Abila (Decapolis)
Abila, distinguished as Abila in the Decapolis ( grc-gre, Ἄβιλα Δεκαπόλεως, ''Abila Dekapoleos''), and also known for a time as Seleucia ( grc-gre, Σελεύκεια, ''Seleúkeia''), and Raphana, was a city in the Decapolis; the site, now referred to as ( ar, قويلبة; also Quwaylibah, Qualibah), occupies two tells, Tell al-Abila and Khirbet Tell Umm al-Amad. The site was submitted to the list of tentative World Heritage sites under criteria I, III and IV on June 18, 2001, by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Etymology The name "Abila" is derived from the Semitic word Abel (in Hebrew, "meadow" and in Arabic, "green growth"). The largest site is located amidst verdant agricultural fields near the modern spring. Roman temples, Byzantine churches and early mosques lie amidst olive groves and wheat fields. The name of the south hill, Umm al-Amad, means "Mother of the Columns", where large columns can be found. Geology The natural stone of the Tran ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Irbid
Irbid ( ar, إِربِد), known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela (Άρβηλα in Ancient Greek), is the capital and largest city of the Irbid Governorate. It also has the second largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a population of around 2,003,800. Irbid is located about north of Amman on the northern ridge of the Gilead, equidistant from Pella, Beit Ras ( Capitolias), and Um Qais, and approximately south of the Syrian border. Irbid was built on successive Early Bronze Age settlements and was possibly the biblical Beth Arbel and the Arbila of the Decapolis, a Hellenistic league of the 1st century BCE through the 2nd century CE. The population of Irbid swelled in the late 19th century, and prior to 1948 it served as a significant centre of transit trade. Irbid is the second largest metropolitan in Jordan by population after Amman. But as a city Irbid is the third largest one after Amman and Zarqa. The province of Irbid Governorate has the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Wadi
Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Etymology The term ' is very widely found in Arabic toponyms. Some Spanish toponyms are derived from Andalusian Arabic where ' was used to mean a permanent river, for example: Guadalcanal from ''wādī al-qanāl'' ( ar, وَادِي الْقَنَال, "river of refreshment stalls"), Guadalajara from ''wādī al-ḥijārah'' ( ar, وَادِي الْحِجَارَة, "river of stones"), or Guadalquivir, from ''al-wādī al-kabīr'' ( ar, اَلْوَادِي الْكَبِير, "the great river"). General morphology and processes Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portions of alluvial fans and extend to inland sabkhas or dry lakes. In bas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. He initially fought against the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War as head of Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in 67 AD to Roman forces led by Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat. Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response, Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and presumably interpreter. After Vespasian became Emperor in 69 AD, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius.Simon Claude Mimouni, ''Le Judaïsme ancien du VIe siècle avant notre ère au IIIe siècle de notre ère : ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, his in-depth discussion of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", which influenced Montesquieu's '' The Spirit of the Laws'', John Locke's '' Two Treatises of Government'', and the framers of the United States Constitution. The leading expert on Polybius for nearly a century was F. W. Walbank (1909–2008), who published studies related to him for 50 years, including a long commentary of his ''Histories'' and a biography. Early life Polybius was born around 200 BC in Megalopolis, Arcadia, when it was an active member of the Achaean League. The town was revived, along with other Achaean states, a century before he was born. Polybius' father, Lyc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Amarna Letters
The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru, or neighboring kingdom leaders, during the New Kingdom, spanning a period of no more than thirty years between c. 1360–1332 BC (see here for dates).Moran, p.xxxiv The letters were found in Upper Egypt at el- Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of ''Akhetaten'', founded by pharaoh Akhenaten (1350s–1330s BC) during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written not in the language of ancient Egypt, but in cuneiform, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia. Most are in a variety of Akkadian sometimes characterised as a mixed language, Canaanite-Akkadian; one especi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Guy Le Strange
Guy Le Strange (24 July 1854 – 24 December 1933) was a British Orientalist noted especially for his work in the field of the historical geography of the pre-modern Middle Eastern and Eastern Islamic lands, and his editing of Persian geographical texts. He was a scholar of the Persian, Arabic, and Spanish languages. Le Strange was one of the original trustees of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial, an organisation which since 1905 has published the Gibb Memorial Series. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, the youngest child of Henry L'Estrange Styleman Le Strange of Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk, educated at Clifton College and died in Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ....Probate Registry Grant – Feb 1934. Works Books * * * * * * Index Articles * Refer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Palestine Exploration Fund
