Historical Palestine

I. Terminology

The area settled by the Philistines, referred to collectively in Akkadian by such names as palaštu after their conquest by Assyria, probably provided the basis for the Greek (Sýria hḗ) Palaistínē, first found in Herodotus (1.105; 2.104, 106; 3.5, 91; 4.39; 7.89), even though the hypothetical intermediate Aramaic expression of the Persian period, the likely basis of the Greek form, is still unattested. To the extent that writers in antiquity thought about etymology, the Philistines were rightly considered eponymous (e.g. Jos. Ant. I 136, 145, 207). In the same period, the region was regularly thought of as part of Syria and often as the successor to Canaan  (e.g. Philo Abr.133; Mos. I 163; Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae 25). The non-biblical term Palestine, just one among many names for this region, was not precisely defined geographically, but taken as a whole the sources suggest the region between Egypt, Phoenicia, and Arabia (Arabian peninsula; e.g. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia V 66f.; Dio Cassius, Historia romana XXXVII 16.5). With the administrative use of the geographical term, Palestine became the name of a province, first after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt under Hadrian, when Syria Palaestina replaced the administrative name Iudaea (e.g. Eus. Praep. X 5; Jer. Comm. in Ezek 27.17). The provinces Palaestina Prima (Caesarea), Secunda (Scythopolis; Beth-Shean), and Salutaris or Tertia (Petra), created by late Roman and Byzantine administrative reforms (see IV, 1 below), also provided the basis for early Islamic provincial administration, which used the terms Jund Filasṭīn (the region of Palestine under the early caliphs) and al-Urdunn (Arab. Jordan; the territory beyond the Jordan). In later provincial reorganizations, the term Filasṭīn never actually vanished, but it had no special significance. During the Mandate, the British used the terms Palestine for the territory west of the Jordan and Transjordan for the territory east of the Jordan, on whose soil the modern states of Israel and Jordan emerged and Filasṭīn is a state in the making. Apart from these political developments, Palestine is a convenient collective term in academic contexts for the territory of these three political entities.

II. Geography

The geography of Palestine is influenced by its position at the southern edge of the settled territory of Greater Syria. To the east and south lies desert, to the west the Mediterranean. The second important feature is its location to the west of the Syrian Graben, a deep rift valley that runs from southern Turkey through the broad Bekaa Valley, the Jordan Valley, and the Red Sea to eastern Africa. Three parallel zones running north to south characterize the land west of theJordan River. (1) Almost the entire western edge of Palestine consists of a coastal plain, from two to three km wide in the north to 20 in the south, made up in part of alluvial bottomland, in part of low sandstone hills. The plain is interrupted by the ridge of Mount Carmel. (2) The Palestinian heartland is the hill country of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, which merges in the north with the mountains of southern Lebanon and is bounded in southern Galilee by the Valley of Jezreel (between Haifa and Afula), to the south of which lies the hill country of Samaria (whose largest city is Nāblūs/Shechem); with many basins and depressions, it is relatively the most fertile part of the region. In it the dominant Cretaceous limestones are replaced in part by softer Early Tertiary limestones. The hill country ends in the south with the territory of Judea (Jerusalem and Ḫalīl/Hebron), still high (700–800 m) but already more arid. (3) To the south lies the substantially lower (roughly 200–400 m) desert steppe of the Negeb. The northern portion of the arid Negeb receives between 150 and 300 mm of rainfall annually, allowing cattle raising and, in wet years, some agriculture on loessic soil, in contrast to the central and southern Negeb (rock and gravel desert or hamada). The steep eastern slope of the hill country is also desert, lying in the rain shadow of the prevailing westerlies. The great rift of the Jordan Valley is extremely arid.

