Rehav Rubin

Water conservation methods in Israel's Negev desert in late antiquity

Settlement in Israels Negev desert historically has been dependent on water conservation techniques. Fieldwork carried out on settlement sites constructed during the Byzantine period, when agriculture and trade flourished, revealed a variety of water installations some of which are in use today. Perennial springs in the Negev are generally small and difficult of access. Cisterns were the most common conservation devices and came in both large, enclosed and single, open forms. Cisterns were common particularly in the towns, where they were usually built as part of house foundations. Dams were discovered at several sites but proved to be inefficient and easily abandoned because of evaporation and siltation problems. Public reservoirs were part of the structure of the largest towns and were open and among the larges structures uncovered at settlement sites. Wells were distributed widely throughout the desert and were part of the only conservation system that did not depend directly on surface rainfall. A qanat system was located in the eastern Negev dating from the late settlement period before the area was abandoned at the turn of the eighth century. These various water systems raise questions about their builders and their origins, and suggests that builders originating in more humid Mediterranean environments tended to produce less adaptable installations than builders derived from the south or the east.

The Melagria: On Anchorites and Edible Roots in Judaean Desert

During the Byzantine period the desert of Jerusalem, known today as Judaean Desert, was flourished with a large monastic activity. Most of the monasteries belonged to the Laura type, in which monks live in solitude most of the time, and get together during Saturday and Sunday. They often went during the forty days of lent into the remote parts of the desert and lived there on the natural vegetation, eating edible plants and roots. Such events were mentioned in hagiographic sources, describing various kinds of natural edible plants. The paper focuses on one of these plants - The Melagria - and suggests to identify it with the Asphodel, which is spread over most of the region in large quantities.

Sacred Words and Worlds: Geography, Religion and Scholarship, 1550–1700. By Zur Shalev

Chrysoloras, who had been invited to teach the Greek language in Florence, had brought a Greek manuscript of the Geography with him when he left Constantinople—a city threatened by the Ottomans. The translation of the Geography into Latin, completed by Jacopo Angeli between 1406 and 1409, circulated in manuscript. It was printed for the first time in 1475 at Vicenza, then at Bologna (1477), Rome (1478) and Ulm (1482 and 1486): the Latin version of the Geography enjoyed an uncommon popularity, whether printed or in themanuscripts, adorned with beautiful maps. The twelve contributions published here by eminent scholars working in various countries are intended to spread new light on the reception of Ptolemy’s Geography during the Renaissance. Zur Shalev, fromHaifa, sums up the ‘Main Themes in the Study of Ptolemy’s Geography in the Renaissance’; thus, he offers a broad survey of the essays that follow. Alexander Jones (New York), who collaborated with J. L. Berggren on Ptolemy’s Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (2000), uses a few maps of Crete drawn according to coordinates found in somemanuscripts or editions in order to assert ‘Ptolemy’s Geography: A Reform that Failed’. Since Jacopo Angeli had called his Latin translation Cosmographia, Dario Tessicini (Durham University) presents ‘Definitions of Cosmography and Geography in the Wake of Fifteenthand SixteenthCentury Translations and Editions of Ptolemy’s Geography’; he shows how considerations about the status of cosmography, geography and chorography can be found, in particular, in Peter Apian’s Cosmographicus Liber, published in 1524. Angelo Cattaneo (Lisbon) considers ‘Map Projections and Perspective in the Renaissance’. In his opinion, Alberti’s De Pictura helped readers understand the map projections described by Ptolemy. Regiomontanus, Leonardo da Vinci, Francesco Berlinghieri and Albrecht Dürer also grasped the meaning of the so-called third projection (the oecumene inside an armillary sphere). For Mario Carpo (Atlanta), the brief Latin text, Descriptio urbis Romae, appended by Alberti to his plan of Rome, is a deliberate revival of Ptolemy’s cartographic methods. Benjamin Weiss (Boston) accounts for the various editions of the Geography printed between 1475 and 1530. George Tolias (Greece), in ‘Ptolemy’s Geography and Early Modern Antiquarian Practices’, considers Petrarch and Boccaccio as the pioneers of the humanists’ interest in comparative geography and cartography, including the knowledge of places ancient and modern. AlfredHiatt (London) reveals the ideological background of the 1513 Strasbourg Ptolemy, elaborated in the Saint Dié gymnasium with a true Germanist orientation: it claimed the west of the Rhine for a revived German empire. Margaret Small (Birmingham) deals with ‘Warring Traditions: Ptolemy and Strabo in the Geography of Sebastian Münster’: in 1544, the German humanist produced the first edition of Cosmographical Universalis Libri VI, which met with great success. Although Ptolemy is frequently quoted, Strabo’s human geography seemed a more useful source for a new geography. Alessandro Scafi (London), an expert on the cartography of the earthly paradise, describes ‘After Ptolemy; The Mapping of Eden’: the map in Calvin’s Commentary on Genesis (Geneva, 1553), combined Ptolemaic Renaissance mapping with Calvin’s theological theories. In ‘Ptolemy at Work: The Role of the Geography in Geography and Mathematics Teaching in Early Modern England’, Lesley B. Cormack (Alberta) shows how six English geographers, whose works were published between 1556 and 1625, used Ptolemy’s Geography in their lectures and editions; the possible exception might be Robert Recorde, whose The Castle of Knowledge (1556) dealt more with cosmography than geography. The Cosmographical Glasse (1559) by William Cuningham was, partly, a modern interpretation of Ptolemy’s methods and mapping. A useful Appendix gives, in Latin and English, ‘Jacopo Angeli’s Introduction to his Latin Translation of the Geography’. A general index of various fascinating approaches to the reception of Ptolemy’s Geography during the Renaissance concludes this interesting review. Such a brief survey of the essays presented during the colloquium falls short of the amazing richness and originality of these contributions. A selective bibliography, at the end of the volume, would have been most welcome.

A Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Map from Mantua

ABSTRACT A unique Hebrew map of the Exodus and the Holy Land was printed in Mantua, Italy, in the mid-sixteenth century. This map is graphically and artistically different from all other Hebrew maps, both earlier and later. The aim here is to analyze the map and the text that is printed on it, explore the reasons for, and the context of, its printing, and identify its sources within contemporary Jewish scholarship and Christian cartography. The only known exemplar of this map is in the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich, Switzerland.

Relief Maps and Models in the Archives of The Palestine Exploration Fund in London

Abstract The primary objective of the article is to present the relief maps and models of Palestine, Jerusalem and some historical monuments, which are kept in the PEF Archives in London. We will describe each of these objects, try to identify its date, maker, and circumstances of its making. We will present them according to the site represented in them, but suggest also classifying them as (a) artifacts brought as souvenirs from Jerusalem; (b) models and relief maps created by the Fund and its members as a product of their scientific endeavours; and (c) models and relief maps created by scholars who were not directly connected with the PEF.

Burke O. Long. Imagining the Holy Land: Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. xi, 258 pp.

Many of the pioneers and settlers who came to America held the Bible in their right hands and were strongly inspired by this “Good Book.” They believed they had come to the “New Promised Land,” and consequently gave Biblical names to the new towns and villages, as well as to their children. It was, therefore, almost natural that the remote land in the east, known as the Holy Land, Palestine, the Promised Land, or The Land of Israel, had, and probably still has, a very special place in American culture and society.