510 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



At Zarephath we saw the churning of butter in a leather bag full 

 of milk, which is swayed backwards and forwards until it is formed. 



This is the site of Sarepta, where Elijah raised the widow's son 

 to life (I Kings, xvii, 8-24) ; and near here, on the coasts of Tyre 

 and Sidon, our Lord healed the daughter of the Canaanitish woman. 



We next approached Tyre, now called Sur, from which the name 

 of Syria is derived — Syria really meaning the land of the Tyrians 

 or Surians. The origin of Tyre is lost in the mist of centuries, 

 and Isaiah says its "antiquity is of ancient days" (xxiii, 7). Her- 

 odotus states it was founded about 2,300 years before his time, i. e., 

 2750 B. C. William of Tyre declares it was called after the name 

 of its founder, "Tyrus, who was the seventh son of Japhet, the 

 son of Noah." Strabo spoke of it as the most considerable city of 

 all Phoenicia. Sidon was certainly the more ancient city of the 

 two, but Tyre by far the more celebrated and one of the greatest 

 cities of antiquity. It was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar for 30 

 years. The siege of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 B. C. 

 was the most remarkable and disastrous episode in the history of 

 Tyre. The island city held out for seven months, but was finally 

 captured by being united to the mainland by a mole formed of the 

 stones, timber, and rubbish of old Tyre on the shore, which were 

 conveyed into position by the Grecian army. Then the island was 

 made a peninsula, in which form it exists at the present day. This 

 siege was so remarkable a fulfilment of the prophesies of Ezekiel 

 that the words of the Hebrew prophet read more like a history than 

 a prediction. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am 

 against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against 

 thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall 

 destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also 

 scrape her dust from her and make her a bare rock. She shall 

 be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I 

 have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and she shall become a spoil 

 to the nations * * * and they shall make a spoil of thy riches, 

 and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down 

 thy walls and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy 

 stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters" 

 (Ezekiel, xxvi, 3-5, 12). 



In more modern times the city was taken by the Mohammedans, 

 the lives and property of the inhabitants being spared on condition 

 that there should be "no building of new churches, no ringing of 

 bells, no riding on horseback, and no insults to the Moslem religion." 

 Tyre was retaken by the Christians in 1124, but once more fell 

 into Moslem hands at the final collapse of the Crusades in 1291. 

 It was then almost entirely destroyed, and the place has never since 

 recovered, though of late years there have been signs of a slight 



