we have here a new beginning and one that started not too long after the partial destruction of the Tobiad Estate by Timotheus and his Seleucid hordes. The French team of Villeneuve, Larché, Vibert-Guigue and Zayadine worked on the Village Tel in 1981, largely confirming the strata previously uncovered by Lapp in 1961-2, except that they could not definitely establish his latest phase, that of the second century CE, Lapp’s stratum I (Larché et al. 1981, 339). Additional support for the late Hellenistic occupation has come to light from the work being done by M. Zimmerman of Brown University, who is currently (2005-6) recording the Lapp pottery from the Village Tel site (p.c. Jan. 2006). There is evidence of a large number of ossuary cups, typical of the Hellenistic period, used for the containment of funeral ashes. If cremation was practised at Tyros it could relate to the military cleruchy rather than to any Jewish elements. From a later period, Zimmerman reports significant numbers of “Herodian” lamps with duckbill mouths that were found on the Village Tel, confirming the use of the site in the early first century CE, equivalent to Lapp’s stratum IIIb.

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Both Lapp and the French Team agree that the Village Tel was re-occupied in the Hellenistic period and we suggest that Tyros was indeed reused by the Hasmoneans, who saw its fine qualities, and decided to clear away the destruction and rebuild it. It was, after all, a strategic location on the border between Peraea and Ammon, well watered by its mountain spring and the Wadi es-Sir, and conveniently placed near a row of double caves, usable for humans as well as animals. As Lapp’s dating suggests a rebuild on the Village Tel around the year 100 BCE, this could coincide with the reign of either John Hyrcanus (134 – 104 BCE) or his son Alexander Jannaeus (103 – 76 BCE), both of whom, according to Josephus, took an interest in this part of Transjordan, later called Peraea. We can note that a coin of Alexander Jannai was found at Airaq al-Amir on the Village Tel during the 1962 excavations (N. Lapp 1983, 14, Reg. no.257), and another one in 1976 at the Monumental Gate (Dentzer et al. 1983, 142). It is quite possible, as we have said, that the Village Tel was rebuilt by Alexander Jannai’s men at this time, which would be about the year 80 BCE (Ant. XIII, 394, n. j; Schürer 1973, I, 226) There is therefore material and literary evidence to link the rebuilding of the Village Tel to the Hasmoneans, to the reign of Alexander Jannai in particular, and thus it is likely that the Hasmoneans, who gained control of this area in the early first century BCE, were subsequent users of the Tobiad Estate. Alexander Jannai, however, later suffered reverses in the region at the hands of the Nabataeans under Obedas and later Aretas (Ant. XIII, 375 & 392). It is quite possible that they, the Nabataeans, took over the estate and its installations in the years after 80 BCE. According to the French Team, the Nabataeans may have also later been able to re-use the Qasr itself in a reconstructed state (see p.205). If the Nabataeans were involved at Tyros it would be tempting to see the carved cave facades, similar to ones in Petra, as their handiwork. However the cave facades at Airaq al-Amir are cruder and less finished than the work at Petra, so it is quite reasonable to look on them as earlier examples of a similar genre. The two inscriptions are also of a much earlier date (see p. 110) than any possible period of Nabataean occupation. We should consider whether the Square Building was rebuilt or not after the Seleucid destruction. Lapp says that its stratum III represents the Hellenistic phase that is equivalent to that of the Qasr (1963, 35). It was later rebuilt (stratum II) and, according to Lapp, the rebuilders “found this building in ruins”. But Lapp says that this destruction, or collapse, took place only “some time before A.D. 200” (1963, 36), which, if correct, means that the building was intact throughout the Hasmonean occupation. As it stands somewhat remote from the Village Tel, it is possible that it was left untouched by the Seleucids or, more likely, that it was destroyed by them but not thought worth rebuilding by the Hasmoneans, being so small and 202

remote. It was only in the Byzantine period (Lapp’s stratum II) that it was reconstructed (1963, 37). But there is another possibility. Could it be that the Hasmoneans had not wanted to repair this little building, as it had been used as a shrine or miniature temple by the Tobiads (see p.176) and they were happy to leave it in ruins? Another scenario might be that the Seleucids had not bothered with the building, and it was the early Hasmoneans who, as acknowledged zealots, destroyed it. Coming back to the Village Tel, we see from Lapp’s reports of 1962 and 1963 that stratum IIIa, the Roman period, continued uninterrupted from IIIb and stratum II followed on from IIIa without a break, until the second half of the first century CE, which would have been the period after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70CE. According to Lapp (in his later article in NEAEHL) there was no major interruption between these phases, but stratum II ended in destruction. He mentions that on the Village Tel, Stratum II was brought to a violent end “judging from the burned destruction layer” (my italics), which Lapp dated to the end of the second century CE (1993, 647B). There is some reason to doubt the existence of this destruction layer, as Lapp himself does not mention it specifically in his preliminary reports of 1962 and 1963. However, it does say in the 1993 article that “this destruction seems to have been followed by an immediate reoccupation, for the Stratum I sherds are only slightly later than those in the Stratum II destruction” (1993, 647B). The destruction was therefore very short-lived but it cannot be convincingly linked to the invasion of Peraea by the Romans shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. We learn from Josephus that Vespasian moved to Jericho “where he was joined by Trajan, one of his generals, with the force which he had led from Peraea, all the country beyond Jordan being now subjugated” (War IV, 450). This occurred in the summer of 68 CE and is therefore too early for the supposed destruction date towards the end of the second century. Although there was turbulence in the area following the Roman invasion, it is likely that the Nabataeans occupied the Village Tel shortly afterwards, and that it was taken over peacefully by the Romans with their annexation of the Nabataeans in 106 CE. We cannot assign an historical event to the supposed destruction layer; it may just have been a local raid by Bedouins or dissident Nabataeans. It is just possible that this destruction layer mentioned by Lapp on the Village Tel may coincide with the violent destruction described by the French team in the Qasr. Lapp dates the Tel destruction to about 200 CE and Braemer that at the Qasr to late-Roman, sometime after 250 CE (FL, 21). Lapp is quite clear that occupation came to an end on the Village Tel soon after 200 CE and that it remained unoccupied until modern times (1962, 20; 1993, 647B), though some little evidence of later Byzantine occupation was found in the north-west corner of the site (Lapp 1963, 17). It is probable that the area was under the domination of local Bedouin tribes from the third 203

