CHAPTER VII

ROADS AND AGRICULTURE

ROADS: Early paths. Roman roads. AGRICULTURE: Granaries. Hoes and plows. Sickles. Threshing. Winnowing. Grinding. Mortars. Fruits. Vineyards and wine-vats. Olive-presses. The agricultural calendar. Domestic animals. Bees. Birds. Hens.

1. Roads. From the time cities were established in Palestine there was more or less communication between them. Probably in a small way commerce was carried on among some of them, but no effort was made to construct roads, in the modern sense of the term, until the Roman period.

(1) Early Paths. Before that time all traveling was done on foot or on the backs of donkeys and camels, and for such travel a simple foot-path, made by continuous use, was all that was considered necessary. The roads constructed by the Romans have long since fallen into a state of utter disrepair, so that, with the exception of two or three roads that have been built in recent years, the simple, rough foot-paths that have existed from time immemorial still suffice for Palestinian travel. These paths are often exceedingly rough. They were never surveyed and never repaired. They were simply devoted to public use by immemorial custom. If a landowner wished to raise grain in a field through which one of these paths ran, he plowed up to the very edge of the narrow path and put in his seed. There were neither fences nor ditches to separate the road from the field. Fields traversed by such roads are still very common in Palestine. It was along such a road that Jesus and the disciples were traveling when they plucked the ears of wheat on the Sabbath (Matt. 12: 1; Mark 2 : 23; Luke 61). It was such a road to which Jesus alluded in the Parable of the Sower: "Some seed fell by the wayside" (Matt. 13:4; Mark 4:4; Luke 8:5). A rough path is shown in Fig. 67.

(2) Roman Roads.-After Palestine passed under the sway of Rome in 63 B. C. a system of roads was built to connect the most important places. We have no definite information about these

from a source earlier than the Onomasticon of Eusebius,' which was compiled before 340 A. D., but in all probability those on the west of the Jordan were constructed before the time of Christ. There were three main roads in this part of Palestine.2 One ran down the sea-coast. Starting at Sidon, it passed southward through Tyre, Sarepta (Zarephath, 1 Kings 17:10; Luke 4:26), Ptolemais (Accho), Dor, Cæsarea, Joppa, Lydda, Azotus (Ashdod), and Askelon to Gaza. A branch road ran eastward from Tyre over the hills of Galilee through Kedesh in Naphtali (Josh. 12:22; 20: 7; Judges 46), to Cæsarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13; Mark 8:27), which was near the ancient Dan (Judges 18:29).

From Cæsarea, on the sea-coast south of Dor, another branch road ran southeastward through the valley of Aijalon up to the site of Gibeah of Saul (1 Sam. 10: 26; 11: 4, etc.), where it joined the road along the central ridge of the country; (see Fig. 68).

Starting from Damascus another road ran southward to Hyppos, one of the cities of the Decapolis, which lay southeast of the Sea of Galilee, crossed the Jordan on a bridge below the Sea of Galilee (shown in Fig. 289), passed through Scythopolis, the Beth-shean of the Old Testament (Josh. 17:11; 1 Sam. 31 : 10), through Sychar (John 4: 5), then southward along the central ridge of the country, through Bethel and Ramah to Jerusalem. South of Jerusalem it was continued to Bethlehem and Hebron. Four miles north of Jerusalem it was joined by the road from Cæsarea, so that travelers from the coast and from the north entered Jerusalem over the same road. One can in many places still trace the lines of Roman paving-stones which mark their courses. Thus the juncture of the two roads just mentioned is still visible, and one may stand on the hillside and feel sure that he is looking at the very way over which Paul was taken to Cæsarea by the Roman soldiers. the night after his arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 23: 23, 24).

From Scythopolis (Beth-shean) another road ran southward through the Jordan valley to Jericho. This was probably continued to Jerusalem. From Sebaste (Samaria) another road ran northwestward through Dothan (Gen. 37: 17; 2 Kings 6:13), to Taanach, Megiddo, and the coast.

After Trajan overthrew the kingdom of the Nabathæans, in 106

1 See p. 85.

* See Thomsen in Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, XXVI, 170, ff.

See Chapter XIV.

A. D., he built a road on the east of the Jordan, southward from Damascus to the Red Sea. The Roman government kept these roads in good order. They marked the distances by milestones, some of which have survived to modern times; (Figs. 69, 71).

2. Agriculture was the chief occupation of the inhabitants of Palestine. The cities were throughout its history simply the walled residences of farmers. Such trade as developed at different periods was always subordinate to agricultural pursuits. We cannot expect exploration to furnish us with a complete view of ancient Palestinian agriculture, but such glimpses as it does afford us are most illuminating.

(1) Granaries. In the excavation of Gezer1 it was found that granaries formed an important class of buildings. Some of these were connected with private houses and evidently belonged to individuals, but some of them were so large and so much grain was found in them that it was rightly held that they must have been public granaries. Some of these buildings had been destroyed by fire, and the charred grain, retaining its original shape, was easily recognized. Most of the granaries were circular structures, such as are seen today dotting the fields of the maritime plain of Palestine. They varied greatly in size. One was but 2 feet 8 inches in diameter; another was 4 feet 9 inches across and 6 feet 9 inches deep. One granary from the second Semitic stratum (17001350 B. c.) was connected with a house, and contained several kinds of grain, each stored in a separate chamber; (Figs. 70, 72).

