Αρχαία Ashqelon-Ισραήλ: μια πόλη που είδε όλους τους πολιτισμούς να περνούν και να φεύγουν (αγγλικά)

Γνωρίστε την αρχαία πόλη Ashkelon, στις ακτές του σημερινού Ισραήλ, μέσα απο το παρακάτω άρθρο του National Geographic για τη πόλη. Μια πόλη η οποία γνώρισε όλους τους πολιτισμούς της Μεσογείου και τους είδε να κατρρέουν ο ένας μετά απο τον άλλο και να παραχωρούν τη θέση τους στον επόμενο! Στρατηγικό πέρασμα σε όλες τις εποχές της ιστορίας της ανατολικής Μεσογείου.

Today Ashkelon is a forgotten name outside of Israel, and even there people know it mainly as a beachside city whose national park fills with bathers and picnickers on weekends. But as far back as 3500 b.c. Ashkelon was a major seaport.

Strategically located on the trade routes from Turkey and Syria to Egypt, it witnessed the rise and fall of numerous cultures besides the Canaanite, including Philistine, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader. The biblical Goliath probably walked its streets, as did Richard the Lion-Hearted, Alexander the Great, Herod, and Samson before he met Delilah. It was destroyed in 604 b.c. by the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar and again, for the final time, in a.d. 1270 by the Mamluks, the Islamic dynasty that ruled Egypt at the time.

Buried for centuries beneath its accumulated rubble, covering about 150 acres, Ashkelon has recently been emerging from obscurity. Since 1985 a team of archaeologists led by Lawrence Stager of Harvard University has found a trove of artifacts that reveal details about everything from the burial customs to the sexual practices of the people who lived there.

Alsberg and I meet Stager at grid 50, which fronts the beach. He is a large and cheerful man, and nothing can put fire in his eyes faster than word of a new find. Despite temperatures pushing 100˚F, he charges down the path that over the years his team has excavated through Islamic, Byzantine, and Roman occupations. We descend through layers that contain the foundations of storehouses built between 500 and 350 b.c., during Ashkelon’s Persian–Phoenician period, to hold the town’s abundant imports and exports. Then we pass a group digging out a building from the 13th century b.c., the closing era of Canaanite Ashkelon.

The Canaanites, a people who probably originated in eastern Syria, had begun migrating down the Mediterranean coast about seven centuries earlier. «They came by the boatload,» says Stager. «They had master craftsmen and a clear idea of what they wanted to build—big fortified cities.» …..more

National Geographic