Amathoús (Palestine)

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Coordinates: 32 ° 11 ′ 8 "  N , 35 ° 41 ′ 12"  E

The place Amathoús , also written Ammathoús (varia lectio) (Greek Αμαθούς or Αμμαθούς), is mentioned by the Jewish writer Flavius ​​Josephus (1st century AD) as a fortress town and capital of a district in the East Bank. The exact location is controversial.

Literary finding

In his two main works, Josephus names “The Jewish War” (bell) and “Jüdische Antiquities” (ant) three times each as Amathous. There are three short, parallel notes: bell 1 86f. = ant 13,356; bell 1 89 = ant 13,374; bell 1,170 = ant 14,91. After the first position succeeded the Jewish king Alexander Jannai (103-76 BC), Amathoús, which belonged to the domain of Theodoros, the city prince of Philadelphia ( Amman ), which was " undoubtedly the most important of the fortresses on the other side of the Jordan " and to conquer that " the precious treasures of Theodorus "; but Theodoros was able to recapture " his own property and the king's train " Alexander Jannai ( Alexander Jannäus ) (Bell 1 86f. par ant 13 356). Soon afterwards, during a second campaign against Arabia (the Nabatean Empire) , Alexander Jannai found the fortress of Amathoús " abandoned and dragged it " (Bell 1 89 par. Ant 13,374). From this point on, the destroyed fortress city (ant 13,374) belonged to the Jewish kingdom of the Hasmoneans . After the conquest of the Hasmonean kingdom by the Roman emperor Pompey in 63 BC. The empire was established in 57 BC. Divided into five district capitals (toparchies) each with a court of justice (synhedrion): Jerusalem , Jericho , Sepphoris west of the Jordan , Gadara and Amathoús east of the Jordan (bell 1 170 par. Ant 14 91). Except for Amathoús and Gadara, the location of all other places is known. They have become world famous with their ancient buildings.

Location

After Josephus, Amathoús was not only the most important fortress in the East Bank, but could also be upgraded as a fortress city to a district capital with a court. The biblical archaeologist Siegfried Mittmann puts forward a plausible hypothesis for localization. It includes a seventh passage from Josephus; this is about Zeno, the father of Theophilos: ant 13 393 par bell 1 104. Like his son Theodorus, Zeno kept the state treasure outside Philadelphia, namely in Essa (ant 13 393) and in Gerasa , today's Jerash (bell 1 104). Since Essa appears only once in the text transmission of the Josephus scriptures and in the parallel passage (bell 1 104) is Gerasa, the name Essa is generally considered to be a typo (Rengstorf 2101; Marcus 424). Mittmann, on the other hand, sticks to the originality of Essa and explains the parallel mention of Gerasa (bell 1 104) as a prescription. According to this note, Alexander Jannäus should have succeeded in enclosing the huge ancient city of Gerasa with " three ring walls " and conquering it " without a fight ", an impossibility because Hellenistic townspeople had a military training ( Ephebie ) and of course could defend themselves during sieges. Even the Jews who were not regularly trained militarily were able to defend Jerusalem against the legions of the Roman Empire for four years (66–70 AD). Mittmann therefore moves Essa far away from Gerasa, very close to Amathoús. Zeno and his son would have used two neighboring forts to store their treasures. Both fortresses would have been in the Jabbok valley. Essa was the west of the Tulul adh-Dhahab , Amathoús was the much smaller fortress mountain Tell Mganni, which is three kilometers to the west as the crow flies and overlooks the exit of the Jabboktal into the Jordan Rift. Even Ralph Marcus and Allen Wikgren place in the map annexed to the Antiquities XVI-XVII Amathous a few kilometers north of the mouth of the Jabboks in the Jordan Valley. But there are no remains of the “strongest fortress on the other side of the Jordan”. The apex of the hilltop of Tell Mganni is about 175 meters long, but only 20 to 27 meters wide, so that the tell could only be built with a tower and a narrow wall complex, but not with a town.

Excavations

A team from the TU Dortmund under the direction of Thomas Pola has been carrying out excavations on the western hill of Tulul adh-Dhahab / Amathoús in cooperation with the Jordanian Department of Antiquities (DOA) and a team from the University of Basel since 2005/2006 . The excavations opened up a previously unknown, mighty weir system that seals off the only suitable access route from the valley to Tell from the northwest. On the covered uppermost plateau, parts of a Hellenistic colonnaded courtyard with characteristic heart-shaped columns were exposed. This facility was rebuilt in Roman times. As a result of a successful Roman siege, the outbuildings of the peristyle courtyards to the east caught fire and became uninhabitable. It was not until about 200 years later that the peristyle courtyards also came down in an earthquake, probably in AD 363. The excavations will continue from 2010.

literature

swell

  • Flavius ​​Josephus: De bello judaico. The Jewish War. with notes by Otto Michel, Otto Bauernfeind, 3 vols., Darmstadt 1959–1969.
  • Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish antiquities. 2nd edition, with comments by Heinrich Clementz, Paragraph counting according to Benedictus Niese, Wiesbaden 2006.
  • Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish Antiquities XII-XIII. ed. a. transl. by Ralph Marcus, London 1957.
  • Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish Antiquities XVI-XVII. ed. a. transl. by Ralph Marcus / Allen Wikgren, 376f.
  • Karl Heinrich Rengstorf: A Complete Concordance to Flavius ​​Josephus. 2 vols., Leiden / Boston / Cologne 2002.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carl Ritter: The geography of Asia. Reimer, Berlin 1851, In: Carl Ritter: Geography in relation to nature and human history or general comparative geography, as a secure basis for studying and teaching physical and historical sciences. Second greatly increased and revised edition, Part 15, pp. 1090ff. (online on Google.books)
  2. ^ Siegfrid Mittmann: Amathous, Essa, Ragaba. Three Hellenistic fortresses on the northern edge of the central Jordan Rift , Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palestine-Verein 103 (87), pp. 56–58
  3. ^ Siegfrid Mittmann: Amathous, Essa, Ragaba. Three Hellenistic fortresses on the northern edge of the central Jordan Valley , Journal of the German Palestine Association 103 (87), pp. 49–60
  4. ^ Siegfrid Mittmann: Amathous, Essa, Ragaba. Three Hellenistic fortresses on the northern edge of the central Jordan Valley , Journal of the German Palestine Association 103 (87), p. 55f.
  5. ^ Siegfrid Mittmann: Amathous, Essa, Ragaba. Three Hellenistic fortresses on the northern edge of the central Jordan Rift , Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palestine-Verein 103 (87), pp. 49-66