century CE onwards, and it is quite possible that they had no real interest in the buildings on the Tel, though the caves probably continued in occasional use from time to time. We have a picture then of interrupted occupation (according to the French Team) at the Qasr well after the Hellenistic period but continuous occupation at the Village Tel until shortly after 200 CE, with one interruption after the Hellenistic period, say around 160 BCE, and another possible destruction before 200 CE, though in both cases occupation was resumed after a short interval. At the Village Tel, occupation ceased soon after 200 CE and was not resumed until modern times. At the Qasr however, after a period of perhaps 100 years, occupation resumed in the Byzantine period, around 330 CE. In one of his earliest articles on the Qasr, Lapp had said, after noting its internal cross walls, that the Qasr was unlikely to have been a temple or palace, but “perhaps the best hypothesis… is Albright’s suggestion that this was the Tobiad Mausoleum. This would help to explain why all traces of its original use had to be eradicated before the Byzantine people considered it a place for habitation” (Lapp 1962A, 83). Although Lapp had changed his mind by the following year, considering the Qasr definitely to have been a temple, we think we have now clearly demonstrated it to have been a mausoleum, or funerary monument of some kind (as Chap. 14) albeit an unused one. The idea of having to deconsecrate the tombs before the Qasr could be inhabited is not really applicable, for two reasons. First, the Qasr was not completed and it is unlikely that bodies were ever laid to rest there. Secondly, even if it had come into funereal use, it was reused in the late Roman period, according to the French, and not only 500 years later as Lapp had thought. There was a simple explanation for the vacancy of the Qasr for a period of perhaps 300 years from the pre-Hasmonean period to the late-Roman. This was its state of ruin after the destruction by the Seleucid army and, as we have said, the toppling of some of the megaliths that made the interior unsafe and difficult to use. It is also likely that the earthquake of 30-31 CE (see below, p.210) caused further ruination in the Qasr. After the reuse and then destruction of the late-Roman period, by the early fourth century CE there was re-occupation at the Qasr, as shown by Lapp’s soundings. As mentioned above, the Hellenistic level was stratum III, while stratum II above it was Early Byzantine from c.330 to 365 CE and stratum I, later (still Early) Byzantine, from 365 to 500 CE (Lapp 1963, 32–33). Lapp provides the intermediate date of 365 between two Byzantine phases by linking them to the known earthquake of that date (better 363) that destroyed the walls of nearby Kerak (Lapp 1962, 32). We shall discuss further the earthquake effects, if any, in the next chapter.

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From the evidence found by the French team, it was clear that the internal walls of the ground floor of the Qasr were rebuilt in the late-Roman and Byzantine periods on their original Hellenistic stub walls, and therefore reflected the original layout (WL.I, 83-85), but the floor level had been raised to about 1.70 or 1.80 m. above datum (Lapp1962, 29). It was set at this level for convenience by the Byzantine inhabitants, who entered the Qasr on the east side, directly from the jetty, as can be seen from the French plans of the Qasr before its restoration, as it was in Sept. 1976 (our fig.52). They could therefore access the interior without use of the staircase. The raising of the floor level was not consistent, but varied from +1.70m. to +2.30m., presumably to accommodate large fallen masonry blocks that could not be moved (WL.I, 120). By raising the floor level by some 2m. the Byzantines were able to get over the obstruction of the fallen megaliths, which the Hasmoneans and Herodians had not attempted. Lapp suggests that in the Byzantine period the Qasr may have been used by a monastic group (1993, 648B) which is possible, but we do not intend to get involved in speculation on this point as obviously by now all connection with the Tobiads was severed. We would just add that the French team found in Room 3 (western chamber of central block, see fig.48) a column drum and capital ornamented with a cross and suggested that this may have been a kind of chapel within what they considered to be a private Byzantine residence (WL.I, 122). If this is correct, then clearly the Qasr, and with it the whole estate, had by now lost all connection with its historic Jewish past. It may be worth adding one note on the Jewishness or otherwise of the Tobiad Estate. At the Village Tel an analysis was made of the faunal remains by Michael Toplyn. He reports: “the same meat preferences were indicated for other Village strata (that is, sheep-goat, cattle and pig) except stratum II (Roman phase) which failed to provide evidence of pig and stratum IV (Hellenistic phase) from which only sheep-goat bones were recovered” (Toplyn 1983, 92).

