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[German version] (Arabic Banū Laḫm). Kings of the Arabian tribal confederacy of the Tanūḫ (2nd quarter of 3rd cent. - early 7th cent. AD). The seat of the L. was al-Ḥīra, a caravan centre in south-western Iraq, south of Kerbela. As vassals of the Persian Sassanids, the L. controlled the tribes of the Arabian peninsula, and joined the Sassanids' war against Rome, later against Byzantium and her Syrian allies ( Palmyra, Ghassanids). Some L. were Nestorian Christians ( Nestorianism); through their in…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Syria | Christianity | Zenobia | Commerce | Hellenistic states | Limes City on the west bank of the middle Euphrates (Arab. aṣ-Ṣāliḥiya, south-eastern Syria). D.-E. was founded c. 300 BC by Macedonian colonists as one of the Seleucid fortresses for securing links to the Euphrates. After the Parthian conquest c. 141 BC it rose to become a military station and important staging post on the caravan route to Palmyra. Trajan's advances against Mesopotamia restored the status of D.-E. as a Roman garrison city on the Syrian li…

[German version] (Arab. Kangāwar, Qaṣr al-Luṣūṣ, Pers. Kinkiwar). City on the West Iranian high plateau between Hamadān and Kermānšāh. Preceding settlements evolved on the trading route between Mesopotamia and East Iran from the 5th millennium BC (Godīntappe, Seh Gāvī). A sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Anāhita existed in K. (Konkobar in Isidore of Charax) from Parthian times (2nd cent. BC). Leisten, Thomas (Princeton) Bibliography G. LeStrange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 1889, 188f. S. Kāmbakhsh Fard, Les fouilles de Kangavar, in: Bāstān-shenāsī va hunar-i …

[German version] (Ἐδουμά; Edoumá, modern Dūmā). According to the Onomasticon of Eusebius (255,74) a settlement in the region of Acrabattene in Transjordan southeast of Neapolis (Nablūs). Leisten, Thomas (Princeton) Bibliography S. Herrmann, Die Operationen Pharao Schoschenks I. im östlichen Ephraim, in: Zschr. des deutschen Palästina-Vereins 80, 1964, 61, 67ff.

This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Theatre | Byzantium | Zenobia | | Commerce | Hellenistic states | Hellenistic states | Asia Minor | Limes | Pergamum | Pilgrimage | Pompeius | Patricius | Rome | Rome (Ἄνκυρα; Ánkyra). City and fortress in  Galatia, modern Ankara. Anchors feature in legends, explaining the origin of the name (Paus. 1,4,5; Steph. Byz. s. v. A.; anchor as the city's symbol). Its origins lay in the prehistoric/ Hittite period; a Phrygian centre from the 8th to the 6th cents. BC (foundation myth: Paus…

[German version] (Arabic Karbalāʾ). Shiite pilgrimage centre in Iraq, situated c. 95 km south-west of Baghdad; until right through to the 20th cent. the final station of caravan routes from Iran and the starting-point for Persian Mecca pilgrims. The name K. describes the palm gardens that surround the funerary sanctuary and the town of Mašhad al-Ḥusain. A town Kerbelā is already mentioned in the OT (Dan 3:21), but Shiite lexicographers explain K. as a combination of Arabic karb (mourning) and balāʾ (disaster). K. became significant for the Shiite Islamic world through the m…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Sassanids | Syria | Theatre | Christianity | Zenobia | | Coloniae | Legio | Limes Small town on the southern edge of the Syrian basalt desert (Ḥaurān). The modern name Buṣrā corresponds with the Nabataean and Palmyrenian version BṢR (‘fortress’). B. was a settlement from the early Bronze Age and, in the 2nd. millennium BC, had close relations with Egypt because of its role as a caravanserai and a staging-post on the road to northern Syria and to the Red Sea (…

[German version] [1] Granddaughter of Aristobulus II. and Iohannes Hyrcanus II. (Hebrew Mirjam; the form Mariamne in Fr. Hebbel's drama is a corruption from later MSS). Granddaughter of Aristobulus [2] II. and Iohannes Hyrcanus [3] II. Born c. 53/52 BC, M. was a celebrated beauty. Married to Herod ( Herodes [1]) the Great, she became involved in the intrigues and conflicts between Hasmoneans and Herodeans. In 29 Herod had her executed on suspicion of unfaithfulness based on the calumnies of his sister Salome (Jos. Ant. Iud. 15,218-236). Bringmann, Klaus (Frankfurt/Main) Bibliography A…

This item can be found on the following maps: Writing | Syria | Theatre | Caesar | Christianity | | Coloniae | Alexander | Commerce | Hasmonaeans | Hellenistic states | India, trade with | Mesopotamia | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pilgrimage [German version] A. Ancient Orient Oasis situated on the eastern edge of Antilebanon, watered by the undrained Barada, first mentioned in lists of Syrian towns of the pharaohs Thutmosis III and Amenophis III ( tmsq, Tamasqu) and then in the  Amarna letters ( Di/Dumašqu). In the 13th cent. BC too, D. was under Egyptian control. At the turn of the…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Theatre | Coloniae | Asia Minor Town in the Biqa plain between Lebanon and Antilebanon, located at an elevation of 1150 m, 64 km north-east of Beirut. The town's name was changed to Heliopolis (Str. 753; Plin. HN 5,80), probably because the Ptolemies of Alexandria identified the god ‘Baal (Haddad) of Biqa’ with the Egyptian sun god Ra/Helios. After the temporary rulership of the Seleucids (2nd cent. BC), B. became the cult centre for the Itu…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Pilgrimage ( Ruṣāfa; in the Byzantine era also Sergiopolis). Ruins in central Syria, c. 180 km east of Aleppo and 35 south of the Euphrates. Roman limes fortress (Limes [VI D], with map) beginning in the 1st cent. BC. In Late Antiquity, the town, where the officer Sergius suffered martyrdom under Diocletianus (cf. [1]), became the central pilgrimage destination for Christian Arab tribes of the Levant and Mesopotamia. R. had churches from the 5th cent. AD on, including t…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Egypt | Syria | Zenobia | Alexander | Commerce | Hasmonaeans | India, trade with | Arabia | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pilgrimage | Pompeius | Egypt (Arabic Ġazza, Hebrew Azzā, from Semitic ǧzz, ‘being thorny’). From  Thutmosis III (1457 BC) to Ramses IV (mid 12th cent. BC) an Egyptian administrative centre in southern Palestine [1], under the Ramessids ‘the town of Canaan’, short ‘Canaan’ (Κάδυτις, Hdt. 2,159; 3,5); under  Ramses II also the ‘town of Ramses in Canaan’. Taken over…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Zenobia | Limes (Βαμβύκη; Bambýkē). City in North Syria, 78 km north-east of Aleppo at the confluence of the Sadjur and the Euphrates. B. (Str. 16,2,7) was since Seleucus I known as the Syrian Ἱεράπολις, Hierápolis (Str. 16,1,27, Ptol. 5,14,10), but at the same time also as Mabbog (Plin. HN 5, 81) with the Graecized form, Μέμπετξε (Leo Diaconus, 165,22; from which the Arabic Manbiǧ). The position, generally identified with the Assyrian settlement Nappigi/Nampigi, possesse…