Another Myth About Jerusalem Becomes Archaeological Fact

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

The Siege of Jerusalem by Crusaders

There were 9 European led-Crusades against Jerusalem
over almost 200 years who tried to take the Holy
Land from the Muslims who held it. 

 The Romans may have destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE by burning it down along with the 2nd Temple of Solomon, but they didn't hold it for very long.  920 years ago in the year of 1099 (11th century), the Christian Crusaders had their own attack on the city held by Muslims;  a siege. Their Crusade started in 1096.   It turned into a 5 week battle for Jerusalem between Crusader armies and the Fatimid Caliphate that controlled the region in 1099 CE.  The battle came to a head in July 15th of 1099 with Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, France, one of the leaders of the 1st Crusade, attacking the city from the south, while another Christian force built a tower to breach the city walls from the north.  The siege succeeded but the tower was burnt down.  After the northern force conquered the city, Crusaders spent a week slaughtering Muslim and Jewish residents of the city.    Their Crusades were most always bloody, killing those in their way.  For example, one episode was a Crusaders on horseback breaking into a rabbi's home and slaughtering the wife and children of the rabbi with his sword.  

After capturing Jerusalem in 1099, the leaders of the crusade divided the territories among themselves. They created the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli and County of Edessa and established themselves as the rulers of the newly formed crusader states in the Holy Land.
                                                    

From Crusader to King-Baldwin I of Jerusalem

Raymond of Aguilers wrote a contemporary account of the battle, described a moat built by the Muslims to stop attackers to the south end.  He had promised golden dinars to all Crusaders who would help fill the ditch so he could build a strong siege tower against the wall.  Archaeologists of the past could not find the moat, chalking up the writing to a myth.  
                                                       

Jerusalem, a walled city still standing around old section

This batch of archaeologists led by Gibson, realized they had uncovered the moat!  He had noticed that dirt layers were not sloping away from the city wall, but towards it, like a ditch that had been filled in.  

The Mount Zion Archaeological Project, an effort of joint international archaeologists led by Professor Shimon Gibson and Professor James Tabor of the U. of North Caroline in Charlotte along with Rafi Lewis of Israel's Ashkelon Academic College.  

Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland surrounded by a Moat
built in 13th Century-sieged by the English in the 17th century

                                                          

Crusader-King Baldwin III of Jerusalem
Baldwin III was King of Jerusalem from 1143 to 1163. He was the eldest son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem

During his reign Jerusalem became more closely allied with the Byzantine Empire, and the Second Crusade tried and failed to conquer Damascus. Baldwin captured the important Egyptian fortress of Ascalon(today's Ashkelon), but also had to deal with the increasing power of Nur ad-Din in Syria. He died childless and was succeeded by his brother Amalric.
They all wanted a piece of the pie (Jerusalem).  

Baldwin III was born in 1130, during the reign of his maternal grandfather Baldwin II, one of the original crusaders. This made him the third generation to rule Jerusalem. Baldwin's mother Princess Melisende was heiress to her father, Baldwin II King of Jerusalem. Baldwin III's father was Fulk of Anjou, the former Count of Anjou. King Baldwin II died at the age of 60 when his grandson was a year old, which led to a power struggle between Melisende and Fulk. Melisende asserted her right to rule as successor to her father, and Melisende and Fulk reconciled and conceived a second child, Baldwin III's brother Amalric. Baldwin III was 13 years old when his father Fulk died in a hunting accident in 1143, and Baldwin III was crowned as co-ruler alongside his mother, echoing Melisende's own crowning alongside her father as his heir. Yet Baldwin showed little interest in the intricacies of governance.^[

The were excavating a site that was part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park where they had found a 1st century Jewish mansion and a rare gold coin stamped with the face of Nero, the Roman Emperor.  Finding the moat is another example of history coming true with scientific proof.  Myths can hold facts.  These archaeologists worked on this site for over 5 years, mapping and dating the layers and artifacts they have turned up.  They have uncovered a 13 foot-deep, 56 foot-wide moat.  A black layer was on top of the moat and believe to be evidence of the 1153 Civil War between Crusader King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and his mother, Queen Melisende.  Many scholars who believed the moat story to be a fable will now have to eat crow.  

Resource:  The Jewish Press, Friday, July  19, 2019. www.jewishpress.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_III_of_Jerusalem
https://historylists.org/events/9-crusades-into-the-holy-land.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_of_Aguilers

The Epic That Is Israel

The Epic of Jews in the Promised Land goes back 3,700 years.  

Nadene Goldfoot
Not many states have been created because of a directive from the Bible, but Israel was. In his last years as a leader Moses (born 1400 BCE)  had entered Canaan and with the younger generation fought the Amorites, Moabites, Midianites and Bashan who were in what would be Transjordan.   Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim and the 600,000 entered the Promised Land when Moses could no longer continue on the 40 year Exodus trek, dying at age120. Joshua captured what would be most of the the Land of Israel.   Jews, given monotheism and the laws to be a Holy nation and a model for others by him,  settled and cities grew.

