Sarepta

Coordinates: 33°27′27″N 35°17′45″E / 33.45750°N 35.29583°E / 33.45750; 35.29583

Sarepta
Sarepta Location in Lebanon
Coordinates: 33°27′27″N 35°17′45″E / 33.45750°N 35.29583°E / 33.45750; 35.29583

Sarepta (modern Sarafand, Lebanon) was a Phoenician city on the Mediterranean coast between Sidon and Tyre, also known biblically as 'Zarephath'. 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 Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and Tunisia. 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^[1] is the exception, the one Phoenician city in the heartland of the culture that has been unearthed and thoroughly studied.

History

Sarepta is mentioned for the first time in the voyage of an Egyptian in the 14th century BCE (Chabas, Voyage d'un Egyptien, 1866, pp 20, 161, 163). Obadiah says it was the northern boundary of Canaan (Obadiah 1:20): “And the exiles of this host of the sons of Israel who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath (Heb. צרפת), and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the south.” The medieval lexicographer, David ben Abraham Al-Alfāsī, identifies Zarephath with the city of Ṣarfend (Judeo-Arabic: צרפנדה).^[2] Originally Sidonian, the town passed to the Tyrians after the invasion of Shalmaneser IV, 722 BCE. It fell to Sennacherib in 701.

The first Books of Kings (17:8-24) describes the city as being subject to Sidon in the time of Ahab, and says that the prophet Elijah, after leaving the brook Cherith, multiplied the meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath (Sarepta) and raised her son from the dead there, an incident also referred to by Jesus in Luke's Gospel.^[3]

Zarephath (צרפת ṣārĕfáṯ, tsarfát; Σάρεπτα, Sárepta) in Hebrew became the eponym for any smelter or forge, or metalworking shop. In the 1st century CE, the Roman Sarepta, a port about a kilometer to the south^[4] is mentioned by Josephus, in Jewish Antiquities (Book VIII, xiii:2) and by Pliny, in Natural History (Book V, 17).

Sarepta as a Christian city was mentioned in the Itinerarium Burdigalense; the Onomasticon of Eusebius and in Jerome; by Theodosius and Pseudo-Antoninus who, in the 6th century call it a small town, but very Christian.^[5] 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.

Sarepta is the location of a Shia shrine to Abu Dhar al-Ghifari, a Companion of Muhammad. The shrine is believed to have been built at least several centuries after Abu Dhar's death.^[6]

After the Islamization of the area, in 1185, the Greek monk Phocas, making a gazetteer of the Holy Land (De locis sanctis, 7), found the town almost in its ancient condition. A century later, according to Burchard of Mount Sion, it was in ruins and contained only seven or eight houses.^[7] Even after the Crusaders' kingdoms had collapsed, the Roman Catholic Church continued to appoint purely titular bishops of Sarepta, the most noted being Thomas of Wroclaw who held the post from 1350 until 1378. ^[8]

Archaeology

A Heavy Neolithic archaeological site of the Qaraoun culture was discovered at Sarafand by Hajji Khalaf that pre-dated Sarepta by several thousand years. He made a collection of material and passed it to the National Museum of Beirut. It consisted of an assemblage of large flakes and bifaces in Eocene flint. Some piebald flint blades were also found along with hammerstones in Nummulitic limestone that resemble finds from Aadloun II (Bezez Cave), which is located 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to the South. Khalaf also found a well-made adze and a narrow, slightly polished chisel. A collection in the National Museum of Beirut marked "Jezzine ou Sarepta" consisted of around twelve neatly made discoid cores and tortoise cores in cherty flint of a cream colour with a tinge of red.^[9]

The low tell on the seashore was excavated by James B. Pritchard over five years from 1969 to 1974. ^{[10] [11]} Civil war in Lebanon put an end to the excavations.

The site of the ancient town is marked by the ruins 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.

Pritchard's excavations revealed many artifacts of daily life in the ancient Phoenician city of Sarepta: pottery workshops and kilns, artifacts of daily use and religious figurines, numerous inscriptions that included some in Ugaritic. Pillar worship is traceable from an 8th-century shrine of Tanit-Ashtart, and a seal with the city's name made the identification secure. The local Bronze Age-Iron Age stratigraphy was established in detail; absolute dating depends in part on correlations with Cypriote and Aegean stratigraphy.

The climax of the Sarepta discoveries at Sarafand is the cult shrine of "Tanit/Astart", 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, amulets and a cultic mask.

Other uses of the name

In Hebrew after the Diaspora, the name Zarephath (צרפת, ts-r-f-t, Tsarfat) is used to mean France, perhaps because the Hebrew letters ts-r-f, if reversed, become f-r-ts.^[12]

A strain of the West Nile Virus 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.