If it is right to assign stratum II to the late Herodians, as above, then it follows that neither they nor Hyrcanus (the Hellenistic phase of stratum IV) indulged in the eating of pork. On the other hand, in the late Hellenistic and early Herodian periods (strata IIIa and b) there was evidence of pig remains. In mitigation one is tempted to say that this was the diet of the mercenaries employed by the Maccabees and Herod to defend this piece of border territory. Josephus tells us that the Hasmoneans employed mercenaries, John Hyrcanus being the first one to do so (Ant. XIII, 249; Schürer 1973, 207) and Herod certainly did so as well (Schürer 1973, 315; Wars I, 672). It is known that Herod fought a major battle against the Arabs near Philadelphia (Wars I, 380), only a few kilometers from Tyros.

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CHAPTER 19.

Collapse of the Qasr

The form of construction of the external walls of the Qasr is most original, but makes them susceptible to collapse (see p. 146). As Lankester Harding wrote: “the blocks of stone are enormous, some of them 20 feet long by 10 feet high, but only about 18 inches thick (6m.x 3m.x .45m); they are set up on end on this narrow edge and consequently must inevitably have fallen at the slightest shock” (1974, 72).

Harding is describing the horizontally bedded monoliths but the stones above them and between the slots were of similar weight and set vertically, and so were even more susceptible to toppling. It is clear from the collapsed state of the Qasr, that the whole of the west elevation fell outwards virtually as one wall (fig.52, as WL.II, Plan 4). This collapse of the whole wall is clearly the result of earthquake action, which we discuss below. But we must draw attention to fractures in the stonework in the north-east corner and elsewhere, which seem to be the result of differential settlement rather than earthquake action. The photograph of the stonework alongside the eastern panther fountain makes this clear (fig.87). The fracture has gone through the monolith itself and not just dislocated the joints between slabs. Such a fracture is typical of settlement rather than earthquake action. To explain this break in the stone, one should note that the north-east corner of the Qasr is founded on bedrock, which is visible on the interior at the foot of the staircase (fig.54). This section of bedrock is relatively small and the remainder of the Qasr is on fill, as is amply demonstrated by the soundings of Lapp (1962, fig. 8; 1963, 22 & fig. 8) and of the French team (WL.I, 49, 104-5; II, fig.19). Movement of the fill relative to the bedrock, which would remain immobile, could have resulted in the major fracture alongside the eastern fountain and this may well have started to occur shortly after construction of the external walls.

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Fig. 87, Stonework Fracture at East Fountain The external weight of the Qasr walls was tremendous. We estimate that a typical section of stonework (twice as thick as that noted by Harding, above) on average 90cm. thick and 10m. high, as it would be from foundation up to the base of the first floor colonnade, would weigh 22 tonnes per metre run. Assuming the foundations are 2m.wide at the foot, judging by the drawings of Lapp’s architect (Lapp 1963, fig. 8), the pressure at foundation level, including the foundations, would be 13 tonnes per m2, which is not excessive for good undisturbed soil but rather too high for fill that had not been well compacted. As the Qasr as a whole was standing on fill on a basin of unconsolidated soil, it is quite likely that the safe loading should not have exceeded at the most, say, 10 tonnes per m2 (Blake 1947, 165). Thus many parts of the monumental structure may have settled even before floor and roof loads were applied. The evidence from the north-east corner definitely points to differential settlement rather than earthquake damage. This point has already been made by Zuhair El-Isa in his study on earthquakes in Jordan. Although he notes major damage at the Qasr by earthquake, he adds that “a major crack seems to cross the building… (which) crossed the blocks themselves rather than at their point of contact. This may indicate a ground deformation (rupture)”. He concludes that damage at this site may have been caused by earthquakes or the foundations being on loose soil, or both (El-Isa 1985, 233). Besides the obvious signs of differential settlement at the north-east corner, as mentioned above, the south façade also shows signs of severe cracking across the stones that is typical of settlement rather than earthquake action (our fig.12).

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It is our opinion that some damage occurred to the Qasr, even before the effects of any earthquake, especially at the north-east corner, where a small section of the building stands on bedrock. This may have been an indication that the building was never finished, though we now know from Larché that it was substantially completed. It also suggests that the plan for a pool of water could have been dangerous. It could well be that if and when the filling of the lake happened, that would enable water to infiltrate the subsoil and hasten the process of differential settlement and subsidence. As for the outward collapse of the walls, that was clearly the result of earthquake action, which would shake and move the monoliths as a whole but not fracture them. Movement would be along the joints, which are the lines of least resistance. The effect is most clearly seen on the west elevation where the whole wall from second course upwards fell outwards (fig.52). On the east side, however, the wall remained standing up to midground floor level, some of the horizontal slabs remained in position, as did some of the course above them, including part of the lion frieze at each end, as is clear from early drawings and photographs (figs.19 & 88). It is possible that the east elevation was held more securely than the west by part of the first floor arches holding firm on this side, at least for a period of time.

