The ruins of the City are about two miles in circuit. It is a new singularity 
in the history of Eastern conquest, that arms should assist the researches of taste, 
or the studies of the antiquarian; and it is to Ibrahim Pasha that we owe the chief 
indulgence which Askelon now offers to European curiosity. For the purpose of 
building a military station or city on this important site, he ordered the ground to 
be extensively cleared, and the result was the discovery of several magnificent ruins, 
and among the rest the ground-plan of a Temple, of which some columns remain, 
each of a single piece of granite, with an entablature, and capitals of marble finely 
executed in the Corinthian order. Another discovery was the site of a Christian 
Church, of which the pavement and the bases of the columns have been preserved. 
The capitals of the remaining columns are well 'executed, and upon them is represented 
a cross, encircled with a laurel-wreath. 1 
1 Roberts's Journal. 
ASHDOD. 
A siiDOT) of the Old Testament, Azotus of the New, and Asdood of the present day, 
stands about ten miles from Jaffa. It is now but a wretched village, though its 
position in the midst of a fertile country, and commanding a portion of the route 
along the coast, may yet restore it to some share of its early importance. 1 
In the Jewish annals it is distinguished as one of the Five chief cities of the 
Philistines, and still more as the scene of one of those great miracles by which the 
God of the chosen people vindicated his worship, even in the midst of Jewish ruin. 
Ashdod was the City to which the captive Ark was brought, after the decisive defeat 
of the Israelite army, under the government of the feeble Eli. The victors deposited 
their splendid trophy in the temple of Dagon. When they opened the temple, on 
the next morning, the Idol was found prostrate before the Ark. It was replaced 
on its altar. On the next morning, it was found not merely prostrate, but with 
its head and hands cut off, and flung upon the threshold. Suspicious as the priests 
of Paganism must always have been of the imposture in which they were such adepts, 
they were so fully convinced that the act was Divine, that thenceforth they regarded 
the threshold as disastrous, or unhallowed, and neither priest nor worshipper ever 
after dared to tread upon the spot. But the conviction was to extend beyond the 
priesthood; it fell upon the people, in the shape of an agonizing disease, under whose 
terrors they, in a body, besought that the Ark might be sent away. It was sent 
successively to Gath and Ekron, followed in each instance by the disease; until it 
was finally restored to Israel by the voice of the nation shrinking under Divine wrath, 
and doing reluctant homage to Divine power. 2 
1 Roberts’s Journal. Biblical Researches, ii. 368. Kinnear, 214. 
1 Samuel, v. 1, &c. 
