Aruad

Aruad / Arwād
	Satellite image of Tartus and Aruad
Waters	Mediterranean Sea
Geographical location	34 ° 51 '21 " N , 35 ° 51' 32" E Coordinates: 34 ° 51 '21 " N , 35 ° 51' 32" E
length	710 m
width	515 m
surface	20 ha
	Aerial view of Aruad

Aruad ( Arabic أرواد, DMG Arwād ; Phoenician 'rwd , ancient Greek ἡ Ἄραδος hē Arados or Ἄραδο Arado ) is an island in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Syria . It is located about 2.4 kilometers west of the coastline of the Tartus Governorate , about 2.9 kilometers southwest of the port city of Tartus , the medieval Tortosa (also Tartosa). The island is about 710 meters long and 515 meters wide. Aruad is almost completely built over by a fishing village of the same name. The island village has a protected harbor for small boats on the east side. The now waterless island had an underground freshwater source in ancient times for the water supply of the inhabitants.

history

Prehistoric times

There are traces of settlement on the island that date back to at least the 1st millennium BC. Go back BC.

Phoenician time

Arwad, the third largest Phoenician trading town after Tire and Sidon, was located on Aruad . According to Strabo , it is said to have been founded by Sidonian emigrants. In the Amarna archives the city was called Arwada or Riwada , under the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I. Armada , and under King Sennacherib Aruda . Biblical evidence can also be found in Gen 10.18 EU , 1 Chr 1.16 EU and Ez 27.8.11 EU .

Phoenician stele fragment, end of the 4th century BC From Aruad, Musée du Louvre

The first written mention of Arwad can be found in texts in the Amarna archive , where its inhabitants are described as enemies of the Pharaoh. Tiglat-pileser I. went on a ship from Arwas out on the "high seas". In 866 Assur-Nasirpal II received the "Tribute from Arwad", but the dependency was only very loose. Among the enemies who later became Shalmaneser III. faced at the battle of Qarqar , there was also the king of Arwad.

Under Azarhaddon , Ikkilû, the king of Arwad, tried to prevent ships from calling into Assyrian ports and favored traders who deal with him directly. He is also believed to have killed traders who entered Assyrian ports, confiscated their boats and sent spies to Assyria. At least that is what letters from Itti-Šamaš-balatu, who oversaw the northern Mediterranean coast, reported to the king of Assyria. He also reports that some Assyrians systematically tried to intimidate him. After the death of Ikkilû, Assurhaddon installed his son Azi-Ba'al as king of Arwad, the formulation suggests very loose control, if at all.

The following rulers of Arwad are known:

Mata'an under the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III. (8th century BC)
Abdilti under Sennacherib (beginning 7th century BC)
Ikkilû in the time of Assurhaddon
Azi-Ba'al, son of Ikkilû

At the end of the Persian rule , in which the ships of Arwad belonged to the fleet of the Autophradates , Straton, the son of the king of Arwad Gerostratus , submitted to the victorious Alexander the Great . Together with the Macedonians , the troops of Gerostratos took from Arwad in 332 BC. Took part in the siege of Tire and finally took the south port.

Around 259 BC In Arwad the city kingship seems to have expired within the Seleucid Empire .

Crusader time

Ottoman fortress of Aruad

The Knights Templar built Aruad into an island fortress during the Crusades . After the abandonment of Château Pèlerin in 1291, Aruad was the last crusader bastion in the Middle East. From here, the Templars, who had allied themselves with the Mongols , tried to recapture areas on the mainland between 1300 and 1302. This failed because of a counterattack by the Mamluks , so that the Templars had to give up the island in the course of the siege of Aruad in September 1302. After the crusader era and the departure of the Templars, the area and the island lost their importance.

20th century

In 1915, units of the French Navy under Captain Albert Trabaud occupied the island, which then served as a supply base for the Maronites , which were particularly affected by the famine in Lebanon, during the First World War . The journalist Sinan Satık reported in 2015 in the newspaper al-Araby under the heading “Aruad: Syrian island in the lap of the Mediterranean - far from war” that the French made the island their base from 1915 under the name “Rouad”. The island was exposed to numerous destruction during the French occupation, many "antiques" were "transported to Europe". Satık also writes that the fortress in the center of the island, which also houses an Ayyubid tower, was "made into a prison for the men of the patriotic movement" by the French. A museum was later set up in the fortress. After the " Great Syrian Revolution " was proclaimed in 1925, Faris al-Churi , one of the founders of the People's Party , and some of his colleagues were arrested and transferred to the prison (the old fortress) on the island of Aruad, where he was detained for 76 days. In 1938 there were 4239 inhabitants on the island.

present

Today Aruad is completely built up by the fishing village of the same name. The defensive walls of the Knights Templar on the waterline have been completely removed, the course of the bank fortifications can still be guessed at. The old fortress building is well preserved and is now the center of the village. Aruad, the only island in Syria, is a popular destination.

Trivia

Aruad is mentioned in Asterix volume 26 ( The Odyssey ) as a Phoenician port that is closed to the Gauls in search of rock oil .

literature

Immanuel Benzinger : Arados 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 1, Stuttgart 1895, Col. 371 f.

Web links

Commons : Arwad - collection of images, videos and audio files

Peter L. Kessler: Arvad / Arwad. Ancient Central Levant States. www.historyfiles.co.uk, February 1, 2009, accessed January 16, 2012 .
Robert W. Lebling: Arwad, Fortress at Sea. In: AramcoWorld January / February 2016 (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Michael Sommer : The Phoenicians . History and culture (= Beck'sche series . No. 2444 ). CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56244-0 , II. The Levante, p. 21 .
↑ ^a ^b William Smith : A'RADUS. In: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854). www.perseus.tufts.edu, accessed January 14, 2012 (English).
^ Johann Gustav Droysen : Alexander the Great . European University Publishing House, Bremen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86741-269-8 , p. 168 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
↑ Michael Sommer: The Phoenicians . History and culture (= Beck'sche series . No. 2444 ). CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56244-0 , VI. In the shadow of the great powers, p. 94 .
↑ أرواد: جزيرة سورية بحضن المتوسط .. بعيداً عن الحرب, alaraby.co.uk, August 19, 2015.
↑ فارس الخوري .. عميد السياسة السورية - محمد السلوم ( Memento from December 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

[1] Michael Sommer : The Phoenicians . History and culture (= Beck'sche series . No. 2444 ). CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56244-0 , II. The Levante, p. 21 .

[Smith-2] William Smith : A'RADUS. In: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854). www.perseus.tufts.edu, accessed January 14, 2012 (English).

[3] Johann Gustav Droysen : Alexander the Great . European University Publishing House, Bremen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86741-269-8 , p. 168 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

[4] Michael Sommer: The Phoenicians . History and culture (= Beck'sche series . No. 2444 ). CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56244-0 , VI. In the shadow of the great powers, p. 94 .

[5] أرواد: جزيرة سورية بحضن المتوسط .. بعيداً عن الحرب, alaraby.co.uk, August 19, 2015.

[6] فارس الخوري .. عميد السياسة السورية - محمد السلوم ( Memento from December 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive )