Mgsblade on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/mgsblade/art/Pella-The-Temple-450405488Mgsblade

Deviation Actions

Mgsblade's avatar

Pella: The Temple

By
Published:
566 Views

Description

Pella / Tabaqat Fahl طبقة فحل

Visited on 9/2/2013

 

Legend has it that Pella was founded by Alexander the Great, probably because of the similarity between its name and that of Alexander’s birthplace in Macedonia, however, ancient documents indicate that the Semitic name of the area was Pihil, so Pella must be a Hellenistic variant of that original word.

 

Much like Jordan’s many sites, Pella has a very long history. Evidence shows that hunter-gatherers moved into the heavily forested area as far back as 250,000 BCE, and by 5,000 BCE, a Neolithic village had appeared, which grew into a large walled Canaanite town in the Bronze Age.

 

By the 14th century BCE, Pella was a lucrative trade destination for ancient Egypt, and within a hundred years grew to become a trade partner to the entire Mediterranean, leaving it a wealthy town. Late in the Iron Age, in the years 1,200 – 539 BCE, the town was abandoned for about 200 years, when during the Hellenistic Period (332 BCE – 63 ACE) it was reestablished as a new city.

 

In 83 BCE, the city came under attack by the Hasmonaen Ruler, Alexander Jannaeus, which historical accounts attribute to the city’s refusal to conform to Jewish customs. Archeological evidence shows that the attack devastated the city.

 

In 64 BCE, Roman Emperor Pompey marched into the Levant, deposing of the Hasmonaen Kingdoms and establishing the Roman province of Syria, with Pella joining the ranks of the Roman Decapolis.

Christianity arrived shortly thereafter in 70 ACE when Christians fled the Roman-Jewish wars and established some of the earliest Churches in the world.

 

Pella is also the location of the two divisive battles of 634 & 636 ACE in which Muslim forces defeated those of the Byzantine Empire, resulting in them gaining a strong foothold in the Levant.

 

The city saw successive periods of prosperity under Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad rule for around 600 years, until the massive devastating earthquakes of 717 ACE and later in 747 ACE, having caused so much damage that the city was unable to recover. This left the town inhabited only by Muslim garrisons (Abbasid and Mamluk) living among abandoned ruins alongside a rural community.

 

Recent excavations unveiled a sad story of two entwined skeletons in the Muslim section of the city, whose bodies must have held each other as the house collapsed around them during the earthquake - the woman was wearing a gown of Chinese silk.

 

In the 20th century a modern village grew among the ruins and stood there until 1967 when forced to move downhill to avoid Israeli air raids.

Image size
1200x800px 1.05 MB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Shutter Speed
1/400 second
Aperture
F/10.0
Focal Length
16 mm
ISO Speed
160
Date Taken
Feb 8, 2013, 1:42:53 PM
Sensor Size
7mm
© 2014 - 2024 Mgsblade
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In