CO o LxJ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS, PRUDENCE W. KOFOID I I Y^ZXms^ -^c '^ X)S47 NOTES OF ExlSTERN TRAVEL. T7ie Ancient Roman Road from PhiladelpTtia to Gerasa. — It was Wednesday, September 3, 1890, when I left Amman (Philadelphia) en route for Jerash (Gerasa). I had intended going by the usual roundabout road through Es-Salt, but Fellah, the ' Adwan chief who acted as my escort, preferred to avoid that government post, and proposed that we should take the direct road to the east of Mount Gilead. As an Inducement he promised to show us an unknown ruin and an uncopied inscription. On the small maps which I had with me this region was a perfect blank, and I accordingly ac- cepted the offer. In point of fact, this route had been trav- ersed by Guy le Strange (who describes it in Scliuhmacher's Across the Jordan)^ Selah Merrill, Laurence Oliphant, and perhaps others. But the number who have visited it is very small, and the region has been as yet but imperfectly ex- plored. Conder failed to survey this part of the country on account of the interference of the Turkish authorities, who brought the East- Jordan survey to an abrupt termination and expelled the explorers. The road, which I do not find on Kiepert's maps, is correctly laid down in Fischer- Guthe's Neue Handkarte von Paldstina. Starting from our camp toward the southeastern end of the ruins of Amman, we descended the Wady Amman to the northeast until we had reached the end of the ruins in that direction, then we turned up a ravine to the west, where were rock-cut tombs. Ascending the side of this ravine we found ? 2 JOHN P. PETERS. ourselves on a paved Roman road leading north. After rid- ing for about an hour over a barren, stony plateau, we entered a hill country, wooded with oak and terebinth. Two hours from Amman we found some columns standing by the side of the road. These were plain shafts, unadorned and bearing no marks. Ten minutes later we came upon the extensive ruins of Yajuz, or Kom Yajuz, lying along the little Wady el-Ham- mam and the hills on both sides of it. ISTo one has yet found any inscriptions in these ruins, but capitals of columns, orna- mental shell-shaped niches, a stone lion and an eagle, which were lying about the well at the time of my visit, as well as the ornamental stone-cutting, which I found in some of the houses, indicate clearly that they belong to the late Roman period. And here I may add, a fact which I have not seen noticed elsewhere, that while in the Moabite country, as at Ma' in, Madeba, Hesban, and el-Al, the ruins which strike the eye belong in general to the sixth post-Christian century, the ruins farther north, beginning with Kharaibet-es-Sukh, a little south of Amman, are several centuries earlier. Merrill has suggested the identification of Yajuz with Gadda, mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana as on the road from Damascus to Philadelphia, thirteen Roman miles from the latter, and eleven miles from Hatita or Haditha, which he identifies with Kal'at ez-Zerka ; but according to my itinerary Yajuz is a little less than six Roman miles from Amman, which agrees with the distance as given in the Fischer-Guthe map referred to above. Whatever the city was it was a place of considerable size about 200 a, d., but apparently unfortified. It is not mentioned by the Arabian geographers and historians, and would seem to have fallen into ruins before their day. One hour and twenty minutes beyond Yajuz we came upon several fallen columns lying on the east side of the road. Le Strange says : " Where the road runs along the western slope of a shallow valley, we passed fragments of six more broken columns " ; but he failed to observe the inscription of Severus which was on the under side of one of the fallen col- umns. This was a monolith of white limestone, not less than nine feet in length, broken at the top, and with a large square pediment. The inscription was on the under side, only a few NOTES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 3 letters being visible in the position in which the column lay. Fella,h told us a story about fifteen Frenchmen whom he had brought to this place, and who had been unable to turn the column so as to examine the inscription. And certainly it was a difficult stone to move both on account of its weight, and still more on account of the large square j^edestal which held it firmly anchored. However, Mr. Tod, my servant Hajji Rework, and I scoojDed out with our knives and fingers a deep hole the length of the column, and then juried it down into the hole by means of a terebinth bough as a lever. In this manner Ave turned it completely over, and I was able to copy the whole inscription, which proved to be an inscription of Severus, as given in Professor Merriam's article in this Jour- nal (No. 1). Near this lay another jDlain shaft marked thus : + II +, while on a third column there was, according to my day book, an inscription ; but if so I either failed to copy it, or have lost my copy. The XDoint at which these columns lay is marked on the Fischer- Guthe map as a ruined site named Saf ut. I saw no other ruins and did not hear this name. One mile beyond this Le Strange reports "the shafts of two broken columns" of white limestone, one a monolith nine feet in length, near the point at which a road to Es-Salt branches off from the old Roman road. These two columns I failed to see. One hour and twenty-five minutes beyond the inscription of Severus we found at the bottom of a valley a well called 'Ain Kamshe, where Ave encamped for the night. This is thirteen Roman miles from Amman, on the road to Damascus, and would therefore correspond Avith the position of Gadda as given in the Tabula Peutingeriana. It should be said, however, that, excepting the Avell itself, Ave saAv no remains of antiquity ; but such a AA^ell in that country must ahvays have attracted to itself some sort of settlement in the days when the country was settled. What role, if any, Gadda played in history, and Avhat AA^as the origin of the name I have been unable to ascertain. The name certainly looks as if it were merely a Greek or Roman form of the ancient Hebrew Gad, which Avas one of the names of this district, so that even the Wady Zerka seems to have been called by the Hebrews Nahr-Gad (2 Sam. xxiv. 5). 