Talk:Suba (village)
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[edit] "but the village of Suba continued to exist"
The article says "Belmont Castle was taken by Saladin in 1187 and destroyed by him in 1191, but the village of Suba continued to exist". According to the New Israel Guide, the village of Suba was built later, on the ruins of the Crusader castle. Does this contradict any of the other sources?--Doron 18:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
- Here are the actual words of the source. Just after it says that Saladin destroyed Belmont in 1187, it says "Thereafter Belmont disappears from the records. The village of Suba, however, continued to exist, and is mentioned around 1225 by the Arab geographer Yaqut." Between the destruction and the mention is only 38 years. This source is pretty thorough in citing the written record and is probably the best source on the archaeological evidence (the authors were the leaders of the excavations). So even if there some assumption here, it is an educated assumption by experts and we should just follow the source, imo. --Zerotalk 09:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I wasn't sure whether your source explicitly stated that the village continued to exist. Yes, of course it is more authoritative.--Doron 09:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] crusader remains - what is there?
We have this (currently no source given): "Today, parts of the northern and western Crusader wall remain, as well as massive towers and a moat." I wonder if this last part is true. Doron, did you see massive towers and a moat when you were there? Harper&Pringle (1988, p104) appear to deny there was a moat: "[Describing outer walls] No evidence for a ditch was found, here or elsewhere." Further, I wonder if "massive towers" should be "remains of massive towers". Harper&Pringle say on p104 that they did not find any "projecting towers" at the outer perimeter. In describing the inner part of the compound they write (p107); "Remains of what appears to be a projecting rectangular tower still exist at the south-east angle, but it is not yet clear whether the other three angles were similarly defended." None of the photos or diagrams in Harper&Pringle's two papers show actual standing towers. They also say repeatedly that stones from the Crusader structures were used to build the village houses. So what is actually visible there today? Note that the Israeli antiquities authority sometimes reconstructs ancient buildings for tourist/educational purposes. For example, most of the buildings at Masada were piles of rubble on the ground until they were put back together again. --Zerotalk 04:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I doubt if my testimony is worth anything. I can't say I saw anything that looks Crusader-ish, it all looks like ruined village houses, but I only read about the alleged Crusader remains after the last time I visited there, so I didn't know what to look for (if there's anything there, it doesn't particularly stand out, though many archeological sites are unimpressive to the novice eye). Anyway, I read about these remains in two different places, none of which were written by archeologists, though -- the New Israel Guide gives the info I put in the article, and a geographical survey called הרי ירושלים (Jerusalem Mountains) by Menahem Markus (I think he's a geomorphologist) which says the Crusader remains include walls, ruins of monumental structures, a beautiful arch gate and an irrigation system (my translation). A google search finds a few internet sites that mention these remains, but they don't give any reference. Sorry, these are the books I have at home, I can have a look at the library next week for something more authoritative. For what it's worth I can go and have a look, but it's raining right now, so this will have to wait. You call, anyway.--Doron 12:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Harper&Pringle certainly agree with "walls, ruins of monumental structures, a beautiful arch gate and an irrigation system", assuming the last one means a network of underground cysterns. There are photos of them in H&P's papers. The walls are quite high in some places (built against the side of the hill, not on top of it). Why don't we use this as the description? Incidentally, maybe your library has Harper&Pringle's book, [1] which will be more up-to-date than the papers I found. My library doesn't have it.--Zerotalk 13:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable. Yes, they have the book in their catalogue, I'll have a look next week. Actually, the irrigation system may be noteworthy. There's a famous spring there (called Ein Suba) that attracts some tourism. It's sort of an underground spring that is accessible by a shaft (and it is marked in your 1879 map, by the way).--Doron 10:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
- Great. There is one other thing you could check. We have "Middle Bronze Age tombs have been excavated near the fringes of the ruined Arab village.". In H&P's papers, I can only find mention of Iron Age occupation. It could be that older things were found after 1988, but hopefully the book will mention them. --Zerotalk 10:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Harper and Pringle's book arrived by interlibrary loan. It's very interesting. The "irrigation system" probably refers to a system based at the spring for irrigating the nearby orchards in fairly modern times; I'll read more before writing anything. --Zerotalk 13:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, I still haven't made that visit to the library that I promised :I --Doron 13:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] My recent edit
- After going through the book by Harper & Pringle, I decided to removed the references to the New Israel Guide, because it is less accurate, it's less reliable, it's in Hebrew and it doesn't really add any new information beyond H&P's book.
- I also changed the caption to give a more elaborate description of what's in the picture, which is relevant to the context of this article.
- I changed the phrasing of the opening passage of the post-Crusader period section. The book seems to call the site Belmont and Suba interchangeably, I'm not convinced from the phrasing that the village was indeed called Suba during that period. I think the phrasing I chose is more factually sound given the sources we have, though please change it back if I missed anything.
--Doron 12:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Soon I'll add something about the spring and cisterns, and a photo which I'll hopefully take tomorrow, thanks to the lovely weather.--Doron 12:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks. Concerning the name, the ca. 1225 reference is to a village named "Suba" (I have Le Strange's book). That's very soon after the Crusaders left. I don't know anything from before the Crusaders. --Zerotalk 01:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Meron Benvenisti: Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948.
In a chapter named "The Convenience of the Crusades" in the "Sacred Landscape"-book, Meron Benvenisti writes (p. 301):
Arab settlement that predates and outlasted the Crusader conquest have not been considered worthy of study or mention except in the context of "the Crusader period," an ascription that itself is often as not fabricated. In the Jerusalem Hills lie remains of the village of Beit `Atab, formerly the capital of the Arqub district and seat of its ruler, Sheik ´Othman al-Lahaam. This sheik conducted a bloody war against Sheik Mustafa Abu Ghosh, whose capital and fortified seat was in the village of Suba. The long history of Beit ´Atab and the tale of the wars of the Quays and Yaman have been recounted at length in many books, and British consul James Finn (mid-nineteenth century) left a particularly vivid description of this village and its houses, both ancient and new. But there is no mention of any of this in Israeli guidebooks, save for the routine remark, "destroyed in the War for Independence." By contrast, the guidebook makes sure to inform its readers that "it is almost certain that its Arab name, Beit ´Atab, is a corruption of its Latin name, Atap, meaning a small fortress," and at the site there are "remains of ancient structures, apparently from a Crusader farm." The whole Crusader connection is a fabrication, since the sole historical mention of this settlement is a single reference to it in 1161 as a small village whose inhabitants are local people (i.e., not Crusaders). Nowhere is there any mention of its being a Crusader "fortress or farm," although its name appears (in a fractured Latin transliteration of its Arabic name) on a list of holdings -populated by Arabs- of a knight of Flemish origin. The mention of a place-name on a deed of ownership is sufficient data for its inclusion in the historical account, from the point of view of the conquerors, whereas the lives of generations of ordinary people who lived in Beit ´Atab are of no importance and their material culture is dismissed as "primitive".
The "Crusader fortress" at Suba, the village of Beit ´Atab`s adversaries, was similarly immortalized in Israeli guidebooks. Suba -if it served as a Crusader stronghold (called Belmont) at all, the Crusader sojourn lasted no longer than fifty years -won most of its fame in the nineteenth century, when it was a base for the revolt of the fallahin against the Egyptian occupier, Ibrahim Pasha. Even so, the site of the abandoned village was cleared of the remnants of a thousand-year-old habitation in order to draw attention to more ancient ruins, about which there is doubt regarding whether they were built by the Crusaders, but no doubt that they were refurbished and used by local Arabs. The whole site is designated as a "Crusader stronghold."
I assume that "Beit ´Atab" is Bayt 'Itab under "District of Jerusalem" in the List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It is possible that Benvenisti writes more about it in his 1996 book: City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem, which I do not have at the moment. Anyway, it looks as if it could be interesting to see what James Finn wrote about these villages (if anybody has access to his books). Also: no wonder some people thought Suba was just a "Crusader stronghold"; apparently that is exactly what "some people" want us all to believe. Regards, Huldra 10:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
