RUINED CITIES OP PALESTINE — SUTTON 517 



originally a Christian church founded by Justinian in the sixth cen- 

 tury and completed by the Crusaders. It has, however, been con- 

 siderably altered by the Moslems. There are six monuments, said to 

 stand over the spots where the tombs of the six male and female 

 patriarchs are located in the cave below. The Crusaders, impressed 

 by the veneration accorded to the Cave of Machpelah by the Arabs, 

 who claim to be the sons of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, 

 called the place the Castle of St. Abraham. 



Hebron was at one time the capital of King David. He made it 

 the base of his operations against Jerusalem, which in turn became 

 his royal city. Absalom made it the headquarters of the unsuccess- 

 ful rebellion against his father. Hebron lost importance after the 

 Captivity, and in the time of the Romans it was hardly reckoned 

 as being a Jewish town. The large square stone reservoir, now called 

 the «*' Sultan's Reservoir," is the Pool of Hebron, where Rechab and 

 Baanah, the murderers of Ishbosheth, were hanged by David (II 

 Samuel, iv, 12) . There is little else to see in Hebron, with the excep- 

 tion of the glassworks. 



Beit-Jibrin (House of Gabriel) was in the much contested border- 

 land between the Hebrews and the Philistines. It was known to 

 the Israelites as Mareshah and was fortified by Rehoboam, who 

 " built cities for defense, Gath and Mareshah " (II Chronicles, xi, 8) : 



This district was at some time inhabited by people who devoted 

 an almost incalculable amount of time and trouble to the forma- 

 tion of great artificial caves. The result of this energy is concen- 

 trated as in a nucleus in the immediate neighborhood of Beit- 

 Jibrin. It is difficult to give an account of the principal excava- 

 tions of this type without appearing to use the language of exag- 

 geration. Except for their immense size, the Beit-Jibrin caves are 

 of comparatively small interest. Prof. G. A. Smith (see his en- 

 trancing volume on the Historical Geography of the Holy Land) 

 and others' adopted the view that the caves as we see them are the 

 work of the early Christian inhabitants of Palestine, because of 

 the destruction of Jewish tombs in the course of cutting out the 

 caves, the various Kufic and Christian inscriptions' on the walls, 

 etc. It was the seat of a Christian bishop as early as the fourth 

 century. The Crusaders, who were powerfully established at Beit- 

 Jibrin, which they called Gibelin, beautified one cave by a hand- 

 some Romanesque doorway. 



To sum up the subject of the " Riddle of the Caves " in the dis- 

 trict round Beit-Jibrin, there is an innumerable number of artificial 

 caves. The date of a few of these is later than the Jewish period; 

 a few others are demonstrably earlier than the end of the Jewish 



