Prehistoric Galilee

Antiquity ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Turville Petre

The district with which we are concerned constitutes the northern section of Galilee between the Nahr-el-Kasmiyeh and the Merj Ayun to the north, and the plains of Haifa and Asochis (Sahel-el-Buttauf) and the Wadi Hammam to the south; to the east and west its boundaries are respectively the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The greater part of the region is occupied by a central limestone massif, the Galilean highlands, which rise in a series of terraces from the Jordan valley to a height of nearly 4000 feet above sea level, and then descend steeply to the Mediterranean coastal plain. Much of this country, especially on the western side of the watershed, is barren and uncultivable, but the high central plateau in the north from Yarun to Tibnin and the lower plateaux of Kades and Safsaf include some of the most productive corn-growing districts west of the Jordan. The beds of the larger valleys also, which even in summer are not entirely waterless, provide fertile garden land and are mostly highly cultivated. The more rocky parts of the region provide scant pasturage for flocks of goats, and in most places the olive is cultivated to a limited extent.

1915 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 554-565
Author(s):  
C. S. Du Riche Preller

The range of the Apuan Alps, commonly called the Carrara Mountains, is an offshoot of the Apennines, trending N.N.W. to S.S.E., parallel to the Mediterranean littoral, from which it rises within a distance of barely four miles to a maximum height of 6,000 feet above sea-level. Exclusive of the outer belt of the more recent strata, the Triassic formation, within which the saccharoidal marble beds are situated, covers about 25 by 13 kilometres or about 130 square miles, of which the marble zone proper represents 64 square miles or about half. The range is bounded on the north by the Aullela valley in the Lunigiana district; on the east by the Serchio valley in the Garfagnana district; and on the south by the Serchio valley in the Province of Lucca. The marble district, whose western part faces the Mediterranean, comprises the three divisions of Carrara, Massa, and the Versilia in the corresponding parallel valleys of the Carrione, Frigido, and Serravezza Rivers. The Versilia division, which forms part of the Province of Lucca, is composed of the Seravezza, Stazzema, and Arni subdivisions, of which the last-named lies on the eastern watershed of the Apuan range. The Versilia division also includes Pietrasanta, Camajore, Massarosa, and the wellknown watering-place of Viareggio, near the last-named of which are situated extensive subaqueous deposits of a peculiarly coarse-grained, sharp macigno sand. These deposits, formed as a delta in a lacustrine expanse by the River Serchio, constitute an important and indispensable adjunct of the marble industry as grinding material for the numerous marble saw-mills in the three parallel valleys already referred to.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margalit Finkelberg

AbstractUntil recently it has generally been taken for granted that cultural contacts between the Aegean and the Near East invariably proceeded in one direction, from East to West. It seems, however, that recent archaeological discoveries are about to change this picture. As these discoveries demonstrate, with the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization some Bronze Age populations of Greece migrated to the Levant and settled along the Mediterranean coast from Tarsos in the north to Ashkelon in the south, eventually to be assimilated into the native population. This fact suggests a much more complex network of relations between the Aegean and the Near East than the simple one-sided cultural dependence which has usually been postulated.


1904 ◽  
Vol 1 (12) ◽  
pp. 575-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. G. Bonney

That broad trench through the Palestine Highlands, an ancient highway and battlefield of nations—the plain of Esdraelon or the valley of Megiddo, together with the plain of Acre—has for long presented to me a difficult problem in Physical Geology, for it seemed inexplicable by subaerial denudation under existing conditions. Its floor varies roughly from five to eight miles in breadth; running approximately from south-east to north-west, it is bounded on the more western side by the limestone mountains of Samaria and on the more eastern by those of Galilee. The former descend from the ridge of Carmel (1,742 feet at highest) with a fairly steep escarpment, which becomes a little less regular as we follow it to the bastion-mass of Mount Gilboa; the latter correspond in their general outlines with those of the eastern portion of Samaria, but the advance of a lower spur towards the south-west divides the plain of Esdraelon from that of Acre, by a kind of strait in which, so far as I could see, there is but little level ground on either side of the Kishon. This spur, however, of the northern hills, hardly does more than interrupt the floor of the Kishon valley, for above it the great trench is continued between two hill masses, much of these ranging from thirteen to sixteen hundred feet above sea-level. Beyond the strait the upper basin (plain of Esdraelon) quickly broadens out, extending towards the south-east for about fifteen or sixteen miles, where it is divided into two arms by Jebel Duhy (Little Hermon) (1,690 feet), which is thus isolated from Tabor (1,846 feet) on the north, and from Gilboa (1,698 feet) on the south; a broad, rather shallow, grassy valley descending from the last-named mass to lose itself in the plain.


