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[German version] (Hebrew šḵæm; Συχεμ, cf. Gn 12:6, Latin Sychem). City in Samaria c. 2 km to the southeast of Nāblus between the mountains of Ebal and Garizim on the hill of Tall Balāṭa and today partly covered by an Arab village called Balāṭa. S. acquired strategic and economic significance because of its location at a central junction in the road network of Samaria. Settled by 3500 BC, S. was attacked and destroyed by Egypt several times in the 2nd millennium. After the death of Solomon [1], the elect…

[German version] (Σέπφωρις/ Sépphōris, cf. Jos. Ant. Iud. 14,5,9 et passim) a city in Galilaea, on the east-west link between Ptolemais [8] (Akko) and Tiberias. Settled by the Iron Age, S. was heavily fortified under Alexander [16] Iannaeus c. 100 BC. Presumably,  S. was the most important city of Galilaea even before the institution of one of the five synhedria as the government of Judaea by the Roman governor Gabinius [I 2] in 57 BC. In 37 BC it fell to Herodes [1]. After his death in 4 BC there was unrest, which was suppressed by…

[German version] Today the largest group of people speaking a Semitic language. Aribi has been the name of the inhabitants of the Arabic steppe and Mat Arabi of the ‘steppe region’ since the Assyrian period (9th cent. BC). The A. were first mentioned as camel riders on the monolith of Shalmanasar II (859-825 BC). The Aribi were subject to kings and also ruling queens. In the Assyrian-Babylonian period the name referred to the Bedouins of northern Arabia. Since the Koran the term ‘Arabic’ has come to be univ…

[German version] (Ναζαρέθ; Nazaréth). Town in southern Galilaea. Settled from the late 3rd millennium BC, the village of N. is first mentioned in the NT as the place of Jesus' youth before he emerged into public life (e.g. Mt 2,23; Mk 1,9; Lk 2,4 el passim). The town, Jewish into the 4th/5th cents., became a destination of Christian pilgrimage from the end of the 4th cent. In the 5th cent., a church was built on the site of the Annunciation to Mary Maria [II 1]; (cf. Lk 1,26-38). The Christian community survived the Arabic conquest of AD 636. Jesus Pahlitzsch, Johannes (Berlin) Bibliography B. Ba…

[German version] Daughter of  Aristobulus [4], a son of Herod the Great. Married in her first marriage to the latter's half-brother Herodes Philippus, H. left her husband to enter into wedlock with  Herodes Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilaea and Peraea who for his part got a divorce from his wife, a daughter of the king of the Nabataeans, Aretas. This led to a war with the Nabataean kingdom that ended with the defeat of Antipas in AD 36. H. was probably also involved in the execution of  Iohannes t…

[German version] [1] Harbour town on the north-western bank of Lake Genezareth (Greek Μαγδαλά; Magdalá < Hebrew Migdal Numayyā, ‘Tower’, Arabic al-Maǧdal). Harbour town on the north-western bank of Lake Genezareth, also known as Taricheai because of the production of saltwater fish there. Founded in the Hasmonean period ( Hasmoneans), Hellenized M. developed into one of the largest cities of Galilaea with a hippodrome and a stadium. Under emperor Nero, M. was annexed to the kingdom of Herod II Agrippa ( Iulius [II 5]). During th…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Arabia (Aksum). City on the Abyssinian plateau. Founded around the time of the birth of Christ, during the 1st cent. AD the kings of A. already managed to extend their area of influence as far as Adulis by the Red Sea. A. was Christianized by Alexandria under King Ēzānā in the mid 4th cent. In the 6th cent., King Kālēb Ella Aṣbeḥā conquered the kingdom of the Jewish king of the Ḥimyars, Yūsuf Asar Yaṯar (Ḏū-Nuwās) with Byzantine support. A. c…

[German version] (Τιβηριάς/ Tibēriás, Hebrew ṭbry). City in Galilaea on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Founded in c. AD 20 by Herod Antipas (Herodes [4]), tetrarch of Galilaea and Peraia, as a new capital replacing Sepphoris. Its naming after emperor Tiberius [II 1], its Hellenistic city constitution including a boulḗ and its incorporation of a cardo, baths and stadium are all signs of Antipas' close relations with Rome. T. was settled by coercion with Jewish farmers and freedmen from the surroundings. Greeks and Hellenized Jews formed…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Syria | Byzantium | Xenophon | Asia Minor | Limes (Arab. Āmid, mod. Diyarbakır). Though virtually undocumented between the Hellenistic period and its fortification by Constantius II [1. 323; 2. 136 f.], A. subsequently achieved military and economic significance as a frontier town [3. 220 f., 240] and became a centre of Syrian monasticism in the 5th cent. However, after a short Sassanid occupation (503-506) it suffered from border warfare and J…

[German version] (Μάλαθα; Málatha, Jos. Ant. Iud. 18,147; Moleatha, Not. Dign. Or. 34,45), modern Arabic Tall al-Milḥ (‘salt hill) or Hebrew Tel Malḥatā; settlement situated in the centre of the Beeršeba Basin in north-eastern Negev at the confluence of two Wadis. Because of the wealth of wells in the erea, a major fortified settlement was already established in the Middle Bronze Age, part of a southern defence line. Destroyed by the Egyptians and obviously restored in the 10th cent. BC under Solomon, M…

[German version] Although A. owes its name to the word arab (Bedouins), the majority of its population was always sedentary. However, favourable climatic conditions for agriculture only existed in the south-western A. highland and large oases such as  Yat̄rib/Medina (Ḥiǧāz) and al-Yamāma in the East. Classical geography distinguished between A. deserta, which extended from southern Syria to the northern Ḥiǧāz, and A. felix, the southern part of the A. peninsula. The tripartite classification of Ptolemy, which added A. petraea, did not establish itself [1]. Since the earliest t…

[German version] Most northern region of  Palaestina. Under Ptolemaic rule ( Ptolemaeus) after the death of  Alexander [4] the Great, together with all of Palestine, G. became a Seleucid territory at the beginning of the 2nd cent. BC. Urbanization, and the  Hellenization that came along with it, resulted in an antagonism between the Hellenized cities and the Judaism in rural G. In 164 BC, in the context of the Maccabaean ( Judas Maccabaeus) rebellion against the Seleucids and the Hellenistic citie…

(Νέα πόλις/ Néa pólis, Νεάπολις/ Neápolis, ‘New City’). [German version] [1] Town on the northern coast of the Aegean This item can be found on the following maps: | Macedonia, Macedones | Moesi, Moesia Town on the northern coast of the Aegean to the west of the mouth of the Nestus river, across from the island of Thasos, modern Kavalla (Str. 7a,1,36; Ps.-Scyl. 67), probably a Thasian colony but the exact period of foundation is unknown. Early in the 6th cent. BC, autonomous silver coinage modelled on that of Eretria [1] (HN 196…

[German version] High plain, bordered to the west by the Golan Mountains (Γαυλανῖτις), to the north-west by Mount Hermon, to the north-east by the basalt desert of Laǧā (Τραχωνῖτις), to the south-east by the Ḥaurān Mountains (Αὐρανῖτις), and to the south by the river Yarmuk (Hieromykes) and its tributary wadis, thus occupying the same area as today's Nuqra. The name goes back to OT Bāšān (therefore Greek Βασάν; Basán and Βασανῖτις; Basanîtis). The dissolution of the Seleucid government in Syria and Palestine in the late 2nd cent. BC briefly brought B. under Nabataea…

[German version] (Ἰαμβία κώμη; Iambía kṓmē). Port town on the western coast of the Arabian peninsula, according to Ptolemy belonging to the territory of the Arsae (Ἄρσαι, Ptol. 6,7,3). I. is probably also identical with the island of Iambe, which, according to Plin. HN 6,168, lies off Berenice but is otherwise unknown. While the history of I. during the Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine periods is largely unknown, the town achieved some importance under the Arab name of Yanbuʿ al-baḥr as the port of Medina (Ἰάθριππα; láthrippa/Yaṯrib), especially for pilgrim traffic. …

[German version] City in  Galilaea on the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee ( Tiberias). The Greek designation Καφαρναούμ ( Kapharnaoúm), in the NT in some variants also Καπερναούμ ( Kapernaoúm Mk 1,21), is derived from the Hebrew Kefar Naḥūm (village of Naḥūm) which appears in a Byzantine inscription found in the synagogue of Ḥammaṯ-Gāder. In later Jewish tradition, the name was changed to Kefar Tanḥūm or simply Tanḥūm, which in turn gave rise to the current Arab name Talḥūm (but not Tall Ḥūm as a derivation of Tall Naḥūm). Even though C. was inhabited from the 3rd millennium B…

[German version] [1] City situated at c. 30 km distance to Jerusalem (Ἐμμαοῦς; Emmaoûs, Arabic Amwās). City situated c. 30 km north-west of Jerusalem. In 166/5 BC  Judas Maccabeus defeated the  Seleucids at E.. In the Jewish War  Vespasian stationed the 5th Legion there. Re-founded at the start of the 3rd cent. AD at the time of Iulius Africanus, E. was given the name Nicopolis. From the 4th cent. to the period of the Crusades E. was considered to be the place where the resurrected Jesus appeared to two disciples (Lk 24, 13). Pahlitzsch, Johannes (Berlin) [German version] [2] Settlement sit…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Christianity | Hasmonaeans | Pilgrimage (Λύδδα/ Lýdda, Hellenized form of Hebrew Lod, derived from it Arab. Ludd). City in Palestine, south-east of Jaffa ( Ioppe) on the edge of the coastal plain on the road to Jerusalem. L. is first mentioned in the list of Palestinian cities conquered by Thutmosis III in the 15th cent. BC. The founding of L., which is ascribed to the tribe of Benjamin in 1 Chr 8:12, possibly goes back to the resettlement of the city in…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: India, trade with Situated on the Arabian Gulf, A. was for a long time the only port town in the Axum kingdom. The export of high quality ivory ran through A., while textiles and metal goods were imported from Egypt and India (Peripl. M. Eryth. §§ 4 and 6). A. later became a Christian town, but appears to have been destroyed in the 7th/8th cents. Pahlitzsch, Johannes (Berlin) Bibliography E. Littmann, s. v. Adule, RE Suppl. 7, 1 f.

(Βερενίκη; Bereníkē). [German version] [1] B. Maternal great niece of Antipater Born c. 340 BC as the daughter of Magas and Antigone, maternal great niece of Antipater [1]. Around 325, she married a certain Philippus, with whom she had two children: Antigone, later the wife of Pyrrhus, and Magas. Around 322, Antipater sent her (as a widow?) and his daughter Eurydice to Ptolemy I, who married Eurydice. B. quickly gained Ptolemy's respect, and bore him Arsinoe in 316, Ptolemy II in 308; other children of the …