Fig. 88, South Corner East Wall, early photograph by T.R. Dumas for American Palestine Exploration Society, 1875 (from PEF Record, with permission)

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Lapp refers the destruction of the Qasr to an earthquake in 365 CE saying that stratum I represented the occupation level “after the Qasr had toppled (presumably in the earthquake of AD 365)” (Lapp 1962, 32). This date determines the split in Byzantine occupation levels (strata I and II) given by Lapp and subsequently by Nancy Lapp (1983, 9). Paul Lapp maintains that the earthquake is listed as one of the major ones to affect Palestine, when the walls of Areopolis on the Arnon near Kerak, in Transjordan, collapsed (Kallner-Amiran, 1950-51, 225). Lapp relied on the first study by Amiran but in a later paper Amiran lists the earthquake as occurring on 19 May, 363 CE, and describes it as “strong earthquake affecting most of Palestine and Jordan…damage to…Elat, Petra” (Amiran et al.1994, 265). He had earlier mentioned one earthquake in 362 in the Dead Sea area and a subsequent one in 365, affecting Kerak (1950-51, 225) as mentioned, but in the later article he states that references to 362 or 365 all refer to 19 May 363 (1994, Appendix 2). In the later paper (1994, 265) Amiran also mentions an earthquake on Sept. 2, 31 BCE affecting the Galilee and the Dead Sea area, which is referred to in Josephus (Ant. XV, 121). A subsequent paper by Amiran, being a location index for earthquakes, lists the earthquake of 363 (not 365) CE at places including Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and Petra; the earthquake of 31 BCE is listed at Qumran, Jericho, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, but not at Petra (1996, 123– 130). All in all there seems to have been a strong earthquake in the vicinity of Airaq al-Amir in 363 CE and an earlier one in 31 BCE, according to Amiran. However, the earthquake of 363 CE is not mentioned at all in the paper by El-Isa (1985) referred to above, which details earthquake and subsidence damage at the Qasr and elsewhere. El-Isa lists all earthquakes over the magnitude of 6.2 on the Richter scale to affect sites in Jordan since 31 BCE. The first one to occur after that date is in June 658 or 659 CE according to his table (1985, 233). It may be that the earthquake of 363 CE was not strong enough to qualify for a 6.2 Richter scale rating, though Amiran gave it a designation of S (= severe), which he defines as a magnitude of at least 6 on the Richter scale. A further listing of earthquakes in the region is given by Ambreysis, Melville and Adams. They refer to an area encompassed by Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea. Their list includes an earthquake of 21 July, 365 CE, which is described as a “major earthquake in the Hellenic Arc”, causing destructive flooding in coastal areas such as Alexandria but not really affecting inland Palestine and Jordan (1994, 22–23). The authors claim that “near-contemporary and later writers grossly exaggerate the effects of this event”, but they concede that this earthquake may have “consisted of more than one large earthquake in the eastern Mediterranean region” (1994, 23).

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Ambreysis et al. make no mention of the earthquake of 31 BCE, which may be because its main effects were felt in northern Palestine, which is outside the central area studied by them (1994, fig. 2.2). As we have seen, Amiran records it at Qumran but not at Petra. On the other hand, Ambreysis et al. mention a severe earthquake of 9 July 551 CE, whose epicentre they place between Pella and Nebo (1994, fig. 2.5), which puts it virtually at Airaq alAmir itself. Although later than Lapp’s Byzantine strata, this earthquake will have dealt the finishing blow to any masonry still standing at the upper levels. It is mentioned by Amiran (1996) at Petra and Jerusalem, but not at Jericho. However, El-Isa does not list it at all. In summary, the earthquake situation appears in the Dead Sea and Airaq alAmir area to be as follows: 30-31 BCE Severe earthquake affecting large area (and the Qasr, according to El-Isa), mentioned by Amiran and El-Isa, but not Ambreysis. 365=363 CE Severe earthquake affecting large area, according to Amiran, but not mentioned by El-Isa, and Ambreysis refers it to Mediterranean coastline. 551 CE Severe earthquake affecting large area, according to Amiran; centred near Airaq al-Amir, according to Ambreysis; but not mentioned by El-Isa. The conclusion seems to be that the earthquake of 363 CE was not particularly strong although it did affect areas near Kerak, some 80km. from Airaq. On the other hand the earlier earthquake of 30-31 BCE, which is reported by Kallner-Amiran as only causing slight damage in Jerusalem (1950-51, 225) was a particularly severe earthquake, and according to El-Isa caused severe damage at the Qasr (1985, 233). In his general study, one of his conclusions is: “‘Iraq el Amir experienced an early earthquake deformation that destroyed it in the year 30-31 BC.” (1985, 235). We would agree with this, and we think this was the earthquake that caused the major damage at the Qasr. Paul Lapp, of course, working and writing in 1962-1963 (and Nancy Lapp in 1983) did not have the benefit of El-Isa’s research of 1985. The conclusion must now be that the earthquake of 30-31 BCE did the major damage at the Qasr, particularly to the west wall, and that was preceded by structural subsidence, particularly at the north-east corner and the south elevation, which commenced well before the earthquake damage. In view of this it might be necessary to revise Lapp’s chronology at the Qasr, as scheduled by Nancy Lapp, with the distinct break between Strata II and I in 365, now 363 CE (N. Lapp 1983, 9). However, it is still possible 210