1953 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Olwen Brogan ◽  
David Oates

Gasr el-Gezira stands on high ground about one kilometre south of the edge of the escarpment overlooking Wadi el-Matmùra where it debouches on to the Gefara, the coastal plain of Tripolitania, and about four kilometres due north of kilometre-stone 166 on the Jefren—Giado road. The escarpment in the neighbourhood is over 400 metres high, and the building stands at a height of 745 metres above sea-level, on the watershed between the wadis running down to the Gefara and those feeding the affluents of the Upper Sofeggin system to the south.The building is surrounded by scattered troglodyte dwellings and sparse olive groves, interspersed with fig gardens and more open land used for cereal cultivation. The remains of a Roman village lie some three hundred metres to the south-east, and the whole complex marks the north-eastern extremity of an area of Roman olive cultivation, roughly coinciding with the district known as ez-Zintan, and probably to be assigned to the period between the first and the fourth centuries a.d.


1916 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. E. Bodkin ◽  
L. D. Cleare

British Guiana lies between the latitudes 0·41′ N. (source of the Essequebo River) and 8° 33′ 22″ N. (Punta Playa), has a depth from north to south of about 500 miles, a seaboard of about 270 miles trending in a south-easterly direction, and occupies in the north-east of South America an area approximately equal in extent to Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by Surinam or Dutch Guiana, on the south and south-west by Brazil, and on the west by Venezuela.The Colony may be divided broadly into three belts. The northern one consists of a low-lying flat and swampy belt of marine alluvium—the coastal region. This rises gradually from the seaboard and extends inland for a distance varying from 5 to 49 miles. It is succeeded by a broader and slightly elevated tract of country of sandy and clayey soils. This belt is generally undulating, and is traversed in places by sand-dunes rising from 50 to 180 ft. above sea-level. The more elevated portion of the Colony lies to the southward of the above-mentioned regions. It rises gradually to the south-west, between the river valleys, which are in many parts swampy, and contains three principal mountain ranges, several irregularly distributed smaller ranges, and in the southern and eastern parts numerous isolated hills and mountains. The eastern portion is almost entirely forest-clad, but on the south-western side there is an extensive area of flat grass-clad savannah land elevated about 300 feet above sea-level.


Anduli ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 159-177
Author(s):  
Pablo González-Zambrano

Tartessus has been one of the most controversial subjects in Spanish historiography for the last five centuries, although its mentions date back to the 7th century BC. In this work we analyze how the concept of Tartessus has been extrapolated to each context of historiographic production, and the different uses that have been made of it. To do this, we examine works that deal with the theme and context of Tartessus and analyze the discourse to understand how the historical narrative of the present has been colonizing the past of the southern peninsula. Such analysis has led us to discern that Tartessus, with its colonial connotations, has functioned as a hinge between the north and the south of the peninsula and as the scene of the struggle between east and west within the Mediterranean framework. Hence, Andalusian protohistory has served as a legitimizing basis for claims of the north over the south.


1898 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32
Author(s):  
A. J. Jukes-Browne ◽  
John Milne

Moreseat is in the parish of Cruden, in the east of Aberdeenshire. It lies at an elevation of 300 feet above sea-level, and the surface of the ground slopes to the sea at Cruden Bay, distant five miles to the south. On the north the ground rises gradually, reaching the height of 450 feet above sea in Torhendry Ridge, which is strewn with chalk-flintsingreat abundance.


1869 ◽  
Vol 6 (64) ◽  
pp. 442-446
Author(s):  
G. A. Lebour

Geology.—Stated roughly, the geology of the Department of Finistère may be said to consist of two masses of granite, one to the north and one to the south, enclosing between them nearly the whole of the sedimentary rocks of the district. These consist of Cambrian slates and gneiss, Lower, Middle, and Upper Silurian slates and grits, and very small and unimportant patches of Upper Carboniferous shales. The entire mass of these deposits has an east and west direction, and occupies the central part of the Department.


1906 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 415-430
Author(s):  
Ramsay Traquair

In plan the walls surrounding the Acropolis of Sparta form an irregular oblong, terminated to the east and west by two small hills which formed citadels or outlook points. Though no single complete part remains, and in many places the walls are levelled to the ground, the lines can still be traced fairly completely. (Plate VIII. 3.)At the south eastern corner are the ruins of a Roman Stoa of the Imperial period (A). They shew a series of small compartments (Fig. 1), covered with barrel vaults, ten on either side of three larger central rooms, which are roofed with crossgroined vaults and large semicircular niches at the back. The ground on the north side is as high as the vaults and originally must have formed a terrace overlooking the street on to which the Stoa opened on its south side.


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