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The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of West Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria, which includes present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates. Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica in eastern Libya.
Petra, originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and the Nabataeans might have settled in what would become the capital city of their kingdom as early as the 4th century BC. Archaeological work has only discovered evidence of Nabataean presence dating back to the second century BC, by which time Petra had become their capital. The Nabataeans were nomadic Arabs who invested in Petra's proximity to the incense trade routes by establishing it as a major regional trading hub.
Jerash is a city in northern Jordan. The city is the administrative center of the Jerash Governorate, and has a population of 50,745 as of 2015. It is located 48 kilometres (30 mi) north of the capital city Amman.
Antiochia or Antiocheia or Antiochea or Antiokheia may refer to any of several Hellenistic cities in the Near East which were founded or rebuilt by the several rulers named Antiochus during the Seleucid Empire:
Atropatene, also known as Media Atropatene, was an ancient Iranian kingdom established in c. 323 BC by the Persian satrap Atropates. The kingdom, centered in present-day northern Iran, was ruled by Atropates' descendants until the early 1st-century AD, when the Parthian Arsacid dynasty supplanted them. It was conquered by the Sasanians in 226, and turned into a province governed by a marzban ("margrave"). Atropatene was the only Iranian region to remain under Zoroastrian authority from the Achaemenids to the Arab conquest without interruption, aside from being briefly ruled by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great.
Gezer, or Tel Gezer, in Arabic: تل الجزر – Tell Jezar or Tell el-Jezari is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shfela region roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is now an Israeli national park. In the Hebrew Bible, Gezer is associated with Joshua and Solomon.
Pella was an ancient city in what is now northwest Jordan, and contains ruins from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Canaanite, Hellenistic and Islamic periods. It is located near a rich water source within the eastern foothills of the Jordan Valley, close to the modern village of Ṭabaqat Faḥl some 27 km (17 mi) south of the Sea of Galilee. The site is situated 130 km (81 mi) north of Amman: a drive of about two hours, and an hour southwest by car from Irbid, in the north of the country. Pella's ruins – predominantly temples, churches, and housing – have been partially excavated by teams of archaeologists; they attract thousands of tourists annually but especially in spring, during which time the area is awash with spring flowers.
Gergesa, also Gergasa or the Country of the Gergesenes, is a place on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee located at some distance to the ancient Decapolis cities of Gadara and Gerasa. Today, it is identified with El-Koursi or Kursi. It is mentioned in some ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew as the place where the Miracle of the Swine took place, a miracle performed by Jesus who drove demons out of a possessed man and into a herd of pigs. All three Synoptic Gospels mention this miracle, Matthew writes about two possessed men instead of just one, and only some manuscripts of his Gospel name the location as Gergesa, while the other copies, as well as all versions of Luke and Mark, mention either Gadara or Gerasa. The "Gerasa" reading is problematic, because Gerasa is neither near a sea nor does it border Galilee.
Apsines of Gadara was a Greek rhetorician. He was a native of the Hellenised city of Gadara, whose ruins stand today at the border of Jordan with Syria and Israel. Apsines went on to study at Smyrna and taught at Athens, gaining such a reputation that he was raised to the consulship by the emperor Maximinus. He was a rival of Fronto of Emesa, and a friend of Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, who praises his wonderful memory and accuracy.
The Syrian Desert, also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering 500,000 square kilometers of the Middle East, including parts of southern Syria, eastern Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia, and western Iraq. It accounts for 85% of the land area of Jordan and 55% of Syria. To the south it borders and merges into the Arabian Desert. The land is open, rocky or gravelly desert pavement, cut with occasional wadis.
Perea or Peraea was the portion of the kingdom of Herod the Great occupying the eastern side of the Jordan River valley, from about one third the way down the Jordan River segment connecting the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea to about one third the way down the north-eastern shore of the Dead Sea; it did not extend very far to the east. Herod the Great's kingdom was bequeathed to four heirs, of which Herod Antipas received both Perea and Galilee. He dedicated the city Livias in the north of the Dead Sea. In 39 CE, Perea and Galilee were transferred from disfavoured Antipas to Agrippa I by Caligula. With his death in 44 CE, Agrippa's merged territory was made a province again, including Judaea and for the first time, Perea. From that time Perea was part of the shifting Roman provinces to its west: Judaea, and later Syria Palaestina, Palaestina and Palaestina Prima. Attested mostly in Josephus' books, the term was in rarer use in the late Roman period. It appears in Eusebius' Greek language geographical work, Onomasticon, but in the Latin translation by Jerome, Transjordan is used.
Hamat Gader is a hot springs site in the Yarmouk River valley, used since the classical antiquity. It is located in an area under Israeli control, in what was a demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria from 1949 to 1967. The site is next to the Jordanian border, and about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the tripoint of Israel, Jordan and Syria. It is set on several mineral springs with temperatures up to 50 °C.
The Gadara Aqueduct, also called Qanatir Fir'awn or Qanat Fir'aun, was a Roman aqueduct supplying water for some of the cities of the Decapolis. It serviced Adraha, Abila, and Gadara. The aqueduct has the longest known tunnel of the Classical era.
Al-Sinnabra or Sinn en-Nabra, is the Arabic place name for a historic site on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee in modern-day Israel. The ancient site lay on a spur from the hills that close the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, next to which towards its south being the tell, Khirbet Kerak or Bet Yerah, one of the largest in the Levant, spanning an area of over 50 acres. Bet Yerah was the Hellenistic era twin city of Sennabris, as al-Sinnabra was known in Classical antiquity, and its remains are located at the same tell.
Capitolias was an ancient city east of the Jordan River, and is identified with the modern village of Beit Ras in the Irbid Governorate in northern Jordan. Anciently it was a town of Coele-Syria.
Umm Qais or Qays is a town in northern Jordan principally known for its proximity to the ruins of the ancient Gadara. It is the largest city in the Bani Kinanah Department and Irbid Governorate in the extreme northwest of the country, near Jordan's borders with Israel and Syria. Today, the site is divided into three main areas: the archaeological site (Gadara), the traditional village, and the modern town of Umm Qais.
Gadara, in some texts Gedaris, was an ancient Hellenistic city in what is now Jordan, for a long time member of the Decapolis city league, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see.
Gadarene may refer to:
Transjordan, the East Bank, or the Transjordanian Highlands, is the part of the Southern Levant east of the Jordan River, mostly contained in present-day Jordan.
Dium or Dion or Dia (Δία) was a city in ancient Coele-Syria mentioned by numerous ancient writers. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, the city was a foundation of Alexander the Great, and named after the city Dium in Macedon. It was also wrongly called Pella by some ancient writers.
References
- ↑ MacAdam, Henry Innes (2018). Geography, Urbanisation and Settlement Patterns in the Roman Near East. Routledge Revivals. Variorum Collected Studies, CS 735 (reprint of 2002 Ashgate ed.). Routledge. p. VI/16. ISBN 978-1-138-74056-3 . Retrieved 5 June 2020.
- ↑ Rocca, Samuel (2015). Herod's Judaea: A Mediterranean State in the Classic World. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism / Texte Und Studien Zum Antiken Judentum, Volume 122 (reprint of 2008 Mohr Siebeck ed.). Wipf and Stock. p. 188. ISBN 9781498224543. ISSN 0721-8753 . Retrieved 5 June 2020.
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