Kypros (fortress)

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Cyprus seen from Jericho
Fortresses of Herod

Kypros is a fortress of the Jewish King Herod the Great (died 4 BC), which is identified with the archaeological site of Tell el-ʾAqaba in the Palestinian Territories. Kypros belongs in a row with the other desert fortresses on the west side of the Jordan Valley: Alexandreion , Dok and Hyrkania and, like these, was partly developed like a palace. The location near Jerusalem as well as the description given by Josephus suggest that Cyprus, thanks to its mild winter climate and its beautiful view, was used as a stately residence rather than a fortress.

Location and research history

On the south side of Wadi Qelt (near Jericho), roughly where the headwaters from the Judean Mountains flow into the Jordan Valley , twelve kilometers north of Qumran , on the summit of Tell el-ʾAqaba are the ruins of an ancient fortress. Identification with Cyprus was proposed by Albrecht Alt in 1925. Excavations by Ehud Netzer and I. Damati 1974–1975 confirmed this assumption.

This fortress controlled the plain of Jericho as well as the Wadi Qelt and the road to Jerusalem. Like the other Herodian fortresses, Kypros Castle was designed in such a way that signals could be transmitted from it to at least one other fortress. As from the fortresses of Herodeion , Machaerus and Dok , it was also possible to send signals directly to Jerusalem from Kypros Castle .

Building history

Location map. Light blue: Hasmonean, black: Herodian, yellow: Byzantine

Buildings from the Hasmonean, Herod and Byzantine times have been uncovered on Tell el-ʾAqaba .

In the Hasmonean period, a fortress with palatial elements was located on the mountain top, as found by fragments of capitals. There were cisterns and ritual immersion baths ( mikvahs ). On the slope of the mountain, a little lower, was a columbarium tower with a round floor plan. Such towers, which were also built in Jericho and Masada, were used to keep pigeons on the ground floor and as a watchtower on the upper floor. The name of this Hasmonean fortress was either Threx or Taurus .

Caldarium

After it was destroyed by Pompey , the fortress was apparently in ruins until it was rebuilt on a much larger scale by Herod and named after his mother (the Nabataean Kypros) Kypros . The construction area on the summit was probably increased by enclosing walls and earthworks. The instability of the subsoil and several earthquakes caused this platform to collapse. The Herodian building on the summit has an irregular floor plan, possibly because a Herodian building was included. There were about 20 rooms, corridors and courtyards as well as two cisterns. On the north-west side there is a well-preserved thermal bath. Most of the hypocausts and the floor in the caldarium , paved using the opus sectile technique, have been preserved. A fragment of a round marble basin (labrum) was found in the rubble of the caldarium. It was probably in a semicircular niche. Opposite, in a niche with a rectangular floor plan, there was a large stone bathing pool still in situ . Both the caldarium and the tepidarium were decorated with frescoes; the tepidarium had a simpler mosaic floor. The bathing guest entered the facility through a fairly large hall (10 × 8 m), which probably served as a changing room ( apodyterium ), perhaps also for gymnastic exercises. Remains of beams have been preserved from the wooden ceiling. An additional room had a pool with steps leading down to it. The whole complex is similar to the great thermal baths of Masada . The partly thick walls suggest that there was an upper floor; Falling fragments of architecture indicate that it was more elaborately decorated than the ground floor.

The lower castle was located on the shoulder of the mountain: around 40 rooms, some with stucco, corridors and courtyards. There was a second bathing complex in the Roman style here, so that Ehud Netzer suspects that Herod had Kypros built gradually and not in a single building project. The cold room area (not archaeologically examined) and the hot room area (with tepidarium, caldarium, laconicum and two praefurnia ) followed a fairly large changing room with an attached plunge pool . All rooms apparently had black and white mosaic floors and white plastered walls.

In the southeast corner of the lower castle, with a beautiful view of the plain of Jericho, there was a building that had the character of a fortress on the ground floor, but had a palatial structure on the upper floor with a peristyle courtyard , as evidenced by stucco fragments and remains of painted Corinthian capitals. Architectural details show similarities with the north palace of Masada, in particular the development of the lower terrace.

When the Jewish War broke out in AD 66, the rebels conquered the castle. They killed the crew and tore down the fortress, which has remained in ruins ever since.