that the earthquake of 363 caused damage to the secondary structures within the Qasr built by the first phase of Byzantine occupation (well after 31 BCE), and so “the importation of massive fill” was still necessary in a levelling operation before the final Byzantine occupation level of 365-500 CE (N. Lapp 1983, 9). We may note that, at the Square Building, according to N. Lapp: “no earthquake destruction separated Stratum I from Stratum II” (1983, 9). So perhaps also at the Qasr there was little effect of the later earthquake (363 CE) and the imported fill was just a constructional device employed by the later builders to level over the fallen monoliths. However, there is another possibility. The “massive fill” was in fact imported and laid at the beginning of the Byzantine occupation, when it would have been required to overcome the monoliths toppled by the earthquake of 30-31 BCE. One argument against this is the Theodosius I coin of 393-395 CE found in the uppermost layer of fill (N. Lapp 1983, 8– 9). But we can assume that the second phase of Byzantine occupation (Lapp’s Stratum I) which occurred after the minor earthquake of 363 CE, required another small amount of levelling fill that could have included this coin. Paul Lapp & Nancy Lapp suggest that the Byzantine occupation came to an end in about 500 CE, based on the pottery found at the Qasr, and on a coin of Zeno, 476-491 CE (1962, 29; 1983, 9). It could be that occupation continued slightly beyond the date of 500 CE, and it was the severe earthquake of 551 CE, mentioned by both Amiran and Ambreysis (as above) that brought the Byzantine occupation to an end. The French team also described a Byzantine occupation of two strata and credited Lapp with first recognising it. But it is surprising that Will and Larché accept at face value Lapp’s conclusions about the earthquake of 365 CE (WL.I, 119). Writing in 1990 or 1991, they should have had access to the later information set out by El-Isa, which must have been known at least to their Jordanian colleague Zayadine. It is also surprising that they make no note of damage by subsidence (rather than by earthquake) which would have been visible to Larché, a trained architect. That it was not apparent to Michael Brett, Lapp’s architect, is more understandable as much less of the remains were uncovered at his time in 1962. Butler, himself a trained architect, also ascribes all the damage to earthquake action (1907, 13) and makes no mention of subsidence.

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In conclusion, we would list the progressive collapse of the Qasr as follows: 170 BCE

163 30-31 363 CE 551

Substantial completion of Qasr, but suffering progressive subsidence from overload and introduction of surrounding water (by intention or weather conditions), Partial destruction by Seleucid army under Timotheus, Primary earthquake destruction, Possible minor destruction by earthquake, Further earthquake destruction.

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CHAPTER 20.

End of the Estate in Summary

It may be useful now to summarise the phases and dating of the Tyros estate at Airaq al-Amir subsequent to the probable end of its last master Hyrcanus. We have suggested above that, contra Josephus, he survived the coming to power of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (see Chap.7) and died most probably in the year 168 BCE, soon after Antiochus returned from Egypt and turned his attention to matters in Jerusalem and its environs. After the death of Hyrcanus, the estate continued as “the region of the Tubiads” (I Macc. 5:13), the area “inhabited by the Tubian Jews” (2 Macc. 12:17). Many were slaughtered there by Timotheus in the year 163 BCE when the Seleucids overran the estate and presumably destroyed it, as they massacred one thousand of the men (1 Macc. 5:13). The slaughter may have been avenged by the troops of Judas Maccabeus and particularly the cavalryman Dositheus “one of the Tubian Jews” (2 Macc.12:23), but the estate was partially destroyed. The Qasr will have been damaged to a considerable extent, though the French Team found that it was fit to be reconstructed (see p.205), but the buildings on the Village Tel were more easily recoverable, and the rows of caves could be reused. The Village Tel, site of the original Tobiad Palace, appears to have been rebuilt in the reign of Alexander Jannai, and probably used by the Hasmonean colonists in conjunction with nearby centres such as the fortress of Machaerus. It is possible that the site was captured by the Nabataeans, who defeated Alexander Jannai (Ant. XIII, 382), and they may have been responsible for reusing the cave accommodation as well as the buildings on the Village Tel. However, there is no direct evidence of the reuse of the caves until the late Byzantine period (Larché et al. 1982, 498). According to Lapp, occupation of the Village Tel continued throughout the Roman period until soon after 200 CE. At this time, there is no record of Jewish occupation in Airaq, but we do have evidence from an earlier period and in nearby areas, particularly from the Herodian period. After his capture of Jerusalem in 37 BCE, Herod turned his attention to the outer areas of his new kingdom and in 32 BCE he defeated the Nabataeans and annexed the area of Esbus (Heshbon) to his territory. This will have included the area of Airaq al-Amir, only 14 km. to the northwest of Heshbon. Presumably Herod then settled this area with loyal veterans, non-Jews as well as Jews. Josephus records (War I, 370-385) Herod’s defeat of the Arabs at Philadelphia (Rabbat Ammon). The battle, incidentally, was preceded by the severe earthquake of 31 BCE (mentioned above in Chap.19), that threw Herod’s camp into panic, and gave temporary confidence to the Arabs (War I, 371–373). Nevertheless, Herod triumphed and the Nabataeans had to relinquish Heshbon and the surrounding area, though Philadelphia itself 213

remained in their hands (Aharoni et al. 1993, map 221). It would be possible to conclude that Herod’s veterans, Jews and non-Jews, inhabited the Village Tel as part of their border fortifications. At a later date, Herod’s son and grandson ruled over the province of Peraea. It was first Herod Antipas (4 BCE–39 CE) and then Agrippa II (c. 50–93 CE), both with the title of Tetrarch. Herod Antipas built another fortified city which he called Livias (the name later changed to Julias) to protect Peraea against the Nabataeans (Schürer 1973, 342). It was in the area of Abila, within a few miles of Airaq. Presumably its inhabitants were Jewish colonists. We hear from Josephus that at a slightly later date, at the time of the Revolt against Rome (66–70 CE), the Roman Army conquered Peraea, when there was a great slaughter of Jews and the towns of “Abila, Julias and Besimoth” were taken, “thus the whole of Peraea as far as Machaerus either surrendered or was subdued” (War IV, 438–439). On the other hand, Gedalia Alon tells us that in the winter of 67–68 CE, the “Jews who submitted to the Romans without a struggle would be settled in Jamnia and Lydda and cities of Transjordan” (Alon 1984, 63) and they were likely to have remained there and taken over the properties of those that had fled or been killed by the Romans. There is support for this from Josephus (War IV, 444) though he does not speak specifically of Transjordan. Nevertheless the Jewish population must have been very small during and after the great Revolt. From a different angle, we learn that this part of Transjordan was designated as one of the three areas from which the produce of the seventh year (the Shmitta) could be eaten under certain circumstances. The three areas were the Galilee, the area around Tiberias, and Judaea with Peraea. These were also the areas from which the twenty-four “watches” of the Cohanim (Priests) were to be gathered to serve their turn at the Temple in Jerusalem (M. Shebi’ith 9:2 and Avi-Yonah 1974, map 85). It is clear that the Mishna (redacted in c. 220 CE) considered Peraea to be inhabited by Jews who could be relied on to keep the laws of the seventh year and to have Cohanim fit to be sent to the Temple. This assumption applied of course to the period before the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Jewish life after the destruction must have been sparse particularly in the southern part of Transjordan. No early synagogue remains have ever been found there south of Jerash (Gerasa) and the Jerash synagogue dates to the 4th or 5th Century CE (Levine 2000, 240). There is however one small sign of Jewish life in “Edom”. When the sages dispersed after the destruction, most of them went west with Yohanan ben Zakkai to Jabneh, but one sage went east. He was Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, who travelled to “Edom” (M. Ketuboth 5:8), and to the village of Kfar Aziz (M. Kila’im 6:4). The latter is south of Judaea but Aharoni considers “Edom” to be the region of Medeba (1993, Map 266). Rabbi Ishmael, a most famous sage of the first century CE, will have gone to a settlement of Jews and this implies Jewish 214

settlement in southern Transjordan. Whether that extended to Tyros (Airaq al-Amir) or not, one cannot say. The evidence is slight and it is likely that the Nabataeans returned after their defeat by Herod and recaptured areas colonised under the Herodians, and perhaps settled in the Village Tel. That subsequently reverted to the Romans in 106 CE after their annexation of the Nabataean territories. As mentioned in Chap.17 (p. 203), Lapp postulated a destruction layer at the end of the second century CE, followed immediately by a rebuild. This presumably indicates some local defeat of the Roman-Nabataean occupation that was quickly resumed. We should just add that there is no evidence of activity on the east side of the Dead Sea during the Bar-Kochba revolt of 132-135 CE, though the west side, at Ein Gedi and elsewhere, was heavily involved. It may be that some of the population fleeing the Romans crossed the Jordan and the Dead Sea, but we have no record of this. Occupation at the Village Tel ceased soon after 200 CE (N. Lapp 1983, 11). At the Qasr, work stopped in the Hellenistic period, but when exactly this happened is not clear, though presumably it was at the death of Hyrcanus in c.168 BCE. It is unlikely that anyone else would have attempted to complete this eccentric construction. If Larché is right, and we tend to agree with him on this, the external walls were complete and the first floor as well. It is likely that the upper floor and roof were also substantially complete, or in the last stages of construction. It is likely that parts of the building were already showing signs of differential settlement, to a greater or lesser extent (see p. 207). When the estate was attacked by the Seleucids, some of the upper external walls may have been toppled and the building left fairly intact up to the first floor level. This would be in 163 BCE. Some of the monoliths may have been toppled and been left lying in the interior, and the building would have been difficult but not impossible to use. It will have been largely roofless and the interior left strewn with débris and fallen arch voussoirs. Not surprisingly it was not reused immediately, but in the Roman period, whether by Nabataeans or others, it was strengthened and reused (see p. 205). Nevertheless it is likely that subsidence and earthquakes had done further damage to its unusual construction in the intervening years (as pp. 206-212). In the fourth century CE, occupation started in the east and west corridors, the south corridor and the northern (inner) vestibule. These areas were roofed over by wooden roofs on rudimentary stone arches and equipped with domestic installations such as stoves and ovens, and one room was possibly used as a chapel. Whether this was a monastic settlement, as suggested by Lapp, or a single large residence, as preferred by the French Team, it is impossible to tell. In view of other monastic occupation at the nearby site of Ed Deir, with its elaborate columbarium (see p.181), we would prefer Lapp’s proposal. It is difficult to see the Qasr, or even part of

