Arsuf

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Arsuf

Arsuf () also known as Arsur or Apollonia, was an ancient city and fortress located in Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
, about 15 kilometres north of modern Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv-Yafo , usually Tel Aviv, is the List of largest cities and second largest cities by country List of cities in Israel in Israel, with an estimated population of 390,100....
, on a cliff above the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

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Arsuf () also known as Arsur or Apollonia, was an ancient city and fortress located in Israel

Israel

Tel Aviv

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea or Ocean off the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia....
. The city site, Tel Arsuf, was intensively excavated from 1994. In 2002 it became Apollonia National Park.

In 1995 a new village by the name of Arsuf

Arsuf, Hof HaSharon

Arsuf is a village in central Israel. Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast near Herzliya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaSharon Regional Council....
was established to the north of the ancient city.

Town was settled by Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, extending to parts of Israel, Syria and the Palestinian territories....
ns in the 6th

6th century BC

The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC.In India, Panini, sometime during this century, composed a grammar for sanskrit, which is the oldest extant grammar of any language....
or 5th century BC, and named Arshuf after Resheph

Resheph

Resheph or Reshef was a Canaanite deity of Plague and god of war.Resheph is associated with lightning, and hence also interpreted as a weather deity....
, the Canaan

Canaan

Canaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt....
ite god of fertility and the underworld. It was then a part of the Persian Empire

Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
and governed from Sidon

Sidon

Sidon,or Sa?da, is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, Lebanon of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean Sea coast, about 40 km north of Tyre, Lebanon and 40 km south of the capital Beirut....
. Phoenicians of Arshuf produced precious purple dye

Dye

A dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an Chemical affinity to the Wiktionary:substrate to which it is being applied....
, derived from murex

Murex

Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivore marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, the murexes or rock snails....
mollusks, which they exported to the Aegean

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkans and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively....
.

During the Hellenistic period it was an anchorage town, ruled by Seleucids and re-named Apollonia, as the Greeks identified Reshef with Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
.

Under Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
rule, the size of the town increased. It was an important settlement between Jaffa

Jaffa

File:Jaffa StPeter church.jpgJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world.Jaffa is located south of Tel Aviv, Israel on the Mediterranean Sea....
and Caesarea along Via Maris

Via Maris

Via Maris is the modern name for an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia ? modern day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria....
, the coastal road. In 113 AD, Apollonia was destroyed partially by an earthquake, but recovered quickly. The harbor was built, and trade with Italy and North Africa developed.

During the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
period, the town extended to cover an area of . In the 5th and 6th century AD it was the second largest city in Sharon valley, after Caesarea, populated by Christian and Samaritans, having an elaborate church and a prosperous glass industry.

In 640 AD, the town was captured by Muslims, and the Semitic

Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
name Arsuf was restored. The town's area decreased to about and, for the first time, it was surrounded by a fortified wall with buttresses, to resist the constant attacks of Byzantine fleets from the sea. Large marketplaces appeared, and pottery production developed. In 809 AD, following the death of Harun al-Rashid

Harun al-Rashid

Harun al-Rashid ; also spelled Harun ar-Rashid; , Aaron the Just, or Aaron the Rightly-Guided; March 17, 763 – March 24, 809) was the fifth and most famous Abbasid Caliphate Caliph....
, the local Samaritan community was destroyed and their synagogue ruined.

In 1101 Arsuf fell to a Crusader army led by Baldwin I of Jerusalem

Baldwin I of Jerusalem

Baldwin I of Jerusalem, formerly Baldwin I of Edessa, born Baldwin of Boulogne , 1058? - April 2, 1118, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who became the first County of Edessa and then the second ruler and first titled Kingdom of Jerusalem....
. The Crusaders, who called it Arsur, rebuilt the city's walls and created the Lordship of Arsur

Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries....
in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christianity kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, Israel, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
. In 1187 Arsuf was captured by the Muslims, but fell again to the Crusaders on September 7, 1191 after a battle

Battle of Arsuf

The Battle of Arsuf was a battle of the Third Crusade in which Richard I of England defeated Saladin at Arsuf.After Siege of Acre in 1191, Richard fought many engagements with Saladin, whose main objective was to prevent the recapture of Jerusalem....
between Richard I of England

Richard I of England

Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Ireland, Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Nantes and Brittany at various times during the same period....
and Saladin

Saladin

ala ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub , better known as Saladin in medieval Europe, was the Sultan of Egypt and Greater Syria. He led the Islamic opposition to the Second Crusade and Third Crusade....
.

John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut

John of Ibelin, the Old Lord of Beirut

John of Ibelin , called the Old Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was a powerful crusader noble in the 13th century, one of the best known representatives of the influential Ibelin family....
(1177—1236) became Lord of Arsur in 1207 when he married Melisende of Arsur (born c.1170). Their son John of Arsur (c.1211—1258) inherited the title. The title then passed to John of Arsur's eldest son Balian (1239—1277). He built new walls, the big fortress and new harbor (1241). From 1261, the city was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller

Knights Hospitaller

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta is a Roman Catholic Church order based in Rome, Italy....
.

In 1265 sultan Baibars

Baibars

Baibars, or al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari , nicknamed Abu al-Futuh , was an important Mamluk Sultan of Egypt and Syria....
, ruler of the Mamluk

Mamluk

A mamluk was a slavery soldier who converted to Islam and served the Muslim caliphs and the Ayyubid sultans from the 9th to the 13th centuries....
s, captured Arsur, after 40 days of siege. The Mamluks razed the city walls and the fortress to their foundations, fearing a return of the Crusaders. The destruction was so complete that the site has not been resettled since.

External links

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Gems of Israel
Holy Land Pictures