Most of Palestine enjoys a subtropical Mediterranean climate; only the arid Jordan Valley has tropical temperatures almost all the way to the Sea of Galilee. Mean temperatures in January range from 10 to 12 degrees Celsius in the coastal plain, 8 to 10 degrees in the hill country, and 14 to 16 degrees in the Jordan basin. In summer (August) the mean temperature ranges from 26 to 28 degrees in the coastal plain, 24 to 26 degrees in the hill country, and 30 to 32 degrees in the Jordan Valley. Thermally Palestine resembles the coastal areas of Algeria. Throughout the region, most precipitation falls in the winter. The important isohyet at 300 mm of annual precipitation marks the limit of (traditional) grain farming. It includes the hill country as far south as Ḫalīl/Hebron and the coastal plain roughly to Ghazza/Gaza. Most of Palestine receives from 400 to 600 mm of precipitation annually, the Galilean uplands as much as 1,000 mm. To the 300 mm isohyet, the terrain is primarily suited to forests of evergreen oak, of which only scanty remnants are left or have been replaced by pine plantations. Until the early 20th century, the traditional economy was based on wheat, olives, and grapes. Since the coming of the State of Israel, intensive agriculture based on irrigation and the use plastics for mulch and cover has increased significantly, in both Israel and the West Bank. This modern agricultural technology (“drip irrigation”) has set an example for the world.

III. Archaeology

The discipline of Islamic archaeology is largely oriented toward the history of art and architecture. Archaeologi cal exploration of settlements is still waiting to fulfill its explicative potential.

1. Islamic archaeology.

The ensemble of the Al-Aqṣā Mosque and the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat aṣ-Ṣaḫra) on the Temple Mount (Arab. al-Ḥaram aš-Šarīf, “the noble sanctuary”; Jerusalem: VIII, 6) marks both the beginning and the apogee of Islamic monumental architecture in Palestine. With a deliberate and polemical echo of Constantine’s ensemble of the Martyrion and Anastasis, in 691 the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (685–705; finished under his successor) gave the Holy Land a Muslim focal point. At the southwest corner of the Herodian temenos wall, Caliph Sulayman (= Solomon) built a palace and founded the city of Ramla (“sand”), where he also sometimes resided. While the Umayyad chancery was located in Damascus, caliphs spent at least part of each year journeying among temporary residences, the so-called (“desert palaces”; Palace: IV), including Ḫ irbat al--Minya on the Sea of Galilee, Ḫ irbat al-Maf gǎ r near Jericho (built under Hishām, 724–743), and in Transjordan the citadels of Amman (Qaṣr Ğālūt), QuṣairʿAmrā, Qasṭtal, Mšatta, and Qaṣr eṭ-Ṭūbā. Their mosaic decoration and architectural design reflected the Byzantine tradition, the three-dimensional sculpture and some of the architectural sculpture the Iranian tradition. For the first and only time in the history of the region, the rulers of a world empire, which stretched from Spain to Afghanistan, resided at least temporarily inPalestine.

The shift of the Arab empire’s center to Baghdad in 750 marked the end of monumental architecture in Palestine. It finally returned with the Crusaders (Crusades) (the urban ensemble of Akko, churches, and above all fortresses – Montfort, Belvoir, Atlit, Krak du Désert, Krak de Montréal [aš-Šaubak], Le Vaux Moise [al-Wuʿaira]), to which the fortresses built by their Ayyūbid (and after 1250 Mamluk) enemies are not inferior (Qalʿat Nimrūd, Qaṣr er-Rabaḍ/ʿAǧlūn, Karak, and Shobak). Of the elaborate Mamluk highway system, with Palestine as the connecting link between the vassal states of Egypt and Syria – and its road stations such as Khān al-Minya – almost nothing remains. After the Ottoman conquest in 1517 under his father Selim I (see IV, 2 below; Ottomans), Sulayman (= Solomon) the Magnificent built the present wall surrounding the old quarter of Jerusalem and restored (for neither the first nor the last time) the Dome of the Rock. As in earlier periods, under the Ottomans residences for dignitaries continued to be built, along with religious institutions (wells, mosques, madrasahs), but from the 16th century to the end of the 18th century, Palestine had no strategic or economic value for the Ottoman Empire; it sank into a kind of slumber, from which it was awakened by a power grab on the part of a local potentate, Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar, who built a wall, mosque, and castle in Tiberias, his first official residence, and rebuilt Akko, his second. His alliance with Russia from 1768 to 1774 marked the high point of his power and the beginning of his fall. In 1799, under his successor Ahmad al-Jazzār Pasha, Akko withstood the siege of Napoleon and was provided with a new mosque and caravansaries. Egyptian rule under Muḥammad ʿAlī (1834–1840) marked the dawn of the modern period for Palestine, with an influx of capital, culture, and population from the West.