4 JOHN P. PETERS. Shortly after leaving 'Ain Kamslie the next morning we lost the Roman road, and found ourselves following a mere track due north. One hour and thirty-eight minutes after leaving 'Ain Kamshe we came to the insignificant ruins of Jubba, which I have not found on any map. Apparently it was a town of about the same period as Yajuz, but small and unimportant. An hour later we w^ere in the deep valley of the Zerka, with its wide stretches of pebbles and its beauti- ful groves of oleanders. On the other side we found the Roman road once more, ascending the Wady Jerash to the ancient Gerasa, which Merrill would identify with the still more ancient Ramoth Gilead. Along this road we found three old Roman milestones in place. The first of these, which we found twenty-nine minutes after crossing the Zerka, was marked IIII. On the next, which we passed nineteen minutes later, I observed no mark, nor on the third, which was thirty-seven minutes further on. Between these twa evidently one stone had been lost. Inscriptions at Jerash. The PropylcBum. — The arch has fallen, and the stones lie piled together in a great heap ex- tending down into the street. I copied every inscribed piece which I could find in this heap, but had no means of remov- ing the stones, or even turning them over. I also endeavored to photograph everything, but by a piece of rascality, the removal of a lens, these and a large number of other would-be photographs were destroyed. Within the last few years the Turkish government has granted Jerash to a colony of Cir- cassian refugees from the Caucasus. They have settled on the east side of the stream, in that portion of the city formerly used for residences, and not in the part in which the temjDles and other public buildings stood. They are utilizing the ruins to furnish material for their houses. In the wall of one house I saw an inscription upside down, which I could not copy, but photographed, and have therefore lost. The same was true of another inscription utilized in the building of a wall. They were neither of them, however, of any especial importance. Doubtless every year the Circassians dig up several such stones. (At Amman also something of the same sort is going on, and a fine-looking ISTabathsean inscription was dug up there the day I left the place, but I was unable to get more NOTES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 5 tliaii a glance at it.) In the immediate neigliborliood of the propylseum building there must be a considerable amount of inscribed material, even the columns in the streets at this iDoint bearing inscriptions. Very little labor among the heaps of stones lying in front of the propylseum, and in the basilica which is opposite it, Avould proba- bly be rewarded by the recovery of a number of new inscriptions. Unfortunately, I was unable to accomplish this labor. The only new inscription which I brought back from Jerash was one found on a gravestone (see No. 2, in Professor Merriam's article) in the cemetery to the north of the town. My other inscriptions had already been published. But Professor Merriam has found among my notes some material for the correction of the inscrip- tion of Antoninus Pius on the great arch of the propylseum {Ihld., No. 3). In excuse of my apparent supineness regarding inscrip- tions I must say that I visited the east of Jordan merely as a tourist, for my own information, and with no idea of finding any unpublished inscriptions. In fact I supposed that every- thing had been copied and published. I had been in the saddle for four months, riding through Irak as far south as Mugheir (Ur), then up the Euphrates, and through Palestine in midsummer, and was much exhausted. My time was limited. I had had no opportunity to look up publications beforehand and make notes for my guidance, and had only a general knowledge of what had been done. I did not know, when I started for Palestine, that I should be able to do more than follow in the usual beaten tracks, and made no material provision for work. As the result of my brief experience east of Jordan I can say that there are still abundant gleanings of Greek and Latin inscriptions, generally the former. Even at Bosrah, where I supposed that everything had been copied, I saw in the underground jDassages of the citadel (the old theatre) a Greek inscription of considerable length, which seems to have escaped observation ; at least I have not found it among the j)ublished inscriptions from that place. Unfortunately I did not copy it, because I supposed that it had been long since copied and published, and an attempt on my loart would have meant lights and time, and therefore not 6 JOHN P. PETERS. merely backsheesh, but permission and suspicion, with danger of delay. Palmyrene Roads. — In his notice of the Wolfe Expedition to Babylonia, Professor Sterrett has published four milestone inscriptions found between Rakka or Erek (Aracha) and Tadmor (Palmyra), with a notice of three miliiaria or frag- ments of miliiaria from the same stretch of road. I can add to these one more stone, found three hours and eighteen min- utes beyond Erek on the road toward the Euphrates. It was apparently a milliarium, but of unusually large size. It had been broken, and only one large fragment, seven feet or so in length, and a good two feet at least in diameter, was to be found. It was much covered with gray lichen, and the inscription, which was not deeply cut, was for the most part illegible. Out of seven lines I could read only a few scattered letters in the last four {Ibid., No. 4). The stone and the inscription did not resemble the stone and inscription on the eighth milestone from Palmyra, a Diocletian inscription {cf. Sterrett, Pax>ers of the Am. School of Class. Studies, Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor., No. 634), but did resemble another stone, also copied by Sterrett, which lay further out from Palmyra (Sterrett, No. 633). Sterrett passed out of Palmyra going west by the Homs route. I entered it on my way from Beirout to Baghdad, in November of 1889, by the Kurietain road, and returned over the same road in July of 1890, and was much impressed with the remains of ancient road stations of the Palmyrene period on that route, of which I have read little in descriptions of Palmyra. On this southwestern road, two hours and twenty minutes from the mouth of the little j)ass through which one leaves Palmyra, almost in the middle of the plain, are the remains of quite a large building, and there also stands erect at this point a column, similar, except for its lack of inscrip- tion, to the Diocletian miliiaria on the road from Palmyra to Aracha. Four hours and forty minutes beyond this, on the direct line through the plain to Kurietain, is a very deep ancient well, now called ' Ain el-Bweida. An ancient column was still standing here, but no inscrij^tion was visible. There was evidently an old road station at this point, and to-day the Turks have a miserable little garrison of two or three gendarmes stationed by the well. NOTES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. 1 Seven hours and ten minutes beyond this, still on the straight line to Kurietain, lies the picturesque and striking ruin of Kasr el-Hair. Here were standing the ruins of a tower some fifty feet in height, and originally forty feet square at the base. The construction was characteristically Palmyrene, and on one of the corner stones halfway up the tower were two sun discs, one plain and one with curved radii. By the side of the tower was a building of brick and stone, sur- rounding a large court, some two hundred feet square, and entered by a very ornamental stone gateway on the east side. This had evidently been a caravanserai. Outside of the walls and tower were a couple of smaller ruins, and near one of these an ancient well, now choked up. Half a mile to the north is another gateway, similar to the one mentioned above, but almost entirely without the rich and elaborate carving by which that was adorned. The building belonging to this gate- way had quite disappeared, but not far away were the ruins of a large reservoir. This obtained its water through an aqueduct which runs several miles across the plain to Sedd el-Berdi in the mountains southward. Here are the ruins of a dam across a ravine, by means of which in the rainy season water was stored for use in the dry. The whole equipment of this station was singularly interesting and complete, but I have never seen it described by any traveller. Seven hours and thirty minutes from Kasr el-Hair, across a perfectly level plain (Kiepert's map represents incorrectly a chain of hills as partially crossing the plain at this point) lies Kurietain, some, ancient Kiriathaim, the most important station on the road from Palmyra to Damascus. Here there is plenty of water, including hot sulphur springs, and a town of some importance has always existed. Several fragments of inscriptions, for the most part copied by others (but cf. Prof. Merriam's No. 5), I found built into walls, one in- scribed stone forming the lintel of the gateway of a courtyard. It may not be amiss to add a word regarding the roads to the east of Palmyra. We have seen that Roman milestones are found beyond Eakka (Aracha), the first station beyond Palmyra. In addition to these milestones, we find at certain distances the ruins of ancient guardhouses, giving evidence of the necessity of protection along this frontier road. At 8 [IJOHN P. PETERS.\ Sukhne, between eight and nine hours beyond Rakka, there is running water, and also hot sulphur springs. There are visible here the foundations of ancient buildings of consider- able extent. Evidentl}^ Sukhne was a town, and probably a bathing resort of some sort, in the Palmyrene and Roman periods. What its ancient name was is not known. From this point the present track to Babylonia leads a little north of east to Jubb Kabakib, or deep well of Kabakib, seventeen hours from Sukhne. Between these two points I found no trace of old roads, but at Kabakib, besides the well, which is ancient, there are the ruins of a reservoir and aqueduct. The same plan for collecting and storing water had been pursued here as at Kasr el-Hair. From this point the official Turkish route leads to Deir on the Euphrates (Kiepert's map indicates a sort of