JERASH - A CITY IN THE
WILDERNESS
CHAPTER XL
part III - Freemasonry, Religion and Civilisation
THE SQUARE AND COMPASSES
W.
M. Don Falconer PM, PDGDC
Gerasa was inhabited
from as early as 4000 BCE and it became one of the great cities of the Decapolis
in the classical period. Its ruins in modern Jerash are by far the best
preserved.
The ancient city of
Gerasa, in the region of Gilead, is the present day city of Jerash in the
Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. In latitude it is midway between the Dead Sea and
the Sea of Galilee about 40 kilometres north of the capital Amman and 30
kilometres east of the Jordan River. It is situated in the well watered valley
of the Chrysorhoas River, a perennial stream flowing southwards through the
middle of the town and joining the Nahr az-Zarqä' flowing westwards into the
Jordan River. Gerasa was inhabited before the Ammonites pushed in from the
desert and settled east of the Jordan River during the Early Bronze Age, some
time before 2000 BCE. The Ammonites were closely related to the Moabites who
lived east of the Dead Sea, both being cousins of the Israelites. The original
inhabitants probably occupied Gerasa from as early as 4000 BCE during the
Palaeolithic period or Old Stone Age. Gerasa was a significant city of the
Decapolis during the Hellenistic period, when it ranked in importance with the
merchant centres of Palmyra to the north and Petra to the south. These centres
were all on the ancient trade route that headed north westwards through the
fertile crescent of Mesopotamia from the Persian Gulf, looped around
to Homs, then heading southwards to Al Aqabah on the Red Sea. The ruins of
Gerasa in modern Jerash are by far the best preserved of the Decapolis cities,
providing ample evidence of the culture of its people over many centuries.
Although early
historians, including Appian in his Roman History, often refer to
the Hellenistic founding of the cities of the Decapolis, most if
not all of them were ancient towns and villages that underwent a process of
Hellenisation, after which most flourished for a thousand years or
more and some are still in existence. The detailed archaeological history of
Gerasa begins in the Hellenistic period, which was a direct outcome of Alexander
the Great's crushing defeat of the Persians in 333 BCE at Issus in north western
Assyria. The record continues unbroken through the Roman occupation from 63 BCE,
when General Pompey conquered Jerusalem; the Byzantine period from when
Constantine the Great established Christianity in the Roman Empire in 306 CE;
the short period of Persian suzerainty from 611-622 CE; and when Syria became an
Arab state and Islam was established as the religion after general Abu Obaida
conquered Damascus in 637 CE. The archaeological record ends when Gerasa was
deserted, soon after the great earthquake in 747 that wrought terrible damage in
Palestine. The city remained unoccupied until the Turkish Government settled a
community of Circassian refugees on the east bank of the Chrysorhoas River in
1878, which was to become the modern Jerash. Iain Browning graphically describes
the history of Gerasa and its development as a Roman provincial town in his book
entitled Jerash and the Decapolis.
Even though Gerasa
probably is of a more recent origin than Baalbek, the circumstances of its
earliest occupation seem to have been very similar to those of Baalbek, which is
about 180 kilometres to the north and also on the ancient trade route.
Pastoralists of Canaanite origin settled Baalbek about 8,000 years ago. Very
little archaeological work has been done in relation to the occupation of Gerasa
prior to the Hellenistic period because, as at Baalbek, the evidence is all
buried under the products of more recent occupation. Nevertheless, Gerasa's
early development can be deduced from extensive archaeological work carried out
in other nearby centres. Among these are the excavations at Amman, which was
Rabbath Ammon during the Biblical period after about 1200 BCE and the capital of
the Ammonite kings. Gerasa was called Philadelphia in the Decapolis. These
excavations show that the region was occupied in pre-pottery Neolithic times,
possibly as early as 6000 BCE, at about the same time as Baalbek. Subsequent
distinct phases of occupation include the Early Bronze Age from about 3000 BCE
toabout 2000 BCE and again during Biblical times. Excavations in another city of
the Decapolis about 45 kilometres north-west of Gerasa, which was called
Scythopolis because a colony of Scythians settled there, but is now called Bet
She'an, provide one of the longest unbroken archaeological records of occupation
in Palestine, probably from an even earlier era than Amman.