2. Settlement archaeology.

Settlement archaeology of Islamic Palestine is still in its infancy. At Aila (ʿAqaba) a port city that stood from the 7th century to the 10th/11th century has been identified. Domestic pottery made by women, virtually unchanged from the 11th/12th century to the early 20th century, points to the collapse of interregional communications. The settlements of this period are small, often designed for defense (e.g. a ring of houses with a single entrance to the interior of the village) or concealed: did the settled population need to be as invisible as possible both to the bedouin and the government? The excavation or identification of Ottoman to late Ottoman villages merges into ethnoarchaeology.

IV. History and Society

1. Hellenistic and Roman period.

The conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great (335–323 bc) made Palestine part of the Hellenistic world. While the Ptolemaic dynasty dominated Palestine until the early 3rd century, the Seleucids took over under Antiochus III; the change was signaled by an increase in the number of new settlements. But the policy of forced Hellenization of Antiochus IV, in cooperation with the high priest (II) Menelaus, led to a countermovement on the part of the Hasmoneans (Maccabees), a priestly family, led initially (167/6 bc) by Mattathias, then by his son Judas Maccabeus. Even at this early date, contacts were made with Rome. Despite defeats, the Hasmoneans under John Hyrcanus achieved political hegemony in Judea, which after 141 was combined with the hereditary office of high priest. By the time of Alexander Jannaeus, the title king had been adopted, a move that aggravated tensions with the Pharisees. Rivalries within the Hasmonean family involving lengthy civil wars finally led to the intervention of Pompey, who essentially limited the Jewish state to Judea and placed it under the authority of the governor of Syria. The de facto domestic governance of the country was placed in the hands of the Idumean Antipater, whose son Herod bore the royal title after 40 bce; Herod cemented ties with the deposed Hasmonean royal family by marrying Mariamne. During the Roman Civil War, in 31 bc he opportunistical shifted his allegiance from Antony and Cleopatra to Octavian, later Augustus. Thus he was able to expand his kingship beyond Palestine. He displayed absolute loyalty to Augustus, in whose honor he founded the cities of Caesarea and Sebaste as Greek poleis. Although he sought to accommodate the religious sensibilities of the Pharisees, even rebuilding the temple on a grand scale, his “pagan” policies led to violent conflicts. After his death in 4 bc, his kingdom was divided; Judea, Idumea, and Samaria were given to his son Archelaus, but only with the title of ethnarch. In response to grievances presented by a Jewish delegation, Augustus deposed Archelaus in ad6. Judea became part of the province of Samaria and was put under a prefect, who had authority locally but was subordinate to the legate of Syria, who could intervene at any time. From 41 to 44, Claudius returned Judea to Agrippa I as part of a kingdom. After Agrippa’s death, it was placed once more under a prefect (not a procurator), and continued to be under the authority of the governor of Syria. For social and religious reasons but also in response to alleged mismanagement on the part of Rome’s equestrian officials, in ad66 a revolt broke out against Rome (Jewish Revolt, First), which was put down by Vespasian and his son Titus, with the capture of Jerusalem in September of 70. The population suffered terrible losses, and the temple was destroyed; the Legio X Fretensis was stationed in Jerusalem, where Jews were no longer permitted to live. Henceforth the governor was a legatus Augusti pro praetore of senatorial rank; he was assisted by an equestrian procurator in charge of fiscal administration. Both resided in Caesarea, which Vespasian made a Roman colony. In Yavne a group of scholars gathered around Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai; this school was later to give rise to the office of the Jewish patriarch. The widespread uprising of diaspora Jews between ad115 and 117 also affected the province, although its extent cannot be determined. By 120 at the latest, a second legion was helping to secure the province (after c. 136 the Legio VI Ferrata, stationed in Caparcotna). Probably during  his journey through Judea inad 130, Hadrian ordered the replacement of Jerusalem with colony Aelia Capitolina, robbing the Jews of any hope of restoring the temple cult. The consequence in 132 was the last great Jewish revolt, under Bar Kokhba, which was not put down until the beginning of 136. Central Judea remained largely depopulated until the early 3rd century. The name of the province was changed to Syria Palaestina. From the end of the 2nd century onward, many settlements were elevated to the status of poleis, in which political decisions were made by the non-Jewish majority. Under Diocletian at the latest, the province was expanded southward to include parts of Arabia as far as Aila (Eilat). Toward the end of the 4th century, the province was divided into Palaestina Prima, with its center at Caesarea, Palaestina Secunda, with Scythopolis (Beth-Shean) as its capital, and Palaestina Tertia, with Petra as its capital; the status of the governors varied.