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it, becoming a single family residence, even that of an extended family, living a solitary existence in this wild part of the country. At this late period, the entrance to the Qasr was by means of a large gap in the east wall, which had been opened up by earthquake action. It was directly opposite the spit of land to the east, and thus made access easy. The fact that the Qasr was occupied at this period, and not the Village Tel, also suggests its use by a monastic order, which would choose a location more remote and less public than the Village. The presence of the caves also favours the monastic option, as many monks could have withdrawn there to individual isolation for limited periods of time. That the occupation of the Byzantine period was interrupted by a severe earthquake, as suggested by Lapp, in the year 365 CE, is far from proven (see pp. 209-212). As Lapp saw immediate reoccupation, it is quite possible that this earthquake, actually now known to have been in the year 363, did not affect the area to any great extent (Ambreysis et al. 1994, 23) and that occupation was continuous, though seemingly in two phases, until about 500 CE. That date should probably be extended to 551 CE, the date of a subsequent serious earthquake. After that date, there was no further evidence of occupation on the site, at either the Qasr or the Village Tel, and it is not until the nineteenth century that we hear of the site again. In the account by Irby and Mangles, who went by in 1818, there is no mention of meeting any local inhabitants, but de Saulcy in 1864 employed scouts of the Adouân tribe, whom he calls the “maîtres du pays” (1865, 217). Conder also refers to the site as being in Adwan Country (1889, title page). The most graphic description of this tribe is by Tristram, who was woken on his first night at the site by “the tramp of horses rapidly approaching”. They were the horsemen of the chief Sheikh of the Adwân coming to claim their “blackmail of the new visitors” (Tristram 1865, 526). As for the caves, they were obviously used throughout many periods by nomadic tribes and their animals. De Saulcy mentions seeing poor Christian families of nearby Salt living in them (1865, 217). A short investigation by the French team found remains in one of the major caves of three periods: modern Bedouins, Ayyoubid-Mameluke, and Omayyad-late Byzantine (Larché et al.1982, 498). The abundance of water on the site would have made this a pleasant camping ground but the presence of panthers may also have made it a somewhat dangerous one.

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CHAPTER 21. Conclusion In our presentation of the architecture of the Tobiads, we have concentrated on the building or rebuilding of the estate of Tyros at Airaq al-Amir in the Hellenistic style by Hyrcanus, last of the Tobiad family. In the past, the main monument of the site, the Qasr al-Abd has been variously interpreted as a temple, a palace or the château of Hyrcanus himself. By an analysis of its unique animal sculptures and its unusual architectural form, we have been able to show it to be none of these things, but to be the Mausoleum of the Tobiad family. The architectural expression of this function, of a light upper storey founded on a heavy megalithic base, is echoed in several well-known mausolea in Asia Minor, an area that had architectural as well as political relations with Ptolemaic Alexandria. Hyrcanus and his forebears, Josephus and Toubias, all had close links with the Ptolemies of Egypt. We have been able to show how the massive megaliths of the Qasr were transported from the quarry to the site and placed in position on the building. The quarry was located at the nearby cliff face that harbours inhabited caves and carries two large inscriptions of the name TOBYAH. We have attempted to date these inscriptions by reference to the architectural features of the nearby cave doorway related to tomb architecture in Lycia, an area of southern Turkey ruled by the Ptolemies of Egypt. As for the name Tobyah, we have suggested links with the earlier Biblical “Land of Tob” and thereby explained the Nehemiah reference to Tobyah the Ammonite. The name continued through Toubias of the Zenon Papyri and on to the father (Tobias) of Joseph, the tax farmer, whose story is told in detail by Josephus. But the dating of this Joseph and his clever son Hyrcanus is complex and we propose new dates for Hyrcanus’s sojourn at Tyros (Airaq al-Amir), partly based on the extensive works he carried out there. Hyrcanus brought the whole estate into his Hellenistic paradeisos, including the cliff caves and the older buildings on the Village Tel, which would have been the original Tobiad palace. He also built a small shrine on the hill overlooking the Qasr and extended the hillside spring that waters the estate with a Fountainhead Basin or even a Nymphaeum. One of the problems bedevilling the identification of the Qasr was that Josephus called this major monument a Baris, which was interpreted as fortress or palace, or even temple. But we relate the word Baris to birta and bira and take it to refer to the estate as a whole and not just to the main building. That also helps to explain the purpose of the enigmatic 217

Monumental Gateway that is now shown to be the official entrance to this Baris or estate. That Hyrcanus made Tyros into a Hellenistic estate is as clear from the architectural evidence as it is from Josephus’s account. But his exact purpose of creating such a paradeisos in this wild part of Ammanitis is less evident. The building of a mausoleum was to memorialise the great Tobiad clan, but who was to see it, who was to visit it? Other elements of the site also remain unclear, particularly the full history of the Village Tel where divided ownerships have frustrated further excavation. The caves, closed to the public for fear of rockfall, also require reexamination. In addition, this study has located two previously unrecorded structures, the northern burial Cave and the eastern Fortlet, probably of Iron Age II, and again these elements require excavation to confirm dating and function. The details of the hillside Fountainhead Basin are also unresolved. Joseph, father of Hyrcanus, had amassed great wealth by collecting taxes for the Egyptian Pharaoh, but this was not possible for his son Hyrcanus, as the Ptolemaic empire in Coele-Syria (Palestine) had given way to Seleucid control. But out of Tyros, Hyrcanus still controlled caravan routes taking supplies from Arabia to Egypt, and he derived his wealth from protection money and ad-hoc taxes on his neighbours. In spite of his energy and wealth, time ran out for Hyrcanus and he was never able to complete his Hellenistic rebuilding of the estate. After his death, when conflict broke out between the Maccabees and their Seleucid masters, Tyros fell to the Seleucids, its population murdered or exiled and its infrastructure damaged. So much is clear from the Books of Maccabees. Later however the original Village centre was rebuilt by Alexander Jannai, and then used for another three hundred years, on and off, by the Hasmoneans and their Herodian, Nabataean and Roman successors. The Qasr was also reused at the later period and again in Byzantine times. The involvement of the Tobiad family came to an end with the death, probably not by suicide, of Hyrcanus, whose master plan was never achieved, and whose major monument, the Qasr Mausoleum, was never fully completed or put into use. Although much of our information on this Tobiad site comes from archaeological investigation over the last hundred years, and the architectural work of restoration of the Qasr, we have in addition the benefit of extensive ancient literature. There are the early Biblical accounts of the land of Tob, and references to Tobyah in the book of Nehemiah. The Zenon papyri of 259-257 BCE relate to the estate and, above all, Josephus gives us a romantic account of the activities of Joseph and his son Hyrcanus. The two Books of Maccabees contain references that relate directly to the 218

Toubian Jews. Josephus gives details of some events affecting the Tobiad estate in the Hasmonean and Herodian period, but there the written record stops. We have treated all these literary sources with a certain amount of caution but without them, we should not have been able to piece together some thousand years of the Tobiad family, their forerunners and successors on this unique site.

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Appendix Analysis of Rock Samples from Qasr al-Abd and the adjoining cliffs. Several samples of stone were taken from the Qasr and the presumed quarry of the Cliffs north of the site by the author in January 2002. Thin sections of each sample were analysed microscopically by Dr. Gerald Roberts of the Research School of Geological and Geophysical Sciences of Birkbeck and University College, London in March 2002. His report of 12 March 2002 follows. Sample Q from the Quarry. Sample Q is a fine grained bioclastic limestone composed of peloids, fragments of echinoderm test and echinoderm spines set in a micitic matrix. The sediment is finely-laminated with echinoderm fragments defining the laminations which are indicators of the original bedding of the sediment. Rare examples of pelagic foraminifera are present (internal hardparts to zooplankton), which, along with the echiniderms, confirms a marine origin. The presence of echinoderms indicates that the bioclastic fragments were derived from shallow water (a few tens of metres at most). Small euhedral dolomite rhombs are present in the matrix making up about 2025% of the rock by volume. The dolomite rhombs have not formed an interlocking mosaic, butoccuras isolated rhombs. The rock was formed in a shallow marine environment probably above storm wave-base (10-30m) but deep enough so that surface currents could not wash away the fine-grained matrix, that is, below fair-weather wavebase c. 10 metres). The rock is a dolomitised bioclastic mudstone in the classification scheme of Dunham. Sample K from the Building Stones. Sample K is a fine grained bioclastic limestone composed of peloids, fragments of echinoderm test and echinoderm spines set in a micitic matrix. The presence of echinoderms indicates that the bioclastic fragments were derived from shallow water (a few tens of metres at most). Rare examples of pelagic foraminifera are present (internal hardparts to zooplankton), which, along with the echiniderms, confirms a marine origin. The sediment is not finely-laminated but has been disturbed by burrowing and is thus 220

extensively bioturbated. The burrows are about 1 cm in diameter and are lined with a dark brown stain; this was probably organic material left behind by the burrowing organism (probably a polychaete worm) as it back-filled its burrow. No traces of the original sedimentary layering can be seen. No dolomite rhombs have been seen. The rock is a bioclastic mudstone in the classification scheme of Dunham. The rock was formed in a shallow marine environment probably above storm wave-base (10-30m) but deep enough so that surface currents could not wash away the fine-grained matrix, that is, below fair-weather wavebase c. 10 metres). The specimen has been bioturbated, so enough time had elapsed since the last storm to allow colonisation by worm colonies. Overall the rocks are very similar in depositional setting, fossil content and palaeo-water depth. In my experience such rocks can be found in layers 10-100 cm thick. It is thus quite possible that the 2 samples were from only 10-100 cm away from each other in their original depositional positions. It is quite possible therefore that the buildings stones came from the quarry in question. Further analysis of the pelagic foraminifera found in the specimens might yield a detailed age and thus a further test of the hypothesis that the building stones came from the quarry in question. Gerald Roberts

12 March 2002

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