Place names of Palestine

Place names in Palestine have been the subject of much scholarship and contention, particularly in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The significance of place names in Palestine lies in their potential to legitimize the historical claims asserted by the involved parties, all of whom claim priority in chronology, and who use archaeology, map-making, and place names as their proofs.[1]

The importance of toponymy, or geographical naming, was first recognized by the British organization, the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), who mounted geographical map-making expeditions in Palestine in the late 19th century. Shortly thereafter, the British Mandatory authorities set out to gather toponymic information from the local Arab population, who had been proven to have preserved knowledge of the ancient place names which could help identify archaeological sites.[2]

Palestinian place names are generally Arabised forms of ancient Semitic names or newer Arabic language formations,[3] though since the establishment of Israel, many place names have since been Hebraicised or are known officially by their Biblical names.[4] The cultural interchange fostered by the various successive empires to have ruled Palestine is apparent in its place names. Any particular place can be known by the different names used in the past, with each of these corresponding to a historical period.[4] For example, what is today known as Tzippori, was known under Hellenistic rule as Sepphoris, under Roman rule as Diocaesarea, and under Arab and Islamic rule as Saffuriya.

History

The preservation of place names in Palestine "with amazing consistency" is noted by Yohanan Aharoni in The Land of the Bible (1979).[5] He attributes this continuity to the common Semitic background of Palestine's local inhabitants throughout the ages, and the fact that place names tended to reflect extant agricultural features at the site in question.[5] According to Uzi Leibner, this preservation of names is "a function of continuity of settlement at the site itself, or at least in the immediate region," and most of the sites in question were inhabited during the Byzantine and Middle Islamic periods.[6]

The indigenous population of Palestine used Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, Samaritan, Palestinian Syriac, Jewish Aramaic and Arabic, for thousands of years.[7] Almost all place names in Palestine have Semitic roots, with only a few place names being of Latin origin, and hardly any of Greek or Turkish origins.[7] The Semitic roots of the oldest names for places in Palestine continued to be used by the indigenous population, though during the period of classical antiquity in Palestine, many names underwent modifications due to the influence of local ruling elites well versed in Greek and Latin.[4] With the Arab expansion into Palestine, many of the preclassical Semitic names were revived, though often the spelling and pronunciation differed. Of course, for places where the old name had been lost or for new settlements established during this period, new Arabic names were coined.[4]

In his 4th century work, the Onomasticon, Eusebius of Caesarea provides a listing of the place names of Palestine with geographical and historical commentary, and his text was later translated into Latin and edited and corrected by Jerome.[8] Though oft visited by European travellers in the centuries to follow, many of whom composed travel accounts describing its topography and demography, towards the end of Ottoman imperial rule, there was still much confusion over the place names in Palestine.[9] Existing Turkish transliterations of the Arabic and Arabicized names made identification and study into the etymology of the place names even more challenging.[9]

Edward Robinson identified more than 100 biblical place names in Palestine, by pursuing his belief that linguistic analysis of the place names used by the Arab fellahin would reveal preserved traces of their ancient roots.[10][11] The PEF's Names and Places in the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha, with their Modern Identifications (1895) lists more than 1,150 place names related to the Old Testament and 162 related to the New, most of which are located in Palestine.[12] These surveys by Robinson the PEF, and other Western biblical geographers in late 19th and early 20th centuries, also eventually contributed to the shape of the borders delineated for the British Mandate in Palestine, as proposed by the League of Nations.[10]

With the establishment of Israel, in parts of Palestine, many place names have since been Hebraized or are referred to by their revived Biblical names.[4] Even sites with only Arabic names and no pre-existing ancient Hebrew names or associations have been given new Hebrew names.[13]

Roots of place names in Palestine

Agricultural features are common to roots of place names in Palestine. For example, some place names incorporate the Semitic root for "spring" or "cistern", such as Beersheba or Bir as'Saba, ("Be'er" and "Bir" meaning "well" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively) and En Gedi or 'Ayn Jeddi ("En" and "'Ayn" meaning "spring" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively).[14]

Other place names preserve the names of Semitic gods and goddesses from ancient times. For example, the name of the goddess Anat survives in the name of the village of 'Anata, believed to be site of the ancient city of Anathoth.[15]

Evolution of names by place

Use of place names as personal names

Since the exodus of 1948, Arab Palestinians have begun a tradition of naming their daughters after destroyed Arab villages.[31]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kramer and Harman, 2008, pp. 1–2
  2. ↑ Benvenisti and Kaufman-Lacusta, 2000, p. 16.
  3. ↑ Cheyne and Black, 1902, p. 3318.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Miller and Hayes, 1986, p. 29.
  5. 1 2 Cansdale, 1997, p. 111.
  6. ↑ Leibner, 2009, pp. 395–396.
  7. 1 2 Ellenblum, 2003, p. 256.
  8. ↑ Richard, 2003, p. 442.
  9. 1 2 Kramer and Harman, 2008, p. 128.
  10. 1 2 Swedenburg, 2003, p. 49.
  11. ↑ Davis, 2004, p. 6.
  12. ↑ Macalister, 1977, p. 79.
  13. ↑ Swedenburg, 2003, p. 50.
  14. ↑ Rast, 1992, p. 25.
  15. ↑ Hitti, 2002, p. 120.
  16. ↑ Glass, 2005, p. 279.
  17. ↑ Eugenio Alliata (2000-12-19), Bethoron (Bayt Ur), Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, retrieved 2007-09-12
  18. ↑ William Albright (December 1941), "The Egypt-Canaanite God Haurôn", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 84 (84): 7–12, JSTOR 1355138
  19. ↑ John Gray (January 1949), "The Canaanite God Horon", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 8 (1): 27–34, JSTOR 542437, doi:10.1086/370902
  20. ↑ Sharon, 1997, p. 109.
  21. ↑ Robinson and Smith, 1856, p. 67.
  22. ↑ 1911 encyclopedia.org
  23. ↑ Richard, 1921, p. 140.
  24. ↑ Khalidi, 1992, p. 209–210.
  25. ↑ Negev and Gibson, 2005, p. 166.
  26. ↑ Freedman et al., 2006, p. 406.
  27. ↑ Milgrom, 1995, p. 127.
  28. ↑ Bromiley, 1995, p. 1136.
  29. ↑ Robinson and Smith, 1860, p. 253–254.
  30. ↑ Maspero et al., 1900, p. 288.
  31. ↑ Sylomovics, 1998, p. 202.

Bibliography

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  • Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1995), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8028-3782-0 
  • Cansdale, Lena (1997), Qumran and the Essenes: A Re-evaluation of the Evidence, Mohr Siebeck, ISBN 978-3-16-146719-6 
  • Cheyne, Thomas Kelly; Black, John Sutherland (1902), Encyclopædia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religious History, the Archæology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible, Macmillan Company 
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  • Ellenblum, Ronnie (2003), Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-52187-1 
  • Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C.; Beck (2000), Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (Illustrated ed.), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4  |first3= missing |last3= in Authors list (help)
  • Hitti, Philip Khûri (2002), History of Syria: Including Lebanon and Palestine, Gorgias Press LLC, ISBN 978-1-931956-60-4 
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