Alexandreion

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Location of Alexandreion on Mount Sartaba
Remains of a wall

The fortress Alexandreion (lat. Alexandrium ) belonged with Dok , Kypros , Hyrkania , Masada , Herodeion and Machaerus in a number of fortified places, which by the Jewish kings from the house of the Hasmoneans (165-37 BC) for protection against internal and external enemies were erected and, in the Herodian period, were partly expanded like a palace.

Surname

As reported by Josephus in his work Jewish antiquities , the fortress was called Alexandreion in Greek (sometimes simplified as Alexandrion ), reproduced in the Latin translation of the antiquities as Alexandrium . The Mishnah and Talmud speak of Sartaba and the Arabic name today is Qarn Sartabe , "Horn of Sartabe".

location

The castle fortress Alexandreion stood on the top of the mountain Sartaba (Arabic: Qarn Sartabe), on the western edge of the Jordan Valley, north of Jericho and the city of Phasaelis built by King Herod (today: Arabic Fasa'il), south of the (ancient) Place Koreai (today: Arabic Qerawa = Tell el-Mezar) and about five kilometers southwest of the mouth of the Jabbok (Nahr ez-Zarqa) into the Jordan. The bare mountain Sartaba, visible from afar, rises 728 m above the Jordan Valley, 679 m above the valley floor near Koreai, 379 m above sea level. (Map and photos: see below)

Building structure

Only remains of the fortress Alexandreion are left today. On the summit of Qarn Sartabe, the plan of the wall and the castle have been preserved. It lay on the south side of the summit and was shaped like a long, narrow leaf; the building began narrow and then widened tooth-shaped to the north. The ruins testify to the Herodian architectural style. There were unfortified dwellings at the foot of the castle.

history

Alexandreion Castle was built by the Jewish King Alexander Jannäus (103–76 BC). Queen Alexandra kept some of her "greatest treasures" in Alexandreion.

In 63 BC The Jewish King Aristobulus II found refuge there from the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus , who set up camp five kilometers further north near Koreai. His older son Alexander also searched Alexandreion in 57 BC. Protection from the Roman general Aulus Gabinius , who besieged him here. Gabinius destroyed the fortress after it surrendered to him. Alexander later found his final resting place here.

In 38 BC During the war against Antigonus Mattatias , Alexander's brother, Pheroras , Herod's brother , rebuilt the ruins on his orders, probably as a refuge. The fortification work carried out by Pheroras is likely to have been of a temporary nature as it was carried out during the war.

After his victory in 37 BC BC Herod had the Alexandreion Castle expanded so that he could later show it (together with the fortifications Hyrkania and Herodeion) to the Roman Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa during his visit to Judea (15 BC) as a model of building activity.

Herod made Alexandreion the property of the Hasmonean members of his family ( Mariamne and her mother Alexandra ) and, for a time, their prison. In times of need, however, he brought the Idumaean family part to safety in the fortress Masada. After John Hyrcanus II was executed in 31 BC. Herod left Alexandra and Mariamne in the fortress of Alexandreion under guard. The caretaker Joseph and the Ituraean Sohaimos were to guard the women with orders to kill them if Herod did not return alive from his journey to Octavian .

7 v. The commandant of Alexandreion Castle was involved in the overthrow of Herod's two sons, Aristobulus and Alexander.

Function as a royal tomb

After the two sons of the Hasmonean woman Mariamne were ordered to overthrow allegedly by their father in 7 BC. They were buried in the underground vaults of Alexandreion Castle near the tomb of Hyrcanus, their maternal great-grandfather and - as Josephus says - "many of their ancestors" (inaccessible to possible veneration by the population) ).

photos

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Abraham Shalit , King Herod. The man and his work. Walter de Gruyter Inc., Studia Judaica 2001, p. 12, footnote 40. Quotation: "Josephus, AJ, XIV, 3, 4 (§ 49). Alexandreion is the Sartaba of the Mishnah and the Talmud, today Qarn Sartabe, about three Miles southwest of the mouth of the Jabboq and the Jordan. " [1]
  2. ↑ a b c d Schalit: King Herod. P. 342.
  3. ↑ Cf. Flavius ​​Josephus : Antiquitates Iudaicae. 13, 16, 3.
  4. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: De bello Iudaico. 1, 6, 5. Cf. Schalit: King Herod. P. 342.
  5. ↑ Josephus: Antiquitates. 14, 5, 4; De bello Iudaico. 1, 8, 5.
  6. ↑ Josephus: De bello Iudaico. 1, 551.
  7. ↑ Josephus: Antiquitates. 14, 15, 4.
  8. ↑ Josephus: Antiquitates. 16, 2, 1.
  9. ↑ Cf. Keel: Places and Landscapes of the Bible. P. 566.
  10. ↑ Josephus: Antiquitates. 15, 185.
  11. ↑ See Schwarz: Josephus and Judean Politics. , P. 125; Josephus: De bello Iudaico. 1, 26, 3
  12. ↑ See Josephus: Antiquitates. 16, 11, 7; Abraham Schalit: The problem of the rotunda on the middle terrace of the north palace of Herod on the Masada mountain. Attempt at a new interpretation. In: Wolfgang Dietrich (Hrsg.): Festgabe for Karl Heinrich Rengstorf on his 70th birthday. Theokratia 1970–1972, Volume 2, Brill Academic Publications, ISBN 90-04-03814-0 , p. 64 ff.

Coordinates: 32 ° 5 ′ 44.5 "  N , 35 ° 27 ′ 44.8"  E