|
749 Galilee Earthquake
A devastating earthquake known in scientific literature as the Earthquake of 749 struck on January 18, 749, in areas of the Umayyad Caliphate, with the epicenter in Galilee. The most severely affected areas were west and east of the Jordan River. The cities of Tiberias, Beit She'an, Pella, Gadara, and Hippos were largely destroyed, while many other cities across the Levant were heavily damaged. The casualties numbered in the tens of thousands. There are firm reasons to believe that there were either two, or a series of, earthquakes between 747 and 749, later conflated for different reasons into one, not least due to the use of different calendars in different sources.Karcz, 2004, p. 778-787 It seems probable that the second quake, centered more to the north, which created massive damage mainly in northern Israel and Jordan, did so not so much due to its catastrophic magnitude, but rather as a result of buildings being weakened by the previous, more southerly earthquake. Damage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beit She'an
Beit She'an ( '), also known as Beisan ( '), or Beth-shean, is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below sea level. Beit She'an is believed to be one of the oldest cities in the region. It has played an important role in history due to its geographical location at the junction of the Jordan River, Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley. Beth She'an's ancient Tell (archaeology), tell contains remains beginning in the Chalcolithic, Chalcolithic period. When Canaan came under New Kingdom of Egypt, Imperial Egyptian rule in the Late Bronze Age collapse, Late Bronze Age, Beth She'an served as a major Egyptian administrative center. The city came under Israelites, Israelite rule in the monarchic period. It probably fell under Philistines, Philistine control during the time of Saul, when, according to the Bible, his body was displayed there along with his sons. During the Hellenisti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capernaum
Capernaum ( ; ; ) was a fishing village established during the time of the Hasmoneans, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It had a population of about 1,500 in the 1st century AD. Archaeological excavations have revealed two ancient synagogues built one over the other. A house turned into a church by the Byzantines is held by Christian tradition to have been the home of Saint Peter. The village was inhabited continuously from the 2nd century BC to the 11th century AD, when it was abandoned sometime before the First Crusade. This includes the re-establishment of the village northeast of the earlier location in c. 700, during the Early Islamic period. Toponymy ''Kfar Naḥum'', the original name of the town, means "village of comfort" in Hebrew, and apparently there is no connection with the prophet named Nahum. In the writings of Josephus, the name is rendered in Koine Greek as (''Kapharnaoúm''). and (''Kepharnōkón''); the New Testament uses ''Kapha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chronicle Of 1234
The ''Chronicle of 1234'' () is an anonymous West Syriac universal history from Creation until 1234. The unknown author was probably from Edessa. The ''Chronicle'' only survives in fragments, from which it is known to be divided into two parts: the first on ecclesiastical history, the second on secular. It was critically edited and translated by the French Orientalist Jean-Baptiste Chabot in 1920 (volume I covering ecclesiastical history) and by Albert Abouna in 1974 (volume II covering secular history). Unique among Syriac chronicles it depends in part on the ''Book of Jubilees''. The author also used the lost ''Ecclesiastical History'' of Dionysius of Tell Maḥrē for his coverage of the eighth through ninth centuries. He also uses Theophilus of Edessa (possibly through an Arabic translator) and al-Azdī, an Arabic author. Some of Theophilus's history now lost to us survives in the ''Chronicle of 1234'', such as his account of the Trojan War. The ''Chronicle'' also uses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agapius Of Hierapolis
Agapius of Hierapolis, also called Maḥbūb ibn Qusṭanṭīn (died after 942), was a Melkite Christian historian and the bishop of Manbij in Syria. He wrote a universal history in Arabic, the lengthy ''Kitāb al-ʿunwān'' ('book of the title'). He was a contemporary of the annalist Eutychius (Said al-Bitriq), also a Melkite. Writings His history commences with the foundation of the world and runs up to his own times. The portion dealing with the Arab period is extant only in a single manuscript and breaks off in the second year of the caliphate of al-Mahdi (160AH = 776–7 AD) and during the time when Emperor was Leo IV (775–780). For the early history of Christianity, Agapius made use uncritically of apocryphal and legendary materials. For the following secular and ecclesiastical history, he relied on Syriac sources, in particular the World Chronicle of the Maronite historian Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785) for the end of the Umayyad period and the beginning of the Abbasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ramla
Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik as the capital of Jund Filastin, the district he governed in Bilad al-Sham before becoming caliph in 715. The city's strategic and economic value derived from its location at the intersection of the '' Via Maris'', connecting Cairo with Damascus, and the road connecting the Mediterranean port of Jaffa with Jerusalem. It rapidly overshadowed the adjacent city of Lydda, whose inhabitants were relocated to the new city. Not long after its establishment, Ramla developed as the commercial centre of Palestine, serving as a hub for pottery, dyeing, weaving, and olive oil, and as the home of numerous Muslim scholars. Its prosperity was lauded by geographers in the 10th–11th centuries, when the city was ruled by the Fati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1033 Jordan Valley Earthquake
An earthquake struck the Jordan Rift Valley on December 5, AD 1033 and caused extreme devastation in the Levant region. It was part of a sequence of four strong earthquakes in the region between 1033 and 1035. Scholars have estimated the moment magnitude to be greater than 7.0 and evaluated the Modified Mercalli intensity to X (''Extreme''). It triggered a tsunami along the Mediterranean coast, causing damage and fatalities. At least 70,000 people were killed in the disaster. Tectonic setting In the past 2,000 years of human history, documented earthquakes have been associated with the long Dead Sea Transform Fault System, a left-lateral transform boundary. Since the early Miocene, the fault system has accounted for between and of left-lateral displacement between the African and Arabian plates. While left-lateral strike-slip is dominant, the fault also display features of normal and thrust faulting. The fault displays varying slip rates across its segments, per year. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qibli Mosque
The Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel is the main congregational mosque or Musalla, prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. In some sources the building is also named ''al-Masjid al-Aqṣā,'' but this name primarily applies to the whole compound in which the building sits, which is itself also known as "Al-Aqsa Mosque". * * * * *PEF Survey of Palestine, The Survey of Western Palestine, iarchive:surveyofwesternp00warruoft/page/118, Jerusalem, 1884, p.119: "The Jamia el Aksa, or 'distant mosque' (that is, distant from Mecca), is on the south, reaching to the outer wall. The whole enclosure of the Haram is called by Moslem writers Masjid el Aksa, 'praying-place of the Aksa,' from this mosque." *Yitzhak Reiter: "This article deals with the employment of religious symbols for national identities and national narratives by using the sacred compound in Jerusalem (The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa) as a case study ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and is considered Holy city, holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital city; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, while Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim is widely Status of Jerusalem, recognized internationally. Throughout History of Jerusalem, its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, Siege of Jerusalem (other), besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. According to Eric H. Cline's tally in Jerusalem Besieged. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David (historic), City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umm El Kanatir
Umm el-Qanatir, also spelled Umm el-Kanatir (), recent Israeli name Ein Keshatot (), is a former ancient Jewish synagogue and archaeological site, located on the Golan Heights, in modern-day Israel, whose main phase is dated to the mid-5th–8th centuries. Excavations have revealed a Roman-period Pagan and later Jewish settlement, who left behind the ruins of a synagogue when they abandoned the town after it being destroyed by the catastrophic 749 earthquake. The archaeological site is located east of the Dead Sea Transform, and southwest of Natur. Identification attempts based on Jewish sources have led to two possible ancient names: Kantur, mentioned by Rabbi Menachem di Luzano in his book ''Ma'arikh'' (16th/early 17th century); and Qamtra, the name of a place mentioned in the Talmud and with a Jewish past dating back to the Byzantine period. Etymology The Arabic word ''qantara'', pl. ''qanatir'', can mean arch, a bridge built of stone or masonry, an aqueduct or a dam, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Known colloquially in Syria as () and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada, Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the west almost by the Morocco–Spain border. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccation, desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The sea was an important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances) above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. Unlike normal ocean waves, which are generated by wind, or tides, which are in turn generated by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun, a tsunami is generated by the displacement of water from a large event. Tsunami waves do not resemble normal undersea currents or sea waves because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide. For this reason, it is often referred to as a tidal wave, although this usage is not favoured by the scientific community because it might give the false impression of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