The archaeological
record of these and other sites in the near vicinity is typified by Jericho,
situated at the modern town of El Arïhä, only about 60 kilometres southwest of
Jerash. From ancient times Jericho owed its existence to a perennial spring and
was often called "the city of palm trees". Jericho provides a
précis of the archaeological history of Palestine from when the hunter-gatherers
may have had a shrine there before 8000 BCE, until Biblical times in about
1200 BCE. By about 8000 BCE Palestine's earliest known agriculturists built huts
by Jericho's spring and the first town came into existence soon after. It had
about two thousand inhabitants who channelled the spring water to their wheat
fields and vegetable plots. Aggressive neighbours and nomads must have coveted
the spring, because the inhabitants built a massive stone-faced wall at least 4
metres high, as well as at least one solid stone tower that was 8 metres high
and had a built-in stone stairway. After then many cities were built
successively and destroyed. The city that Joshua destroyed and cursed in about
1400 BCE had only been rebuilt about a century earlier, from the largest of the
ancient cities built there. Two walls of brick surrounded the rebuilt city, the
inner wall being about 4 metres thick and up to 10 metres high. A space of at
least 4 metres separated the inner wall from the outer wall that was about 2
metres high. The spring probably continued to support a village after the
destruction of Jericho by Joshua, but it probably was a fear of the curse that
caused the delay in rebuilding the city until during Ahab's reign from 874 BCE
to 853 BCE, when the ancient curse was fulfilled by Ahab's loss of his eldest
and youngest sons.
Several Hebrew words are
translated as wilderness or desert in the
Scriptures. They include not only the barren deserts of sand dunes or rock that
are popularly perceived as comprising most of the Biblical lands, but also the
uncultivated treeless plains and pasture lands that are suitable for grazing
livestock. Relatively little of the wilderness in Palestine is true desert even
today. Modern research, including pollen analyses, indicates that about 8,000
years ago the parklands in the region were at least as well wooded as they are
now and that the climate was as favourable for the establishment of pastoralism
and agriculture. Rainfall may even have been greater than at present, but the
evidence of erosion indicates that even then the rainfall probably was no more
evenly distributed through the year than it is now. Evidence of early irrigation
and water supply systems support these conclusions. As the wilderness areas
surrounding Gerasa were adequate for breeding of stock and seasonal cultivation,
they could support a moderate population growth. In addition, the Chrysorhoas
River valley was and still is very favourable for food production, which no
doubt also was a significant factor in the development of Gerasa.
Intensive research
carried out by archaeologists in the Near East since 1960 has helped to gain a
better understanding of the early development of agriculture and the breeding of
stock. When the "Neolithic Revolution" began in the Near East it
developed gradually, lasting from as early as 10000 BCE until about 5000 BCE. At
the beginning of this period emmer wheat was growing wild in Palestine, einkorn
was growing wild in Mesopotamia and barley was growing wild throughout the “fertile
crescent” and southern Palestine. Intensified gathering of wild cereals
took place early in this period and dry farming methods had been
developed by about 8000 BCE. Simple irrigation methods were introduced soon
after then, which made it possible to grow cereals in arid regions even when the
rainfall distribution was unfavourable. Baalbek, Scythopolis, Amman, Jericho and
Gerasa are all in the wilderness regions where the earliest growing of wild
cereals took place during the "Neolithic Revolution", from which
civilisation gradually developed in the Near East. From about 6000 BCE cereal
growing had spread throughout the Near East and into the adjacent Mediterranean
regions, from where it progressively extended into the Indus River basin,
Afghanistan, the Russian steppes and possibly beyond. As man developed an
ability to control the environment and produce food, thus improving his living
conditions, the nomadic lifestyle was gradually abandoned. The hunter-gatherers,
who had lived in caves in the winter and in flimsy makeshift huts in the summer,
progressively relinquished their temporary seasonal accommodation and built more
permanent settlements. This transition heralded the end of the "Neolithic
Revolution" and the beginning of the "Urban Revolution",
with the development of a mixed economy and trade between communities.
