Apollonia–Arsuf

Coordinates: 32°11′43″N 34°48′24″E / 32.19528°N 34.80667°E / 32.19528; 34.80667
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Arsuf
)
Apollonia–Arsuf
Ἀπολλωνία
Σώζουσα
אפולוניה
أرْسُوف
Arsur
An aerial view of the Crusader castle and anchorage
Apollonia–Arsuf is located in Central Israel
Apollonia–Arsuf
Shown within Central Israel
Alternative nameArsur
LocationTel Aviv District, Israel
Coordinates32°11′43″N 34°48′24″E / 32.19528°N 34.80667°E / 32.19528; 34.80667
Grid position132/178 PAL
TypeLowland castle[dubious ] (for the city citadel)
History
Abandoned1265
PeriodsMainly Early Islamic and Crusader periods
Site notes
ConditionRuin
Public accessYes, national park
WebsiteApollonia National Park – Israel Nature and Parks Authority

Apollonia (

Sozusa in Libya).[2]
It was situated on a sandy area ending towards the sea with a cliff, about 34 kilometres (21 mi) south of Caesarea.

It

Mamluks
in 1265, when both were completely destroyed.

The site of Arsuf (also Apollonia–Arsuf אַפּוֹלוֹנְיָה-אַרְסוּף) is now in Herzliya municipality, Israel (just north of Tel Aviv). The site was intensively excavated from 1994. In 2002 Apollonia National Park was opened to the public.

Names

The city is first recorded under its Greek name Apollonia in the final decades of the

Abu l-Fath (14th century, written in Arabic) records a toponym rʿšfyn (with ayin). Izre'el (1999) considers the possibility of identifying this toponym with the Arabic Arsūf, assuming that the ayin may derive from a mater lectionis used in Samaritan Aramaic orthography.[3]

A tradition connecting the name with the biblical Resheph, a grandson of Ephraim, is spurious.[4]

The name of the nearby Israeli settlement of Rishpon was given in 1936, inspired by a misreading of an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III, where *rašpūna was read for kašpūna; recognition of the misreading rendered void the identification of Arsuf with a supposed Iron Age Phoenician settlement of *Rašpūna.[5]

The renaming of Apollonia "city of Apollo" to Sozusa (Σώζουσα Sōzousa) "city of the

Sozopolis in Thrace.[2] The identification of ancient Apollonia with Byzantine-era Sozusa is due to Stark (1852),[6] that of medieval Arsuf with Apollonia/Sozusa to Clermont-Ganneau (1876).[2]

The site is variously referred to as Apollonia, Arsin, Arsuf, Arsuph, Arsur, Arsuth, Assur, Orsuf and Sozusa in Crusader-era documents, with a large dominance of "Arsur" among the secondary sources discussed by Schmidt.[7]

History

Antiquity

Although some Chalcolithic and Iron Age remains were uncovered at the site, there is no evidence that there was a settlement prior to the Persian period (ca. 500 BCE). While the importance of the town was overshadowed by both

Sharon Plain by the mid-4th century BCE. It is mentioned in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax.[8]

During the

Seleucids
.

Under Roman rule, the town prospered and grew into the chief commercial and industrial centre of the region between the

Yarkon rivers. In 113 CE, Apollonia was partially destroyed by an earthquake, but recovered quickly.[citation needed
]

Apollonia is mentioned by

Appianus, Hist. rom. Syr., 57. The Roman proconsul, Gabinius, found it ruined in 57 BCE, and had it rebuilt (Josephus, Bel. jud., I, viii, 4). Apollonia is depicted in the Tabula Peutingeriana, on the coastal highway between Joppa and Caesarea, at the distance of 22 miles from Caesarea, confirming the identification of Arsuf with Apollonia.[citation needed
]

There was no coin minting in Apollonia, confirming that the town did not have the role of a Roman provincial center but was rather considered a medium-sized coastal town like

Azotus
.

Sozusa in Palaestina was the name of the city in the late

, the provincial capital. The name had changed from Apollonia to Sozusa before 449, when Bishop Baruchius signed the acts of the
Robber Council of Ephesus with this title.[9] The name Sozusa also occurs in the works of the Byzantine geographers Hierocles and George of Cyprus. Apart from Baruchius of 449, the names of two more of its bishops, Leontius in 518, and Damianus in 553, are also known.[10]
The death of patriarch Modestus in 630 in the city is recorded in both Georgian and Arabic texts, the Georgian texts using Sozos (for Sozusa) and the Arabic texts Arsuf, suggesting that both names remained in use for some time in the early medieval period.[11]

During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the city surrendered on terms in 614 to Shahrbaraz and was in Sasanian hands until near the end of the war.[12]

Early Muslim period

In 640, the town

Al-Muqaddasi said it was "smaller than Yafah, but strongly fortified and populous There is here a beautiful pulpit, made in the first instance for the Mosque of Ar Ramlah, but which being found too small, was given to Arsuf".[13]

At the time of the Muslim conquest, Sozusa was inhabited by Samaritans.[14] In 809, following the death of

Abbasids violently removed the large group of Samaritans that had been living in the city.[15]

The town's area decreased to about 22 acres (89,000 m2) and, for the first time, it was surrounded by a fortified wall with buttresses, to resist the constant attacks of Byzantine fleets from the sea.[citation needed]

Crusader to Mamluk period

Remains of the castle
The dry moat of the castle

Baldwin I took it in 1102, after a siege by land and sea, allowing the inhabitants to withdraw to Ascalon
. The Crusaders, who called it Arsur, rebuilt the city's walls and created the Lordship of Arsur in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1187 Arsuf was recaptured by the Muslims, but fell again to the Crusaders on 7 September 1191 after the Battle of Arsuf, fought between the forces of Richard I of England and Saladin.

John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut became Lord of Arsuf in 1207 when he married Melisende of Arsuf. Their son John of Arsuf (d. 1258) inherited the title. The title then passed to John of Arsuf's eldest son Balian of Arsuf (d. 1277). He built new walls, the large castle and new harbor in 1241. In 1251 Louis IX of France re-erected its ramparts. From 1261, the city was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller.[16]

In 1225,

AH 494, i.e. 1101 CE], and it is in the hand of the Franks [Crusaders] at the present day."[13]

In 1265, sultan

Baibars, ruler of the Mamluks, captured Arsuf after 40 days of siege,[17] after almost getting killed in the moat by a sortie of the defenders.[18] The inhabitants were killed or sold as slaves and the town completely razed. The destruction was so complete that the site was abandoned and never regained its urban character – in the 14th century the geographer Abulfeda
said it contained no inhabitants ("Tabula Syriæ", 82).

According to Mujir al-Din (writing c. 1496), the Sidna Ali Mosque just south of Arsuf was dedicated by Baibars at the site of a saint's tomb where he prayed for victory prior to retaking Arsuf.[19]

In the Middle Ages, Sozusa was confused with Antipatris.[citation needed][dubious ] The identity of Arsuf with ancient Apollonia was first noted by Clermont-Ganneau in 1876.[2]

Ottoman period

Arsuf from the 1871–77 PEF Survey of Palestine

In 1596, Ottoman tax registers recorded a village called Arsuf with 22 families and 4 bachelors, all

Hadrat 'Ali bin 'Ulaym.[20] It appeared, just named "village" on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled during Napoleon's invasion of 1799.[21]

Catholic titular see until 1965

Sozusa in Palaestina is listed as a

Apostolic Vicar of Jolo (d. 1970). It has no longer been assigned since, in accordance with the practice established after the Second Vatican Council regarding all titular sees situated in what were the eastern patriarchates.[23]

British Mandate and Israeli periods

The site was incorporated in

1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the area south of the site was built up as the Shikun Olim (שיכון עולים "immigrant
housing") district of Herzeliya in the 1950s.

Rishpon was established in 1936 to the immediate north-east of the site. It is part of the Hof HaSharon Regional Council, Central District.

Arsuf is a modern "exclusive clifftop community" named for Arsuf, built in 1995 north of the site, in Hof HaSharon Regional Council.[24]

Archaeology

The site of Apollonia–Arsuf was excavated in the 1990s and opened for visitors as Apollonia National Park in 2002. Excavations were ongoing as of 2015. The excavation report is prepared in three volumes, of which the first was published in 1999. The second and third volume, covering the excavation seasons until 2015, were in preparation as of 2016.

The above-ground remains before the excavations included the medieval city wall and moat, enclosing an area of about 90 dunam, a Crusader castle with a double-wall system with an area of about 4 dunam, a port with built jetties and a sheltered anchorage, protected by a sandstone reef.

Large amounts of pottery were recovered in the area surrounding the city, mostly of the Byzantine and early Islamic period, indicating that the city extended significantly beyond its old walls in the 7th century. A large Roman-era villa maritima was uncovered to the south of the site.

See also

Crusader period:

References

  1. ^ History's Garbage Dump, Israel Antiquities Authority, August 2013. Accessed 17.9.2020.
  2. ^ a b c d Cohen, Getzel M., The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa (2006), p. 234.
  3. ^ Izre'el (1999:73)
  4. ^ "All these elements show that the relation between Resheph, Ephraim's descendent, and the Phoenician city of Arsuf should be rejected." Maciej M. Münnich, The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East (2013), p. 244.
  5. ^ Izre'el (1999:72). The misreading was recognized in 1951.
  6. ^ Stark, K. B., Gaza und die Philistäische Küste, Jena (1852), p. 452, accepted by Clermont-Ganneau (1896:338): "[...] the noticeable fact remains that the town Apollonias-Arsuf, though of considerable importance, does not appear on the ecclesiastical lists, and that Sozousa is mentioned there in conjunction with Joppa, which would harmonize well enough with the geographic position of Arsuf."
  7. ^ Schmidt, Otto Heinrich, Ortsnamen Palästinas in der Kreuzfahrerzeit: Ortsnamenregister zu den Aufsätzen von Prutz, Beyer und Kob in der ZDPV 4–8, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1953-), vol. 86, No. 2 (1970), pp. 117-164 (123).
  8. ^ Edward Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia (2004), p. 329.
  9. ^ "Baruchius episcopus Sozusae Palaestinae provinciae", "Baruchius episcopus Sozusenae civitatis", "Baruchius episcopus ecclesiae Sozusae" (E. Schwartz, Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum II.1.3 (1935), 183, 245, 255)
  10. OCLC 955922747
    .
  11. ^ Roll, I. and Tal, O. (1999), introduction, citing Conybeare 1910:517; Garitte 1960:55, Peeters 1923–24:41; Garitte 1953:38, 70; 1974:131.
  12. .
  13. ^ a b Le Strange, 1890, p. p. 399.
  14. ^ Izre'el (1999:64)
  15. ^ Taragan (2004), p. 85, f.n. 5 quoting Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634–1099) (Tel-Aviv, 1983), p. 662.
  16. ^ Boas 2006, p. 220
  17. Gestes des Chiprois
    , Part III, p.117, ed. Gaston Raynaud, Genève, 1887: The year given by the chronicler known as the Templar of Tyre is 1265.
  18. . Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  19. ^ Taragan, Hana (2004): The Tomb of Sayyidna Ali in Arsuf: the Story of a Holy Place In JRAS (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society), Series 4, 14, 2 (2004), pp. 83–102.
  20. ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 140
  21. ^ Karmon, 1960, p. 170 Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ), p. 976
  23. ^ Sozusa in Palaestina (catholic-hierarchy.org)
  24. ^ Harriet Sherwood, Beny Steinmetz: Israeli diamond dealer who likes to keep a low profile, The Guardian, 30 July 2013.

Bibliography

External links

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