Biblical Archaeology Review

Translated from the Arabic by Professor David Ayalon of Hebrew University.

We know this because of the five churches at Ashkelon during the time of the Crusaders, four were Latin and one was Byzantine (Greek), namely, Santa Maria Viridis. Before our excavations scholars usually thought this church was located next to the sea (in Grid 50), near a Muslim saint’s tomb known as Maqam al-Hadra, or Shrine of the Green (Lady), from which the south mound took its name. We now know that the church was located on the opposite side of the city.

William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, transl. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1943), pp. 17, 22. For a very readable account of Ashkelon in the Crusader period, see Meron Benvenisti, The Crusaders in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press), pp. 114–130.

These Fatamid fortifications are usually attributed incorrectly to the Crusader period.

Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Islamic Jewellery from Ashkelon,” in Jewellery and Goldsmithing in the Islamic World, An International Symposium, Jerusalem, ed. Na’ama Brosh (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1991), pp. 9–20.

Riley, “The Pottery from the First Session,” p. 30, n. 20.

Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, pp. 130–131.

Philip Mayerson, “The Pilgrim Routes to Mount Sinai and the Armenians,” Israel Exploration Journal 32 (1982), pp. 44–57, for Ararat, see Eusebius’ Onomasticon 2–4, ed. E. Klostermann, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftstellar der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Leipzig 1904, reprinted 1966).

Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage, p. 99.

Gabi Mazor, “Wine Presses in the Negev,” Qadmoniot (1981), pp. 51–60.