Investigations have
revealed that irrigation was foremost among the factors that led to these
changes, although the changes took significantly longer or shorter periods to
materialise in the various areas of development. Some examples will show how
local circumstances influenced the advance of "Urban Revolution".
Individual families in the oasis of Jericho could irrigate their crops and
gardens easily and with very little organisation, which fostered rapid
development. At Baalbek, in the swampy headwaters of the Orontes and Litani
Rivers, a more detailed organisation was required. That slowed the rate of
development at Baalbek even though irrigation was still a relatively simple
operation. In contrast, on the flood plains of Mesopotamia and on the banks of
the Nile River with its huge annual floods, a great deal of communal
organisation was essential and an extensive and complicated network of
structures was required to establish irrigation. The capacity of settlers to
provide water supplies for their dwellings and irrigation systems for their
crops was reflected in the much longer times taken for scattered temporary
settlements to become villages and for their subsequent development into
permanent regional towns. This "Urban Revolution" began about
10,000 years ago at Jericho, about 8,000 years ago at Baalbek, nearly 7,000
years ago in Mesopotamia, 6,000 years ago or earlier in the Indus River basin
and more than 5,000 years ago in Egypt.
For centuries after the
great earthquake of 747, the Biblical lands to the east of the Jordan River were
deserted, except for small bands of nomadic Bedouins, when Gerasa and many other
towns and villages fell into a derelict state. That great earthquake was not the
first in the region. A series of earthquakes during the period from 550 to 555
had repeatedly caused extensive damage in Gerasa and elsewhere in the region.
Although much remedial work and reconstruction had been carried out in Gerasa
after those earlier earthquakes, most buildings were unsafe and became derelict
after the great earthquake of 747. With no Roman organisation in place there was
no will to rebuild, especially after the turmoil of the Arab conquests, which
was followed by the occupation of Palestine by the crusaders in 1099. In 1122 a
crusader known as William of Tyre recorded that "Jerash was reduced to a
mass of ruins". That state of desolation and remoteness continued until
the beginning of the nineteenth century. The situation is illustrated by a note
written in 1047 by Arab geographers, who were then carrying out comprehensive
surveys of their new lands and its resources:
"In various parts of
Syria there may be some five hundred thousand columns, or capitals and shafts
of columns, of which no one knows either the maker or can say for what purpose
they were hewn, or whence they were brought."
After William of Tyre the next
European to visit Jerash was a German graduate of Göttingen University, Ulrich
Jasper Seetzen. He was a keen traveller and explorer who had very little money,
but considerable entrepreneurial ability. He went to Constantinople in 1802 to
begin exploring the Near East and Africa. To earn money for his venture he
acquired antiquities and transcripts of newly found inscriptions, which he sold
to the museum at Gotha, to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha and to other patrons including
the Tsar of Russia who appointed him as an Ambassador Councillor. Seetzen
regarded exploration as a scientific exercise and prepared himself
for the Near East by learning Arabic and studying Islamic law, religion and
customs, which he completed in Aleppo about three years later. Dressed as an
Arab he went to Damascus in 1806 and began an extensive exploration of the
region of the Decapolis. He had studied the works of the ancient authors and
obtained all the available maps, although they were sketchy and very inaccurate.