From such receptacles wheat, barley, oats, and beans were recovered, as well as three varieties of vetch, one of which was probably the "lentils" of Gen. 25 : 34; 2 Sam. 17: 28; 23: 11; and Ezek. 4:9. Barley is often mentioned in the Bible; the wheat is usually there called "corn." Piles of straw and chaff, such as the modern Palestinians call tibn, were also found.

(2) Hoes and Plows.-Naturally, the implements with which the grain was cultivated have nearly all perished. In the first place the ground had to be broken and prepared to receive the seed. Remains of two different kinds of hoes were found at Gezer, though the preparation of a sufficiently large area of ground to bear grain to support cities cannot have been made with such instruments; (see Fig. 73). From an early time the plow, which is frequently mentioned in the Bible (see, for example, 1 Kings 19 :

1 See Macalister, Excavation of Gezer, I, 199, f; II, 22, ff.

19), was in use in Palestine. A number of plowshares were found at Megiddo in the ruins of a blacksmith's shop, and a diamondshaped iron ring, from Gezer, may have been used to attach oxen to a plow, and the points of several ox-goads were found. The oxgoad consisted, as it does today, of a long stick into the end of which a sharp iron point was fixed. It is alluded to in Acts 26: 14. As this goad was used in driving the oxen in plowing, it indicates that plows were used. These plows were probably similar to those used at the time in Egypt; (see Figs. 76, 77).

(3) Sickles. When the grain was ripe it was reaped with a sickle (Deut. 16:9; Jer. 50:16; Joel 3:13). In the earlier periods these were of flint; later they were made of bronze, and iron. Sickles of metal are, however, rarely found. They were expensive, while flint was abundant and cheap. Flint sickleteeth were numerous, therefore, in all periods. The earliest sickles were flints set in an animal's jaw-bone, or in a curved piece of wood similar to the Egyptian sickle shown in Figs. 74, 75.

(4) Threshing. After the grain was cut it was taken to the threshing-floor to be threshed. These floors were often a comparatively level portion of rock which formed a part of a high place or sanctuary. Such was the threshing-floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, in 2 Sam. 24: 18. It took several days to complete a threshing, and as no one would think of stealing from a sacred place, the whole community was protected by doing the threshing in its precincts. Sometimes the cattle were driven about over the grain, as in ancient Egypt (see Fig. 79), and as is done. in modern Palestine still; (see Fig. 78). This is the kind of threshing contemplated in Deut. 25: 4. At other times a kind of sledge drawn by cattle was driven about over the grain. Ornan (Araunah) was threshing with such an instrument (1 Chron. 21:23; 2 Sam. 24 : 22), and allusion is made to one in Isa. 41 : 15; (see Fig. 80).

(5) Winnowing.-The grain was winnowed or cleansed of chaff by being thrown up, as in Fig. 79. As it fell the wind blew the chaff away. It is this process that John the Baptist used as an illustration of the purging work of Christ (Matt. 3: 12; Luke 3:17).

(6) Grinding. When the grain was cut, threshed, and winnowed, there were no mills to which it could be taken for grinding. This process had to be done in each home, and the labor of doing it fell to the women of the household. (See Exod. 11:5; Matt.

2441) Grain was reduced to flour either by rubbing or by pounding. The process of rubbing or grinding was accomplished either by a flat saddle-shaped stone over which another was rubbed (see Figs. 81, 84), or by crushing between two stones, the top one of which was revolved somewhat as a modern millstone (Fig. 82). It required two women, as Jesus said, to grind at such a millone to feed it, while the other manipulated the rubbing stone. Such stones were made of hard igneous rock procured from the region east of the Sea of Galilee, and are called "querns." In the different periods of the history of Palestine they varied in size and shape, becoming round in the Seleucid period (323-63 B. c.). The upper stone was apparently rotated by twisting the wrist. It could be thus turned half-way round and then back again. No round millstones, with the topmost of the pair perforated, as in the modern millstone, were found before the Arabic period, 637 A. D. Pictures of modern Syrian women turning this. perforated type of millstone do not, therefore, really illustrate, as is often assumed, the women of the Bible as. they ground at the mill.

Probably the millstone which crushed the head. of Abimelech at Thebez (Judges 9:53) was the upper stone of a "saddle quern." The importance of these millstones is recognized in Deut. 24: 6, which prohibits the taking of a mill or the upper millstone of a poor man as security, on the ground that that was the same as taking a man's life as security. The lower millstone was always made of the harder stone. Because of this and of. the grinding and pounding to which it was subjected it became a symbol of firmness (Job 41: 24).

(7) Mortars. Apparently the grain was also frequently crushed by pounding it with a pestle in a mortar. So many of these made of stone were found at Gezer that it is thought that these may have been used more often than the millstones; (see Fig. 83).

(8) Fruits. In the course of the excavation of Gezer dried figs, grapes, pomegranates, and olives were found. All of these are mentioned in the Bible, as, for example, in Cant. 2: 13; Rev. 6: 13; Gen. 4011; Num. 13:23; Micah 6:15. In one trench what appeared to be a pile of charred pistachio nuts was found. Acorns, terebinth, and apricot seeds were also discovered. Of these fruits, those which left the most archæological evidence of their existence

1 See Macalister, Excavation of Gezer, II, 22, f.