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Home , Caesarea, Qaqun, Via Maris

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Adam Zertal

University of

Abstract The term “way of the sea” is mentioned just once in the Hebrew This paper deals with the geographical pass of Arunah, for a long time considered , in an extremely difficult text the most significant among the three roads (:23). The combination described in Thutmose III’s Annals of his there “the way of the sea, the land first campaign.2 These three are classical- beyond the , of the l\ discXssed as a Sart RI the ³Za\ RI the nations (“goiim”)” has no paral- sea,´ and the SaSer sXggests a neZ Sass lels, nor has its meaning ever been RI R Z Z X the latter, t gether ith ne nder- agreed upon.4 Moreover, the con- standings RI the (g\Stian geRgraShical descriStiRns. nection of Isaiah’s “way of the sea” to the Roman “” is not at Introduction all automatic. Another “way of the sea” is mentioned in I Kings 18:43, The Roman “Via Maris” (“way of in the story of Elijah. This “way of the sea”), the ancient road con- the sea” can possibly be the road necting and , which crosses the southern Carmel crossed Sinai and then went north- to the east,5 having again no con- wards along the hills of Samaria. nection to our issue. After passing through a hilly obsta- In general, a “road” in the bib- cle discussed below, it entered the lical narratives and/or the Egyp- Valley of Jezreel and from there, tian texts is rarely built or paved. through different roads, to Damas- Before the road-making in the cus and the .3 Manasseh Hill-Country Survey III, 26-28; 1 This paper is a revised edition of my Zertal, The Manasseh Hill-Country Survey Hebrew article about the Arunah Pass I, 31. (“The ‘Iron Pass’”), written following 4 Cf. for interpretations, Alt, “Isaiah the publication of the 3rd volume of the 8,23-9,6”; Childs, Isaiah – A Commen- Manasseh Survey. tary, 78-81; Emerton, “Some Linguistic 2 ANET, 235-38; Urk. IV, 650.8-12; and Historical Problems in Isaiah 8:23”; Mizrachy, Egyptian Foreign Policy in the Hogenhavn, “On the Structure and Mean- , 424-25. ing of Isaiah VIII:23B”; Sweeney, “A Phil- 3 Abel, Géographie de la II, 218- ological and Form Critical Re-evaluation 19; Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 45-54; of Isaiah 8:16-9:6,”; Zertal, Sisera’s Secret, Meshel, “The Way of the Sea – Via Maris”; 250-51. Rainey, “Toponymic Problems – The 5 Cf. also Artzy, “Routes, and Way of the Sea”; Zertal and Mirkam, The ‘Nomads of the Sea’.” THE ARUNAH PASS 343

CARMEL Megiddo Legio

Umm el-Fahm Taanach Arunah Kh. Rabzeh

Assawir el-Ahwat (Djefti?) Barta’ah

DOTHAN Burin VALLEY Jett MEDITERRANEAN SEA Yehem SAMARIA SHARON PLAIN HILLS Legend Site mentioned in the article Ancient road

Qalansawa 0 10 km

Map 1 The “way of the sea” and its branches, with the sites discussed.

Roman Period no well-established etc. The obstacles for movement and maintained roads existed, and in the Mediterranean regions were “ways” or “roads” were no more rivers, marshes and swamps in the than dirt paths, similar to those in plains, and thick vegetation in the use to this very day in the hill coun- hill country. In our case, the Sha- try or the Negev desert. ron Plain is separated from the Jez- To identify an ancient “road” reel Valley by the hills stretching therefore, we should use the his- between the Carmel and Samaria. torical documents, together with a The first and foremost relevant thorough knowledge of the topog- narratives concerned are those of raphy, water sources and the origi- Thutmose III’s first campaign, the nal vegetation of the area. “Satirical letter” of Hori from the days of Ramesses II6 and the cam- The Three Passes paign of Shishak of the 22nd Dynas- The topography of ancient is not extreme by elevation, cliffs, 6 Papyrus Anastasi I = ANET, 475-480.