In the center of the lower castle, a building with an approximately square floor plan was erected in Byzantine times. Since the monastic literature does not contain any information on this, it is not known whether it is a monastic settlement ( lavra ) , as in Herodium and Masada . It could also be a civil building.

Water supply

The water supply to the fortress on Tell el-ʾAqaba was ensured by two aqueducts . The older aqueduct, which circled a hill to the west of the fortress and collected the rainwater that ran down there, came from the Hasmonean period and was 1 km long. The second aqueduct, built by Herod, was 14 km long and reached the fortress via a monumental bridge. To bring this aqueduct, which enabled a year-round water supply, Herod built half a dozen additional bridges and tunnels on the south side of Wadi Qelt. The water from this aqueduct not only supplied Kypros Castle, but also the royal estate around the winter residence. For the supply of the fortress in the event of war, if the supply of water via the aqueduct could be interrupted by the enemy, Herod had four cisterns built into the rock of the castle hill, two on the northeast and two on the eastern side. It was one of the jobs of the soldiers at the fortress to make sure that these cisterns were always well filled. To do this, the water had to be fetched from the lower aqueduct using animal or human strength.

In total, several aqueducts with a total length of 34 km ensured the water supply of Jericho.

Web links

Commons : Kypros (fortress)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Hanan Eshel : Aqueducts in the Copper Scroll . In: George J. Brooke / Philip R. Davies (Eds.): Copper Scroll Studies . T & T International, London / New York 2004, ISBN 0-567-08456-6 , pp. 92-107.
  • Ehud Netzer : The architecture of Herod, the great builder . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006. ISBN 978-3-16-148570-1 .
  • Günther Garbrecht , Ehud Netzer: The water supply of historical desert fortresses in the Jordan Valley . In: Wiel Dierx, Günther Garbrecht: Water in the Holy Land. Biblical evidence and archaeological research . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2721-8 , pp. 222-239.
  • Jerome Murphy-O'Connor: The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 . Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-288013-6 , pp. 289-291.
  • James F. Strange: The Art and Archeology of Ancient Judaism . In: Jacob Neusner (Ed.): Judaism in Late Antiquity . Part 1: The Literary and Archaeological Sources . Verlag EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne / New York 1995, ISBN 90-04-10129-2 , pp. 64-116.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Palestine Yearbook of the German Evangelical Institute for Classical Studies of the Holy Land in Jerusalem , 21st year 1925, p. 23 f.
  2. ^ Ehud Netzer: The architecture of Herod, the great builder , Tübingen 2006, p. 207.
  3. ↑ See Joe E. Lunceford: Herodian Fortresses . In: Watson E. Mills (Ed.): Mercer Dictionary of the Bible . Mercer University Press, Macon, Georgia (USA) 1997, ISBN 0-86554-373-9 , pp. 377 f.
  4. ^ Ehud Netzer: The architecture of Herod, the great builder , Tübingen 2006, p. 208.
  5. ^ Flavius ​​Josephus : Jüdische Antiquities , Book 16, 143; Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War , Book 1, 147.
  6. ^ Ehud Netzer: The architecture of Herod, the great builder , Tübingen 2006, pp. 208-210.
  7. ↑ Ehud Netzer: The architecture of Herod, the great builder , Tübingen 2006, p. 210 f.
  8. ^ Ehud Netzer: The architecture of Herod, the great builder , Tübingen 2006, p. 211 f.
  9. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jüdischer Krieg , Book 2, 481-484.
  10. ↑ Othmar Keel , Max Küchler : Places and landscapes of the Bible. A handbook and study guide to the Holy Land . Volume 2: The South, Göttingen 1982, p. 515.
  11. ↑ See the drawings in Hanan Eshel, Aqueducts in the Copper Scroll . In: George J. Brooke / Philip R. Davies (eds.): Copper Scroll Studies . T & T International, London and New York 2004, pp. 97, 98 and 99.
  12. ↑ See Hanan Eshel: Aqueducts in the Copper Scroll . In: George J. Brooke / Philip R. Davies (eds.): Copper Scroll Studies . T & T International, London and New York 2004, pp. 97-100.

Coordinates: 31 ° 50 ′ 41 ″  N , 35 ° 25 ′ 35 ″  E