Beth-horon

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Beth-horon

Bethoron (also transliterated Beth-Horon) was the name for two adjacent towns, Bethoron Elyon ("Upper Bethoron"), and Bethoron Tahton ("Lower Bethoron"), named for the Egypto

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
-Canaanite

Canaanite

Canaanite may refer to:* Canaan and Canaanite people, a historical/Biblical region and people in the area of the present-day Gaza Strip, Israel, West Bank, and Lebanon....
deity

Deity

A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divinity, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by human beings....
Horon mentioned in Ugarit

Ugarit

Ugarit was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Ancient Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus , documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean Greece and Cypriot pottery found there....
ic literature and other texts. Strategically located on the Gibeon

Gibeon

Gibeon was a Canaanite city north of Jerusalem that was conquered by Joshua. Today, the Palestinian village of Jib is the modern representation of ancient Gibeon....
-Aijalon

Aijalon

Aijalon is a place in ancient Israel first mentioned in the Book of Joshua as Joshua defeats five Amorite kings. "Thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon" is commanded to stay still as the battle continues, allowing the Israelite army time to complete their victory....
road, the towns guarded the important "ascent of Beth-Horon." Both towns are mentioned in the Old Testament

Old Testament

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Encyclopedia

Bethoron (also transliterated Beth-Horon) was the name for two adjacent towns, Bethoron Elyon ("Upper Bethoron"), and Bethoron Tahton ("Lower Bethoron"), named for the Egypto

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
-Canaanite

Canaanite

Canaanite may refer to:* Canaan and Canaanite people, a historical/Biblical region and people in the area of the present-day Gaza Strip, Israel, West Bank, and Lebanon....
deity

Deity

Ugarit

Gibeon

Gibeon was a Canaanite city north of Jerusalem that was conquered by Joshua. Today, the Palestinian village of Jib is the modern representation of ancient Gibeon....
-Aijalon

Aijalon

Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
: Upper Bethoron in Joshua
Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in both the Hebrew Tanakh and the Old Testament of the Christianity Bible. This book stands as the first in the Former Prophets covering the history of Kingdom of Israel from the possession of the Promised Land to the Babylonian Captivity....
and Lower Bethoron in . According to 1 Chronicles
Books of Chronicles

LocationIn the masoretic text, Chronicles is part of the third part of the Tanakh, namely Ketuvim . In most printed versions it is the last book in Ketuvim ....
, Lower Bethoron was built by Sheerah, the daughter of Beriah, son of Ephraim

Ephraim

Ephraim was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph and Asenath, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Ephraim; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
. Eusebius' Onomasticon also mentions the 'twin villages' and St. Jerome describes them as 'little hamlets' which it seems they have always been.

The two Palestinian Muslim

Muslim

:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits "....
villages of Beit Ur al-Foqa
Beit Ur al-Fauqa

Beit Ur al-Fauqa is a Palestinian town located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the northern West Bank, 14 kilometers West of Ramallah and 3 kilometer southeast of the Beit Ur al-Tahta ....
("Upper house of straw") and Beit Ur al-Tahta
Beit Ur al-Tahta

By:Beit Ur al-Tahta is a Palestinian town located in the Seam Zone in the central West Bank, in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate. The village, along with its sister village Beit Ur al-Foqa, is located on the site of the biblical Bethoron....
("Lower house of straw") preserve part of the original Canaanite name for the towns, and have been identified as the sites of Upper and Lower Bethoron. Archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, archeology, or arch?ology is the science that studies Homo cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, Artifact , features, Biofact s, and cultural landscape....
finds indicate that the Lower town was established before the Upper one; potsherds from the Late Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
onward were discovered at Lower Beit Ur, whereas those in Upper Beit Ur date only from the Iron Age

Iron Age

In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent....
onward.

An Israeli settlement

Israeli settlement

Israeli settlements are communities inhabited by Israelis in territory that was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, which is partially under Israeli military administration and partially under the control of the Palestinian National Authority, and in the Golan Heights, which are under Isr...
named Beit Horon

Beit Horon

Beit Horon is a communal settlement and Israeli settlement located in the northern Judean part of the central West Bank along Route 443 , the biblical Beth-horon#The Pass of the Beth-horons, between Modi'in and Jerusalem....
was founded in 1977 on a site adjacent to the two towns.

History

From Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
ian sources (Muller, As. und Europa, etc.) it appears that Bethoron was one of the places conquered by Shishak of Egypt from Rehoboam

Rehoboam

Rehoboam was a king of United Monarchy and later king of the Kingdom of Judah after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel....
.

Biblical

The borderline between Benjamin

Tribe of Benjamin

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin was one of the twelve Israelites.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes....
and Ephraim

Tribe of Ephraim

The Tribe of Ephraim was one of the Israelites; together with the Tribe of Manasseh, Ephraim also formed the House of Joseph. At its height, the territory it occupied was at the center of Canaan, west of the Jordan, south of the territory of Manasseh, and north of the Tribe of Benjamin; the region which was later named Samaria mostly co...
passed alongside the two Bethorons (Joshua 16:5; 21:22) who belonged to the latter tribe and therefore, later on, to the Northern Kingdom. Solomon

Solomon

Solomon is a figure described in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an. The biblical accounts identify Solomon as the son of David. He is also called Jedidiah in the Tanakh , and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split; following th...
"built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, fortified cities, with walls, gates, and bars" (2 Chronicles 8:5; 1 Kings
Books of Kings

The Books of Kings are a part of Judaism's Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. They were originally written in Hebrew language and were later included by Christianity as part of the Old Testament....
9:17). One or both of the towns was a city of Levite

Levite

In Jewish tradition, a Levite is a member of the tribes of Israel of Levi. When Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan, the Levites were the only Israelite tribe who received cities but no tribal land "because the Lord the God of Israel himself is their possession"....
s (Josh. 21:22; I Chron. 6:53).

Again, many centuries later, Bacchides repaired Beth-horon, "with high walls, with gates and with bars and in them he set a garrison

Garrison

Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, of more than 50 men, but now often simply using it as a home base....
, that they might work malice upon ("vex") Israel" (1 Macc.
Maccabees

The Maccabees were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, who was succeeded by his infant son Antiochus V Eupator....
9:50,51), and at another time the Jews fortified it against Holofernes

Holofernes

Holofernes was an Assyrians invading general of Nebuchadnezzar, who appears in the deuterocanonical books Book of Judith. It was said that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign....
(Judith
Book of Judith

[Image:Cristofano Allori 002.jpg|thumb|220px|Judith with the Head of Holophernes, by Cristofano Allori, 1613 The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded by Judaism and Protestantism....
4:4,5).

Pass of the Bethorons

When (Joshua 10:10) Joshua

Joshua

Joshua, Jehoshuah or Yehoshua , born in Egypt, was a biblical Israelite leader who succeeded Moses. His story is told in the Hebrew Bible, chiefly in the books Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers and Book of Joshua....
discomfited the kings of the Amorite

Amorite

Amorite refers to a Semitic language people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The term Amurru refers to them, as well as to their principal deity....
s "he slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon

Gibeon

Gibeon was a Canaanite city north of Jerusalem that was conquered by Joshua. Today, the Palestinian village of Jib is the modern representation of ancient Gibeon....
, and chased them by the way of the 'Ascent of Beth-horon.'" When the Philistines

Philistines

The Philistines were a ethnic group who occupied the southern coast of Canaan, their territory being named Philistia in later contexts....
opposed King Saul

Saul

Saul or Shaul may also refer to:...
at Michmash

Michmash

Michmash - "Laid Up [that is, concealed] Place". a town of Benjamin , east of Bethel and south of Migron, on the road to Jerusalem . It lay on the line of march of an invading army from the north, on the north side of the steep and precipitous Wady es-Suweinit , and now bears the name of Mukhmas....
they sent a company of their men to hold "the way of Beth-horon."

This pass ascends from the plain of Ajalon

Ajalon

Ajalon - and Aij'alon, place of deer. A town and valley at the lowland of Shephelah, originally assigned to the tribe of Dan, from which, however, they could not drive the Amorites ....
(now Yalo) and climbs in about 3/4 hr. to Beit Ur al Tahta (1,210 ft.); it then ascends along the ridge, with valleys lying to north and south, and reaches Beit Ur al-Foqa (2,022 ft.), and pursuing the same ridge arrives in another 4 1/2 miles at the plateau to the north of al-Jib (Gibeon). At intervals along this historic route, traces of the ancient Roman

Roman road

The Roman roads were essential for the growth of the Roman Empire, by enabling the Romans to move Military history of ancient Rome and Roman commerce goods and to communicate news....
paving are visible. The great highroad into the heart of the land from the earliest times, along this route came 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....
ites, Israelites, Philistines, Egyptians, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
ns, Romans, Saracen

Saracen

Saracen was a term used by Europeans in the Middle Ages for Fatimids at first, then later for all who professed the religion of Islam....
s and Crusaders. Since the days of Joshua (Joshua 10:10) it has frequently been the scene of a rout. Here the Syria

Syria

Judas Maccabeus

Judas Maccabeus was a Kohen and the third son of the Jewish priest Mattathias. He led the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire and is acclaimed as one of the greatest warriors in Jewish history alongside Joshua, Gideon and David....
(1 Macc. 3:13-24) at the Battle of Beth Horon

Battle of Beth Horon

The Battle of Beth-horon was fought in 166 BC between Maccabees led by Judas Maccabaeus and a Seleucid Empire force under the command of Seron ....
, and six years later Nicanor, retreating from Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
, was defeated and slain and the nearby Adasa

Adasa

Asada is a city referred to the Maccabees and the site of the Demographics of Syria-Seleucid General Nicanor 's death and Judas Maccabeus post during the Maccabean Revolt....
. (1 Macc. 7:39; Josephus

Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
, Ant. XII, x, 5). Along this pass in 66

Year 66 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar....
AD the Roman general Cestius Gallus

Cestius Gallus

Gaius Cestius Gallus was the son of a consul in ancient Rome and himself a suffect consul in 42.He was Legatus of Syria from 63 or 65. He marched into Judea in 66 in an attempt to restore calm at the outset of the Great Jewish Revolt....
was driven in headlong flight before the Jews.

A 1915 reference to the road by the Palestine Exploration Fund

Palestine Exploration Fund

The Palestine Exploration Fund is a United Kingdom society, it is often simply known as the PEF....
(III, 86, Sh XVII) noted that the changed direction of the highroad to Jerusalem had left the route "forsaken" and "almost forgotten". The modern Highway 443

Highway 443 (Israel)

Route 443 , also Ma'ale Beit Horon , is the main highway connecting Modi'in with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and also serves as a secondary connection between the Gush Dan and Jerusalem....
follows part of the ancient road.

Books

Masterman, E. W. G. (1915).. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Eds. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. Retrieved December 9, 2005.

External links

Report by Yuval Peleg for the Israeli Antiquities Authority on