wady as leading from Sukhne to Deir, forming a natural route, but no such wady exists), but the traditional caravan route is from Kabakib to the old castle of Rehaba, a long day's journey further down the river. This is a shorter and more natural road than the one to Deir. Rehaba itself is an Arabic ruin of a rather late period, but built apparently upon a much earlier fortress. There was quite a centre of population hereabout in the Arabic period. There are several ruined villages along the bluff of the desert plateau near Rehaba, and the plain of the Euphrates, which is unusually broad at this point, is strewed for miles with fragments of glass, brick, and pottery, and dotted with ruined mounds. Two of these tells on the edge of the river are occupied by good-sized modern villages, Meyadin and Ishara, but the earliest remains which the natives seem to have discovered in such part of those tells as they have dis- turbed do not antedate the close of the seventh post-Christian century. A little above Rehaba occurs the junction of the ancient Khabour with the EujDlirates, and there, on the north- ern bank of the Euphrates, stood Circesium. In view of these facts, I should suppose that the ancient road certainly joined the Euphrates at Rehaba, and not Deir. One day's journey below Rehaba, where the river presses close against the southern bluff, some t^vo hundred feet in height, stands in a commanding position the fine ruin of Salahiyeh. Although bearing the name of Selah-ud-din, this is manifestly a Pal- ^^OTES OF EASTERN TRAVEL. » myrene ruin, and marks the eastern limit of the Palmyrene dominions in the strict sense, as does Halebiyeh or Zenobieh (ancient Zenobia) the western. What was the ancient name of Salahiyeh I have been unable to ascertain, or whether there was a direct route from Sukhne to this point. Certain it is, however, that in the Palmyrene and Roman period there was a direct road northward from Sukhne to Ragga, ancient Nicephorium, on the Euphrates. This road passed through Resafa, the biblical Rezeph, a city important and famous in Hebrew and Assyrian times. Resafa was vis- ited in 1838 or 1839, at the time of the English survey of the Euphrates, and reported to be a finely preserved ruin of the Byzantine period. Later travellers failed to reach it, and among others Sachau. I was equally unfortunate. More- over, Arabs, who professed to have visited the site, assured me that there was no longer anything standing. This seemed not improbable, in view of the changes which had taken place in the neighboring Zenobia between Chesney's expedi- tion and our own. But last winter Mr. Haynes succeeded in visiting the place on behalf of the University of Penn- sylvania expedition to Babylonia. He writes me as follows : "Resafa appears to have been an important city in the early centuries of our era, as a large church of the third or fourth century attests. "The walls still stand, but being built of soft gypsum (pure and white) are badly crumbled in places. The city was built four square, with its sides to the cardinal points and enclosed an area of more than sixty acres. Its beautiful gate is worthy of more time and attention than I could give it. The city was supplied with splendid cisterns, both within and without the walls. Some of these cisterns are perfect to-day. The soil is excellent, too, and altogether it is a charming spot for a desert city." El' Uz and El-Khut7ir.—0n the basis of a couple of frag- mentary inscriptions I have perhaps roamed over an inade- quately large territory in my notes, and yet, finding myself in the region of the Euphrates, I cannot refrain from wander- ing still further, and adding a brief note on two sites, the origin and meanino- of whose names seem to have been over- 10 JOHN P. PETEBS. looked by all travellers. In the Euphrates, some three days' journey below Anah, lies the island town of el-Ouzz, as it is given on Kiepert's map, or el-Uz, or Alus, as given by others. This is merely the name of the ancient Arabic goddess el- 'Uzz, and the town was evidently named after her in the same way that Anah was named after Anat. That the name is ancient is shown by the fact that Roman writers call it Alusa. Half a day's Journey south of Samawa, on the east bank of the Euphrates, and about three hours from the ruins of the ancient Uruk or Erech, is a place called by Kiepert el-Khidr, by others el-Khuthr. There is at this place a grove in which all life is inviolable. It is, in fact, an ancient pre-Islamic sanctuary of a well-known type. It was called, apparently, in common parlance, el-Kliudhr, or "the evergreen." In the Moslem period that name came to be applied to the prophet Elijah, and consequently to-day this grove, with its ancient heathen right of sanctuary, is held sacred to Elijah. Inscription from Yer Kapu Broussa. — This inscription is in the gate of the old wall known as Yer Kapu, on the left- hand post as one goes out of the city, at about the height of a man's head and upward, and is much chipped and worn, so as to escape ordinary observation. It was shown to me by the Rev. Mr. Crawford, A. B. C. F. M. missionary at Broussa, with whose assistance I obtained several rubbings. I also photographed an illegible inscription on a large, badly flaked block of marble lying in the street opposite a cafe, near the Hissar Kapu, in the upper city. John p. Peters. St. Michael's Church, New York City. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. [GAYLAMOUNT PAMPHLET BINDER LOAN DEPT tf nd Of SUV.V;iSP^~ -IBRARY <'>'S?Afo?5K.-, GeneraUibrary