While Galilee was already flourishing in the 3rd century, after the time of Constantine an economic recovery became observable in southern Palestine as well, essentially a product of the vigorous growth of pilgrimages (III) to the holy sites of Christianity that Constantine the Great had restored and enlarged. In the 4th century, the Jewish patriarch, who had been resident in Tiberias since the beginning of the 3rd century, was officially recognized by the state, with the title vir illustris. There seems to have been general coexistence between Christians and Jews. Not until the 5th century did the Empire’s repressive legislation become more visible. Palestine had also been participating in the Trinitarian and Christological debates since the time of Eusebius of Caesarea. The land was lost to the Sasanids in 614 but was taken back by Emperor Heraclius in 628. But the Muslim Arabs were already overrunning the land between 633 and 636; Jerusalem fell in 638, Caesarea in 639/40.

2. From the early Islamic period to the Ottomans.

The Arabs conquered Palestine between 633 and 640. In the following centuries, the vernacular changed from Aramaic to Arabic. The cities of the Negeb fell to ruin, since there was no longer a military border to protect them. Islam’s prohibition of wine almost put an end to viticulture, causing a general agricultural decline. The coastal ¶ cities also began to stagnate, since trade with the western Mediterranean and Europe collapsed. In the second half of the 7th century, the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik built the famous Dome of the Rock on the site of the former Jewish temple (completed in 691; see III, 1 above). The less tolerant rule of the ‘Abbasids after c. 750 resulted in the Islamization of the majority of the population. The First Crusade in 1096 marked a new epoch.

When the last Crusaders were driven out, Palestine became part of the empire of the Egyptian Mamluks. To protect against invasion from the sea, the coasts and the coastal plain were largely left unsettled. The land was divided into the mamlakat (“provinces”) of Damascus, also called Quds, Nāblūs, and Khalīl, along with the provinces of Ghazzah (Gaza) in the southwest and Safed (Zefad)in the north. Population figures for this period are not available, nor are data about the Christian and Jewish minorities. A retrojection of 15th-century Ottoman data (see below) probably provides a rough idea. Because the coastal plain, with the exception of the area of Ghazzah, had been left depopulated, extensive portions reverted to malaria-infested marshland. Until the early 20th century, resettlement was hardly feasible. Cities like Haifa, Tel Aviv–Joppa, and Akko did not yet exist. Only ʿAtlīt served as a modest port. The center of the Mamluk empire was Egypt; Palestine was an afterthought. A minaret in Lod is the only important historical structure from this period.

The Ottoman period began in 1517 under Sultan Selim I; initially it was a time of legal predictability, advance, and prosperity. Many villages were resettled. The disparagement of the Ottoman period common today cannot include its first century. Cities included Khalīl (Hebron), Quds ( Jerusalem), Nāblūs, Keft Kanna (Canaan), Zefad, Ghazzah, and Lod. Even during the documented period of the 16th century, however, the total population was hardly more than 200,000. Contemporary tax surveys provide village-by-village data on the settlement, economy, and population (number of adult males) of the land and its environs.

Christians constituted only a small percentage of the population: between 12% and 13% in the district of Quds, 10% in Ghazzah, and 2–3% in Nāblūs and Zefad. In the district of Zefat, Jews made up 13–14% of the population, in the city itself (with a population of about 12,000) roughly two-fifths. Elsewhere their proportion was insignificant. Samaritans (Samaria) are also mentioned, with a few families in Nāblūs, Ghazzah, and Zefad.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, a few local potentates managed almost independent rule in Galilee: Fakhr ad-Dīn and Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar ruled as quasi sovereigns. Later Ahmad al-Jazzār Pasha exercised temporary rule in Galilee; with British assistance, in 1799 he was able to hold out in Akko against Napoleon. Poor administration aggravated the decay of rural settlements. Between the end of the 16th century and the 19th century, the line of demarcation between settlements and desert retreated some 20 km in the south and 5 km in the east. Throughout the region, hundreds of villages were abandoned; some 30–60% of the villages in the plains and some 20–30% in the hill country were deserted. The period of Egyptian administration under Ibraham Pasha (1832–1840) probably marked the nadir. The population did not exceed half a million until toward the end of the 19th century.