See also

• Cities of the ancient Near East

References

• Pritchard, James B. Recovering Sarepta, a Phoenician City: Excavations at Sarafund, 1969-1974, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (Princeton: Princeton University Press) 1978, ISBN 0-691-09378-4
• William P. Anderson, Sarepta I: The late bronze and Iron Age strata of area II.Y : the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania excavations at Sarafand, Lebanon (Publications de l'Universite libanaise), Département des publications de l'Universite Libanaise, 1988
• Issam A. Khalifeh, Sarepta II: The Late Bronze and Iron Age Periods of Area Ii.X, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1988, ISBN 99943-751-5-6
• Robert Koehl, Sarepta III: the Imported Bronze & Iron Age, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1985, ISBN 99943-751-7-2
• James B. Pritchard, Sarepta IV: The Objects from Area Ii.X, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1988, ISBN 99943-751-9-9
• Lloyd W. Daly, A Greek-Syllabic Cypriot Inscription from Sarafand, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 40, pp. 223–225, 1980
• D.C. Baramki, A Late Bronze Age tomb at Sarafend, ancient Sarepta, Berytus, vol. 12, pp. 129–42, 1959
• Charles Cutler Torrey, The Exiled God of Sarepta, Berytus, vol. 9, pp. 45–49, 1949

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Sarepta

Heavy Neolithic sites Aadloun II Akkar plain foothills Akbiyeh Al-Bireh Amlaq Qatih Ard Saouda Baidar ech Chamout Beit Mery II Bustan Birke Dakoue Dekwaneh II Douris, Lebanon Douwara El Bire Flaoui Fadous Sud Hadeth south Jbaa Jdeideh I Jdeideh II Jebel Aabeby Kamid al lawz I Kefraya Kfar Tebnit Khallet Michte I Khallet Michte II Khallet el Hamra Mejdel Anjar I Moukhtara Mtaileb I Nabi Zair Plain of Zgharta Qaraoun I Qaraoun II Rayak North Sarepta Sidon III Taire II Tayibe Tell Ain el Meten Tell Khardane Tell Mureibit Tell Zenoub Wadi Boura Wadi Koura Wadi Yaroun Wadi al-Far'a Wadi Fa'rah Wadi Sallah

Archaeological sites in Lebanon Aadloun Aaiha Aammiq Aaqbe Ain Aata Ain Choaab Ain Harcha Akbiyeh Akkar plain foothills Al-Bireh Amioun Amlaq Qatih Anjar, Lebanon Antelias cave Apheca Ard Saouda Ard Tlaili Arqa Baalbek Baidar ech Chamout Batroumine Batroun Bechamoun Beirut Beit Mery Bustan Birke Byblos Canalizations of Zenobia Dahr El Ahmar Dakoue Deir El Aachayer Deir el Ahmar Deir Mar Maroun Dekwaneh Douris (Baalbek) Elaea (Lebanon) Flaoui Fadous Sud Hebbariye Hadeth south Haret ech Cheikh Hashbai Hermel plains Iaat Jabal es Saaïdé Jbaa Jdeideh Jebel Aabeby Jeita Grotto Joub Jannine Jieh Kafr Zabad Kamid al lawz Kamouh el Hermel Karak Nuh Kaukaba Kefraya Kafr Tebnit Kfar Qouq Kfarhata Khallet Michte Khirbet El-Knese Kouachra megalith field Ksar Akil Labweh Lake Qaraoun (Ain Jaouze) Libbaya Lion Tower Majdal Anjar Mansourieh Maronite mummies Mayrouba Mdoukha (Jebel Kassir) Moukhtara Mtaileb Nabi Zair Nachcharini Nahle, Lebanon Neba'a Faour Nebi Safa Niha Bekaa Phoenician port of Beirut Plain of Zgharta Qaa Qal'at Bustra Qalaat Tannour Qaraoun Qasr el Banat Ras Baalbek I Ras Beirut Ras El Kelb Rashaya Sands of Beirut Saraain El Faouqa Shheem Sidon Sin el Fil Sarepta Stone of the Pregnant Woman Tahun ben Aissa Taire Tayibe Tell Aalaq Tell Ablah Tell Addus Tell Ahle Tell Ain Cerif Tell Ain el Meten Tell Ain Ghessali Tell Ain Nfaikh Tell Ain Saouda Tell Ain Sofar Tell Ayoub Tell Bar Elias Tell Beshara Tell Bir Dakoue Tell Deir Tell Delhamieh Tell Derzenoun Tell Dibbine Tell el-Burak Tell El Ghassil Tell El Hadeth Tell Fadous Tell Hazzine Tell Hoch Rafqa Tell Karmita Tell Khardane Tell Kirri Tell Jezireh Tell Jisr Tell Kabb Elias Tell Majdaloun Tell Masoud Tell Mekhada Tell Meouchi Tell Mureibit Tell Murtafa Tell Nahariyah Tell Neba'a Chaate Tell Neba'a Litani Tell Qasr Labwe Tell Rasm El Hadeth Tell Rayak Tell Saatiya Tell Safiyeh Tell Saoudhi Tell Serhan Tell Shaikh Hassan al Rai Tell Shamsine Tell Sultan Yakoub Tell Taalabaya Tell Wardeen Tell Zenoub Tell Zeitoun Temnin el-Foka Temple of Bacchus Temple of Eshmun Tlail megaliths Toron Tripolis (region of Phoenicia) Tyre Necropolis Tyre, Lebanon Wadi Boura Wadi Koura Wadi Yaroun Yammoune Yanta Ain W Zain Zahlé