Notwithstanding the poor information and the dangerous conditions then
prevailing in the region, Seetzen carried out a remarkably worthwhile expedition
during the next three years or so. His exploits and reports stimulated so much
interest in London that for several decades a number of antiquarian and
archaeological expeditions were sent to Palestine, culminating with the
establishment of the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865, which is
still one of the most important agencies concerned with the serious study of
Palestine and its neighbouring Biblical lands.
Seetzen explored all of
the ruins he could find in the Jordan River valley between the Sea of Galilee
and the Dead Sea, ultimately reaching the ruins of Gerasa. In his treatise
entitled "A Brief Account of the Countries adjoining the Lake of Tiberias,
the Jordan and the Dead Sea" published in London in 1810, he said:
"I had the satisfaction
of seeing the important ruins of Jerrash . . . which ruins may be compared to
those of Palmyra, or of Baalbek. It is impossible to explain how this place,
formerly of such manifest celebrity, can have so long escaped the notice of all
lovers of antiquity.
It is situated in an
open and tolerably fertile plain, through which a river runs. The walls of the
town are mouldered away, but one may yet trace their whole extent. Not a single
private house remains entire. But on the other hand I observed several public
buildings, which were distinguished by a very beautiful style of architecture. I
found two superb amphitheatres, solidly built of marble, with columns, niches
&c, the whole in good preservation. I also found some palaces and three temples,
one of which had a peristyle of twelve grand columns of the Corinthian order,
eleven of which were still upright
(the Temple of Artemis). In another of these temples, I saw a column on
the ground of the most beautiful polished Egyptian granite. I also found a
handsome gate of the city, well preserved, formed of three arches and ornamented
with pilasters.
The most beautiful thing
I discovered was a long street crossed by another and ornamented on both sides
with rows of marble columns of the Corinthian order
(the Colonnade Avenue),
and one of whose extremities terminated in a semicircle that was set round with
sixty pillars of the Ionic order (the Oval Piazza). At the point
where the two streets cross, in each of the four angles, a large pedestal of
hewn stones is visible, on which probably statues were formerly set (the
South Tetrakionia). A part of the pavement still remains, formed of hewn
stones (grooves cut by chariot wheels are still clearly visible).
To speak generally, I
counted about two hundred columns, which yet partly support their entablatures,
but the number of those thrown down is infinitely more considerable; I saw
indeed but half the extent of the town and a person would probably still find on
the opposite side of the river
(that was the eastern side, which since then has mostly been built over by
modern Jerash, although the ruins of the Eastern Baths and the Procopius Church
and the site of the Church of Prophets, Apostles & Martyrs are still there),
a quantity of remarkable curiosities."
Seetzen's report of his
first sighting of the ruins of Gerasa provides a wonderful impression of its
beauty and the diversity of its buildings and structures, but it does not convey
any concept of the size and cultural character of the city. It would require a
book to describe the civic facilities adequately, so that a brief summary of the
more important features must suffice. The city was surrounded by a wall of stone
3,450 metres long and in the form of a many sided polygon, roughly circular in
shape and enclosing about 85 hectares. The walls were 3 metres thick and 10
metres high, with huge inbuilt buttress towers that were 6 metres square in plan
at intervals of 20 metres or less. The road to the main gate in the south passed
through a Hadrianic Arch of three spans that was constructed after the Emperor's
visit in 129 and 130. The road then passed by a hippodrome about 260 metres
long, which has been estimated to seat at least 15,000 spectators. Immediately
after going through the main gate the road passed the entrance to the Oval
Piazza, about 100 metres long and located in a natural depression.
From the Oval Piazza the
road continued on to the Cardo, the pivot road or axis of the city
called the Colonnade Avenue, which ran straight to the other main gate in the
north. Two Decumani or secondary streets intersected the
Cardo at right angles, each with a stone arch bridge over the river to
the east and then passing through a small gate in the western wall. The
intermediate streets were also laid out on this rectangular grid, only one of
which crossed over the river to the east with an arched stone bridge. The north
gate provided access to one of the main water supplies of ancient Gerasa, called
the Birketein reservoir, which was 88.5 metres long, 43.5 metres
wide and 3 metres deep, subdivided by a barrier wall. An impressive colonnade
and processional way flanked the western side of the pool and the area was
landscaped and wooded. This tranquil area included an open-air festival theatre
that had fifteen rows of semi-circular seating that could accommodate almost
1,500 spectators.
Within the town there
were two open-air theatres of typical Roman construction, one in the north and
the other in the south. Each had about thirty rows of semi-circular seating,
estimated to accommodate 3,000 spectators or more. Every seat was numbered,
starting from the lowest row and working from right to left. There also were two
huge baths in the Roman tradition, the larger being on the east bank of the
river and the other on the west bank. Though more modest than the baths in Rome,
each contained a frigidarium or cold bath, a
caldarium or hot bath, probably a tepidarium
or warm bath, several apodyteria or changing
rooms and the usual pavilions to accommodate libraries and meeting
rooms. It is evident that Gerasa in Roman times was well provided with all the
desirable civic amenities, vastly superior to those of the earlier and much
smaller walled Hellenistic city located on Camp Hill close to the south gate.
Although there are indications that Camp Hill was occupied during the
"Neolithic Revolution", subsequent building and rebuilding have
destroyed most of the useful evidence from that era.
The Temple of Zeus was
on a tel overlooking the Oval Piazza and directly opposite Camp
Hill. It replaced a previous Roman temple and an even earlier Greek temple
constructed on the ancient site of the town's traditional shrine. The temple
complex was erected on a series of terraces, which were connected by imposing
stairways like those of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. The Temenos,
or sacred enclosure 100 metres wide and 50 metres along the temple
axis, was on the lowest terrace and had its own altar. Huge arched corridors
surrounded the Temenos. The corridors had a roof terrace above
them and vast arched vaults underneath, which were used as a place of refuge and
to store the treasures of the realm. The temple on the highest terrace was on a
podium about 40 metres long and 28 metres wide, with a portico and surrounded by
thirty-eight Corinthian columns 15 metres high. The quality of the masonry and
the carved detailing was exceptional. On a small hill further north an equally
magnificent and intricate group of sanctuaries and shrines was also constructed
on a series of terraces and included temples dedicated to Artemis and Dionysus.
At least five smaller Roman temples were dispersed in various locations taking
advantage of the interesting topography.
Churches are the most important remains from the Byzantine period, from when a
cathedral, a basilica and at least ten churches have been discovered. In his
"Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture", R. Krautheimer
describes the churches in glowing terms:
"The churches of
Gerasa are extraordinarily impressive - through their size, through their number
and through their tendency to group several structures within one precinct".
Much of the building
stone used in the Byzantine period came from older structures, but not always
from those damaged in earthquakes. Parts of some temples were reconstructed as
churches. The oldest remaining church in Jerash is the cathedral that was built
in about 365 on what probably was the Temenos of the Temple of
Dionysus, making use of the ancient Propylaea as its gate. In
about 496 the Basilica of Saint Theodore was built immediately to the west of
and almost abutting the cathedral, but on the higher ground that had been the
site of the Temple of Dionysus. The Propylaea Church was built on the
Piazza in front of the Propylaea of the Temple of Artemis.
The Synagogue Church was an adaptation of a synagogue that probably was then
several centuries old, but in the process the orientation was reversed because
the synagogue entrance had been in the east. Another interesting example is
known as the "Three Churches" of Saints Cosmas & Damian, Saint
John the Baptist and Saint George, all three having been constructed side by
side as a single building. Although there would have been many mosques during
the Arab occupation, only the Atrium Mosque has been discovered. It was built
into the Atrium of a Roman building constructed in about 150,
using an existing niche as the Mihrab that indicates the direction
of Mecca.
back to top |