The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, and is the oldest known organization in the world created specifically for the study of the Levant region, also known as Palestine. Often simply known as the PEF, its initial objective was to carry out surveys of the topography and ethnography of Ottoman Palestine – producing the PEF Survey of Palestine – with a remit that fell somewhere between an expeditionary survey and military intelligence gathering. It had a complex relationship with Corps of Royal Engineers, and its members sent back reports on the need to salvage and modernise the region.Ilan Pappé (2004) A history of modern Palestine: one land, two peoples Cambridge University Press, pp 34-35 History Following the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, the Biblical archaeologists and clergymen who supported the survey financed the creation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Gottlieb Schumacher
Gottlieb Schumacher (21 November 1857 – 26 November 1925) was an American-born civil engineer, architect and archaeologist of German descent, who was an important figure in the early archaeological exploration of Palestine. Early life Schumacher was born in Zanesville, Ohio, where his parents had immigrated from Tübingen, Germany. His father, Jacob Schumacher, was a member of the Temple Society, a German Protestant sect which in the 1860s established the German Colony in Haifa, Palestine. In 1869, Jacob Schumacher settled with his family in the Templer colony, where he became the chief architect and builder. Career Engineer, surveyor and architect Gottlieb studied engineering in Germany, and then returned to Palestine in 1881. He quickly became a leading figure in the construction of roads and houses. He was appointed Chief Engineer for the Province of Akko by the Ottoman government. Among his many works were the Scottish hostels in Safed and Tiberias, the Russia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ulrich Jasper Seetzen
Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (30 January 1767September 1811) was a German explorer of Arabia and Palestine from Jever, German Frisia. An alternative spelling of his name, Ulrich Iospar Sentzen, is sometimes seen in scientific publications. Early life His father sent him to the University of Göttingen, where he graduated in medicine. His chief interests, however, were in natural history and technology; he wrote papers on both these subjects which gained him some reputation, and had both in view in making a series of journeys through the Netherlands and Germany. He also engaged in various small manufactures, and in 1802 obtained a government post in Jever, however, the interest which he had long felt in geographical exploration culminated in a resolution to travel. Travels to Jordan and Palestine In the summer of 1802 he started down the Danube with a companion Jacobsen, who broke down at Smyrna a year later. His journey was by Constantinople, where he stayed six months, thence through A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nymphaeum
A ''nymphaeum'' or ''nymphaion'' ( grc, νυμφαῖον), in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs. They were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of water, as at Pamphylian Side. A nymphaeum dedicated to a local water nymph, Coventina, was built along Hadrian's Wall, in the northernmost reach of the Roman Empire. Subsequently, artificial grottoes took the place of natural ones. Roman period The nymphaeum in Jerash, Jordan (''illustration, above right''), was constructed in 191 AD. The fountain was originally embellished with marble facing on the lower level, painted plaster on the upper level, and topped with a half-dome roof, forming a giant niche. Water cascaded through seven carved lion's heads into small basins on the sidewalk. The nymphaea of the Roman period, which extended the sacral use to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') is a term most commonly referring to non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Southern Russian, Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) slave-soldiers and freed slaves who were assigned military and administrative duties, serving the ruling Arab dynasties in the Muslim world. The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military class in Egypt in the Middle Ages, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers. Originally the Mamluks were slaves of Turkic origin from the Eurasian Steppe, but the institution of military slavery spread to include Circassians, Abkhazians, Georgians,"Relations of the Georgian Mamluks of Egypt with Their Homeland in the Last Decades of the Eighteenth Century". Daniel Crecelius and Gotc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ayyubid
The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin had originally served Nur ad-Din of Syria, leading Nur ad-Din's army in battle against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made Vizier. Following Nur ad-Din's death, Saladin was proclaimed as the first Sultan of Egypt, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond the frontiers of Egypt to encompass most of the Levant (including the former territories of Nur ad-Din), in addition to Hijaz, Yemen, northern Nubia, Tarabulus, Cyrenaica, southern Anatolia, and northern Iraq, the homeland of his Kurdish family. By virtue of his sultanate including Hijaz, the location of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the first ruler to be hailed as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a title that would be held by all subseque ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |