Sarepta (modern
SarafandSarafand is a place name that can refer to:*Al-Sarafand, the depopulated Palestinian village*Sarepta, the ancient Phoenician city*Sarepta, Louisiana, the town in the United States...
,
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
) was a
PhoeniciaPhoenicia what is now modern day Lebanon, 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 Palestine...
n city on the
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
coast between
SidonSidon,or Saïda, is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery...
and Tyre. The low
tellTell, tel , meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation...
on the seashore was excavated by
James B. PritchardJames Bennett Pritchard was an American archeologist whose work explicated the interrelationships of the religions of ancient Israel, Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon....
over five years (1969–74). Most of the objects by which we characterise Phoenician culture are those that have been recovered scattered among Phoenician colonies and trading posts; such carefully-excavated colonial sites are in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
,
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
,
SardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The nearest land masses to the island are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands...
and
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
. The sites of many Phoenician cities, like Sidon and Tyre, by contrast, are still occupied, unavailable to archaeology except in highly restricted chance sites, usually much disturbed.
Sarepta (modern
SarafandSarafand is a place name that can refer to:*Al-Sarafand, the depopulated Palestinian village*Sarepta, the ancient Phoenician city*Sarepta, Louisiana, the town in the United States...
,
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
) was a
PhoeniciaPhoenicia what is now modern day Lebanon, 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 Palestine...
n city on the
MediterraneanThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
coast between
SidonSidon,or Saïda, is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery...
and Tyre. The low
tellTell, tel , meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation...
on the seashore was excavated by
James B. PritchardJames Bennett Pritchard was an American archeologist whose work explicated the interrelationships of the religions of ancient Israel, Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon....
over five years (1969–74). Most of the objects by which we characterise Phoenician culture are those that have been recovered scattered among Phoenician colonies and trading posts; such carefully-excavated colonial sites are in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
,
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
,
SardiniaSardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . The area of Sardinia is . The nearest land masses to the island are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands...
and
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
. The sites of many Phoenician cities, like Sidon and Tyre, by contrast, are still occupied, unavailable to archaeology except in highly restricted chance sites, usually much disturbed. Sarepta is the exception, the one Phoenician city in the heartland of the culture that has been unearthed and thoroughly studied. Pritchard rewrote his professional reports for a wider public in
Recovering Sarepta, A Phoenician City, (Princeton University Press) 1978.
The climax of the Sarepta discoveries at Sarafand is the cult shrine of "
TanitTanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshiped as the patron goddess at Carthage where from the fifth century BCE onwards her name is associated with that of Baal Hammon and she is given the epithet pene baal and the title rabat, the female form of rab...
/
AstartAstarte or Ashtart is the Greek form of the name of a goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions, cognate in name, origin and functions with the goddess Ishtar in Mesopotamian texts...
", who is identified in the site by an inscribed votive ivory plaque, the first identification of Tanit in her homeland. The site revealed figurines, further carved ivories,
amuletAn amulet , a close cousin of the talisman consists of any object...
s and a cultic mask.
History
Sarepta is mentioned for the first time in the voyage of an Egyptian in the fourteenth century BCE (
ChabasFrançois Joseph Chabas was a French egyptologist.Chabas came from a modest background, studied at Chalon and became a wine merchand. Self-taught, he learned Latin, Greek and other languages. Interested in anthropology, he turned to study Old Egyptian languages...
,
Voyage d'un Egyptien, 1866, pp 20, 161, 163).
ObadiahObadiah is a Biblical theophorical name, meaning "servant of Yahweh" or "worshipper of Yahweh." It is cognate to the Arabic name ‘Abdullah...
says it was the northern boundary of
CanaanCanaan 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...
(Obadiah 1:20). Originally Sidonian, the town passed to the Tyrians after the invasion of
Shalmaneser IVShalmaneser IV was king of Assyria . He succeeded his father Adad-nirari III, and was succeeded by his brother Ashur-dan III. Very little information about his reign has survived....
, 722 BCE. It fell to
SennacheribSennacherib Sennacherib Sennacherib (Akkadian Sîn-ahhī-erība ("(Moon god) Sîn has replaced (lost) brothers for me") was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria (704 – 681 BC).- Rise to power :...
in 701.
The first
Books of KingsThe Books of Kings are books included in the Hebrew Bible. They were originally written in Hebrew and are recognised as scripture by Judaism and Christianity...
(17:8-24) describes the city as being subject to Sidon in the time of
AhabAhab was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri . William F. Albright dated his reign to 869 – 850 BC, while E. R...
, and says that the prophet Elijah, after leaving the brook
CherithCherith is a "brook", in whose banks the prophet Elijah hid himself during the early part of the three years' drought which he announced to King Ahab...
, multiplied the meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath (Sarepta) and raised her son from the dead there. Zarephath (zar´ḗ-fath; צרפת, cārephath; Σάρεπτα, Sárepta) in Hebrew became the
eponymAn eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named. One who is referred to as eponymous is someone who gives his or her name to something, e.g...
for any smelter or
forgeA forge is the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith. A forge is sometimes referred to as a smithy.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals. The forge heats the workpiece to a malleable temperature or to the point where work hardening no longer occurs. The...
, or
metalworkingMetalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts and delicate jewellery. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills,...
shop. In the 1st century AD, the Roman Sarepta, a port about a kilometer to the south is mentioned by
JosephusJosephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizen, 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...
, in
Jewish Antiquities (Book VIII, xiii:2) and by
PlinyGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, in
Natural History (Book V, 17).
Sarepta as a
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
city was mentioned in the
Itinerarium BurdigalenseThe Itinerarium Burdigalense is the oldest known Itinerarium, written by an anonymous pilgrim from Burdigala...
; the
Onomasticon of Eusebius and in
JeromeSaint Jerome was a Christian priest and apologist. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Strido, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
; by Theodosius and Pseudo-Antoninus who, in the sixth century call it a small town, but very Christian. It contained at that time a church dedicated to St. Elias (Elijah). The
Notitia episcopatuum, a list of bishoprics made in Antioch in the 6th century, speaks of Sarepta as a suffragan see of Tyre; none of its bishops are known.
After the Islamization of the area, in 1185, the
GreekThe history of Byzantine Greece mainly coincides with the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire.-Roman Greece:The Greek peninsula became a Roman protectorate in 146 BC, and the Aegean islands were added to this territory in 133. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88, and the peninsula was...
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
Phocas, making a gazetteer of the
Holy LandThe Holy Land , generally refers to the geographical region of the Levant called Land of Canaan or Land of Israel in the Bible, and constitutes the Promised land...
(
De locis sanctis, 7), found the town almost in its ancient condition; a century later, according to
Burchard of Mount SionBurchard of Mount Sion, or Burchard de Mont Sion, also wrongly called Brocard or Bocard, was a German Dominican who travelled to the Middle East at the end of the 13th century....
, it was in ruins and contained only seven or eight houses. Even after the Crusaders' kingdoms had collapsed, the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
continued to appoint purely titular bishops of Sarepta. Some are mentioned after 1346.
Archaeology
The site of the ancient town is marked by the
ruinsRuins is a term used to describe the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete but which have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...
on the shore to the south of the modern village, about eight miles to the south of Sidon, which extend along the shore for a mile or more. They are in two distinct groups, one on a headland to the west of a fountain called ‛Ain el-Ḳantara, which is not far from the shore. Here was the ancient harbor which still affords shelter for small craft. The other group of ruins is to the south, and consists of columns, sarcophagi, and marble slabs, indicating a city of considerable importance. The modern village of Sarafand was built some time after the twelfth century, since at the time of the
CrusadesThe Crusades were a series of religiously-sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between...
the town was still on the shore.
Pritchard's excavations revealed many artifacts of daily life in the ancient Phoenician city of Sarepta: pottery workshops and
kilnKilns are thermally insulated chambers, or ovens, in which controlled temperature regimes are produced. They are used to harden, burn or dry materials...
s, artifacts of daily use and religious figurines, numerous inscriptions that included some in Ugaritic. Pillar worship is traceable from an
8th centuryThe 8th century BC started the first day of 800 BC and ended the last day of 701 BC.- Overview :The 8th century BC was a period of great changes in civilizations. In Egypt, the 23rd and 24th dynasties led to rule from Nubia in the 25 Dynasty...
shrine of
Tanit-AshtartAstarte or Ashtart is the Greek form of the name of a goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions, cognate in name, origin and functions with the goddess Ishtar in Mesopotamian texts...
, and a seal with the city's name made the identification secure. His article, "Sarepta in history and tradition" in
Understanding the Sacred Texts (1972) displays the background research that informed all his meticulous work. In his book
Recovering Sarepta, an Ancient Phoenician City (1978) he made the discovery comprehensible to the average reader in lucid prose.
The local Bronze Age-Iron Age stratigraphy was established in detail; absolute dating depends in part on correlations with Cypriote and Aegean stratigraphy.
Other uses of the name
In
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
after the
DiasporaA diaspora is any movement of a population sharing common ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective.Diasporic cultural development often assumes a different course from...
, the name Zarephath (
צרפת, ts-r-f-t, Tsarfat) is used to mean
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, perhaps because the Hebrew letters
ts-r-f, if reversed, become
f-r-ts.
A strain of the
West Nile VirusWest Nile virus is a virus of the family Flaviviridae. Part of the koji Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of viruses, it is found in both tropical and temperate regions. It mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, and...
is called 'Sarafend'. Although the origins of the strain name are unknown, it is possible that the virus strain was first isolated in this area.
Further reading
- Pritchard, James B. Recovering Sarepta, a Phoenician City (Princeton: Princeton University Press) 1978.