It Will Be Seen By The Map That These Positions, As Now
Settled, Furnished Exactly Five Convenient Marches, The Two Longest
Being Naturally Through The Desert Of Total Privation, Which Lies
Between El Arish And Katieh.
As the modern route, instead of following
the sea shore, passes to the southward of the lagoon, the site of
Ostracine has not yet been explored.
[P.viii]It would seem, from the evidence regarding Petra which may be
collected in ancient history, that neither in the ages prior to the
[p.ix]commercial opulence of the Nabataei, nor after they were deprived
of it, was Wady Mousa the position of their principal town.
When the Macedonian Greeks first became acquainted with this part of
Syria by means of the expedition which Antigonus sent against the
Nabataei, under the command of his son Demetrius, we are informed by
Diodorus that these Arabs placed their old men, women, and children upon
a certain rock [Greek text], steep, unfortified by walls, admitting only
of one access to the summit, and situated 300 stades beyond the lake
Asphaltitis. [Diod. Sic. l.19.c.95, 98.] As this interval agrees with
that of Kerek from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and is not
above half the distance of Wady Mousa from the same point; and as the
other parts of the description are well adapted to Kerek, while they are
inapplicable to Wady Mousa, we can hardly doubt that Kerek was at that
time the fortress of the Nabataei; and that during the first ages of the
intercourse of that people with the Greeks, it was known to the latter
by the name Petra, so often applied by them to barbarian hill-posts.
When the effects of commerce required a situation better suited than
Kerek to the collected population and increased opulence of the
Nabataei, the appellation of Petra was transferred to the new city at
Wady Mousa, which place had before been known to the [p.x]Greeks by the
name of Arce [Greek text], a corruption perhaps of the Hebrew
Rekem.[Joseph. Antiq. Jud. l.4,c.4.] To Wady Mousa, although of a very
different aspect from Kerek, the name Petra was equally well adapted;
and Kerek then became distinguished among the Greeks by its indigenous
name, in the Greek form of Charax, to which the Romans added that of
Omanorum, or Kerek of Ammon,[Plin. Hist. Nat. l.6,c.28.] to distinguish
it from another Kerek, now called Kerek el Shobak. The former Kerek was
afterwards restored by the Christians to the Jewish division of Moab, to
which, being south of the river Arnon, it strictly belonged, and it was
then called in Greek Charagmoba, under which name we find it mentioned
as one of the cities and episcopal dioceses of the third
Palestine.[Hierocl. Synecd. Notit. Episc. Graec.]
When the stream of commerce which had enriched the Nabataei had partly
reverted to its old Egyptian channel, and had partly taken the new
course, which created a Palmyra in the midst of a country still more
destitute of the commonest gifts of nature, then Arabia Petraea,[A
comparison of the architecture at Wady Mousa, and at Tedmour,
strengthens the opinion, that Palmyra flourished at a period later than
Petra.] Wady Mousa was gradually depopulated. Its river, however, and
the intricate recesses of its rocky valleys, still attract and give
security to a tribe of Arabs; but the place being defensible only by
considerable numbers, and being situated in a less fertile country than
Kerek, was less adapted to be the chief town of the Nabataei, when they
had returned to their natural state of divided wanderers or small
agricultural communities. The Greek bishopricks of the third Palestine
were obliterated by the Musulman conquest, with the sole exception of
the metropolitan Petra, whose titular bishop still resides at Jerusalem,
and occasionally visits Kerek, as being the only place in his province
which contains [p.xi]a Christian community. Hence Kerek has been
considered the see of the bishoprick of Petra, and hence has arisen the
erroneous opinion often adopted by travellers from the Christians of
Jerusalem, that Kerek is the site of the ancient capital of Arabia
Petraea.
The Haouran being only once mentioned in the Sacred Writings, [Ezekiel.
c. xlvii v. 16. ] was probably of inconsiderable extent under the Jews,
but enlarged its boundaries under the Greeks and Romans, by whom it was
called Auranitis. It has been still farther increased since that time,
and now includes not only Auranitis, but Ituraea also, or Ittur, of
which Djedour is perhaps a corruption; together with the greater part of
Basan, or Batanaea, and Trachonitis. Burckhardt seems not to have been
aware of the important comment upon Trachonitis afforded by his
description of the singular rocky wilderness of the Ledja, and by the
inscriptions which he copied at Missema, in that district.[See p. 117,
118.] It appears from these inscriptions, that Missema was anciently the
town of the Phaenesii, and the metrocomia or chief place of Trachon, the
descriptions of which district by Strabo and Josephus,[Strabo, 755, 756.
Joseph. Antiq. Jud. l.15,c.13.] are in exact conformity with that which
Burckhardt has given us of the Ledja.
From Strabo and Ptolemy,[Strabo, ibid. Ptolemy, l.5,c.15.] we learn that
Trachonitis comprehended all the uneven country extending along the
eastern side of the plain of Haouran, from near Damascus to Boszra. It
was in consequence of the predatory incursions of the Arabs from the
secure recesses of the Ledja into the neighbouring plains, that Augustus
transferred the government of Trachonitis from Zenodorus, who was
accused of encouraging them, to Herod, king of Judaea. [Joseph. Antiq.
Jud.l.5,c.10. De Bell. Jud.l.1,c.20.] The two Trachones, into which
Trachonitis was divided, agree with the two natural divisions of the
Ledja and Djebel Haouran.
[p.xii]Oerman, an ancient ruin at the foot of the Djebel Haouran, to the
east of Boszra, appears from an inscription copied there by Burckhardt,
to be the site of Philippopolis, a town founded by Philip, emperor of
Rome, who was a native of Boszra.
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