The Turkish state always considered the area part of the province of Damascus. Administratively it was usually divided into the district of Quds in the south, Nāblūs in the center, and Zefad in the north; the coastal plain belonged to the Ghazzah district. In the late 19th century, the district of Quds was separated from the province of Damascus and made an independent mutessariflik (administrative district) responsible directly to the Sublime Porte.

3. 18th and 19th centuries.

The failed siege of Vienna (1683) marked the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s gradual decline, which led in the 18th century to an increasingly chaotic situation in Palestine. Local governors exploited the weakness of the central government to assert their independence, ruthlessly exploiting the land and its population – some 200,000 in 1800, of whom 90% were Muslims. One of the exceptions was the bedouin chief Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar. For four decades he ruled over northern Palestine, restored and fortified the old city of Akko as a bulwark against the Turks, and founded a new city of Haifa (1761); at the same time, though, his many military actions devastated other parts of the country. Only with great effort did the Turks under Ahmad al-Jazzār Pasha (died 1804) succeed in driving him from power (1775); soon, however, al-Jazzār turned out to be a much more dangerous rebel. With help of the English fleet off Akko (1799), nevertheless, al-Jazzār succeeded in ending Napoleon’s campaign in the Middle East, thus strengthening the Ottoman Empire once more. At the same time, however, this episode showed how easily – in contrast to the period of the Crusades – Christian Europe could have abolished Islamic rule in the Holy Land.

The turning point for Palestine came during the 1830s. Muḥammad ʿAlī, the powerful ruler of Egypt and an ally of France, advanced as far as Anatolia and threatened to replace the Ottoman Empire with an Egyptian empire. To avert military intervention by the Great Powers (France excepted) against him and win the goodwill of the Christian world, Muḥammad ʿAlī decreed that the Holy Land would henceforth be open to the West. He also introduced equality of the local “unbelievers” (i.e. Christians and Jews) with “believers” (i.e. Muslims). For some time, broad and highly influential ecclesiastical circles, especially in England, had been trying to gain a foothold in Jerusalem. The goal was to bring massive numbers of Jews to Palestine and there convert them (“the restoration of the Jews”) to hasten the return of Jesus and the coming of God’s kingdom. Under the Turks, however, foreigners in Palestine could not act independently – especially Protestants, who were not recognized as a religious community. Not until the Egyptians came to power could the first Protestant missionaries begin their work in the Holy Land.

Renewed military clashes between Egyptians and Turks led the Great Powers to intervene in 1840, in particular with the British fleet in Akko; the Egyptians were forced to retreat. The Turks, who had been saved by the Christian world, no longer saw themselves able to close the Holy Land to Europeans once more. They also had to accede to the demand of Prussia and Britain to recognize the Protestants and permit establishment of a Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem. This Anglo-Prussian bishopric was of great significance for the further development of Palestine in the 19th century. It was a source of major support for the Protestant mission, which went to work with talent and energy; at the same time, it spurred the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, as well as the diaspora Jews, to engage in massive efforts in Palestine in order to compete with the Protestant mission religiously and later also economically. Enormous sums of money flowed into the Holy Land from throughout the world to finance these activities and revitalize the economy – especially to Jerusalem, which replaced Akko as the focus.

The Muslim population responded to this development with increasing hostility. While the economic upturn created jobs and hence a chance to survive, they were offended by the enormous influence in Palestine acquired by the “unbelievers” and the Great Powers that stood behind them. In 1868, furthermore, the “Württemberg Templars” began to establish agricultural settlements, augmented after 1882 by huge waves of Jewish settlers and their even more numerous urban and agricultural colonies, which not only altered the “oriental” face ofPalestine but also called into question the future of the Holy Land as an Ottoman province. T.Herzl’s Basel Program (1897), aimed at creating a secure homeland for the Jewish people, heightened the danger. In 1914 the population of Palestine was more than half a million, including already some 5,000 European Christians and roughly 100,000 Jews. Thanks to improved condition and an influx from neighboring areas, the number of Arabs, including Christian Arabs, had also increased. With the assistance of Christians and later and crucially of Jews, during the second half of the 19th century the formerly neglected Holy Land became one of the most progressive provinces of the Ottoman Empire.