Jerusalem was the capital of Israel sitting in the center of the Judean Mountains.  Joshua's conquest was 1320 BCE and the king of Jerusalem was Adoni-Zedek who was defeated,  but the city remained as an independent town  between the tribal areas of Benjamin and Judah.  King David captured it in 1010 BCE, dealing leniently with the Jebusites while adding to the city.  It became the religious center of Israel and the capital of his empire that reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.  Solomon, his son, (970-930 BCE) enlarged the city.  He built the Temple.  Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah and of the Davidic dynasty.

After the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans, many of the wealthier Jews of leadership were taken away as slaves, but still many remained.  Their national language of Hebrew continued.  They maintained their own unique civilization with their special laws.  Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the 9th century.

 In the 11th Century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.  However, along came the Crusaders starting in 1096-9 bringing war led by Christian rulers to take back Palestine from the Moslems and massacred many Jews. In their zeal they slaughtered Jews in N. France and in the Rhineland, Prague and Salonica, capturing Jerusalem in 1099. During the 12th century  of 1147 the 2nd Crusade began again, .A 3rd Crusade of 1189-92 brought in England who attacked Jews in York, England. 1320 saw another attack in France and Spain. Though dangerous to live anywhere, it seems that Palestine was the safest place to be in those days.  Jews were not safe outside of their own land.    


  The Palestine communities rebounded in the 13th and 14th centuries.  Many rabbis and Jewish pioneers immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee.  Famous rabbis started communities Safed, Jerusalem and other places during the next 300 years.  

By the early 19th century, before the birth of the modern Zionist movement, more than 10,000 Jews lived in what is today-Israel.  We've had 78 years of nation-building which began in 1870.  The end goal was the reestablishment of the Jewish state which came to fruition May 14, 1948.

The Balfour Declaration was the promise of the Jewish Homeland through the British who had the mandate after the World War I in 1917.  This was the international clincher to be a nation again among nations. 

                                                             Ashkelon 2012

The League of Nations Mandate gave Britain the responsibility to carry out the decisions to fullfill the Balfour Declaration, but they managed to give away most of the land to the Arabs and saved but a sliver for the Homeland.

The UN partition resolution  of 1947 was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs that would have given the Arabs most of the land for a state of their own.  Already a huge chunk of the land had been given over to Arabs who created Transjordan-called Jordan today. Israel was announced as a state May 14, 1948 and the next day was attacked by all the surrounding Arabs.   Israel was admitted  to the UN in 1949.

Resource: Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshe.htm  Judaism 101
http://www.jnf.org/assets/pdf/gibborim_timeline.pdf

Foreign Rulers of Palestine 70 to 1948 CE: 1878 Years

Nadene Goldfoot
Palestine, named by the Romans,  was ruled by foreign governments but never by the people that lived in it. 

Romans ruled from 70 CE to 395 and had changed the name to obliterate the Jewish identity of the land.  They are the ones who changed the name from Judaea to Palaestina for the long vanished Philistines, who were an aegean people.  Jerusalem's name was changed to Aelia Capitolina.  A large Jewish community was in the Galilee, on the coastal plain and in Judaea.  The Talmud was written in this period and there were more than 400 Jewish villages, etc.  The Mishnah was finished in the 2nd century and the Jerusalem Talmud finished between the 4th and 5th centuries. 

The Byzantines (Eastern Roman Empire)  took over from 395 to 636. Jews became a minority and Christians a majority with languages spoken of Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.  Arabs then ruled from 636 to 1072 with Arabization and Islamization happening.  The majority of the population converted to Islam and spoke Arabic then.  Arab tribes immigrated mainly from Egypt and Arabia  which continued.  The Seljuk's (Turks) from 1072 to 1099.  The land had been divided by the Arabs into 2 military districts on both sides of the river Jordan.  One was called Filastin (Palestine) and the other Urdun (Jordan).  The Arabs built Ramla, the only town founded by them in the land.  It was an administrative center.  

The Christian Crusaders' ruled from 1099 to 1291 and named the land the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Their number never exceeded 30,000 and did not change the population's character.   Then the Mamluks (Rulers of Syria and Egypt) ruled from 1291 to 1516 and destroyed most of the cities and villages on the coast.  They were trying to deter foreign invasion.  It remained empty until Jews came back.  They divided the land into 3 separately administered districts or Mamlaka.  They were Safad, Gaza and Damascus.  They had no name for the land as a whole. 

Finally, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)  took over from 1516 to 1917 an the land was also divided into administered districts of Sanjaks and Vilayets.  They also had no special name for the land as a whole.  That had really been unimportant anyway as there hadn't been hardly any Arabs living there anyway to call it by name.  There were only poor Jews who lived there near the synsagogues. They had brought insecurity and uncertainty and oppression.  Marauding Beduin tribes wandered about.  Villages were reduced by half between the 16th and 19th century.  By the 2nd half of the 19th Centery, both Arabs and Jews grew in number.  By 1914 the population was estimated at 680,000 of whom 85,000 were Jews. 

The British were given the Mandate after the WWI so ruled from 1918 to 1948, when Israel then was pronounced a state.  They renamed the land Palestine.  The mandate extended to both sides of the river Jordan.  In 1922, Britain partitioned the Mandated territory into Palestine which was west of the Jordan and Transjordan which was east of the Jordan.

Resource: Facts About Israel from Ministry for foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuk
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Mamluk+dynasty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire