S. DOUGLAS WATERHOUSE Ann Arbor 0Michigan 00 The Biblical texts used in this paper are taken from eitherI t is today difficult to imagine the Holy Land as 'a heritage most beauteous of all nations' (Jer 3 : 19). After viewing nature's more richly verdant landscapes, as are to be found, for example, within the temperate zones of Europe or North America, the heritage of ancient Israel seems poor indeed! Covered with degraded vegetation and brush, or consisting simply of bare rocks, denuded hillsides and exposed gullies, modern-day Palestine-Syria seems far removed from what Bible writers designated as a Promised Land. This is particularly true during the dry summer months when it appears as if all vegetation has been obliterated. The hillcountry, with its conspicuously bare, limestone outcropping, then seemingly emerges as the bleak skeleton of a barren land. True, the dryness is only relative, but the ruins of proud cities which flourished hundreds and thousands of years ago are to be seen today where Bedouins of the desert live as nomadic tribes. Could it be possible that this was the land described in the Old Testament as 'flowing with milk and honey?' Is it-possible that this was the country which boasted of inhabitantsas strong as oaks and as tall as cedars ? 4A perusal of the literature bearing on the history of thisregion reveals that Palestine is but one in a series ofMediterranean lands which in times past were reknown for their formerprosperous productivity, but which are today blighted bywant. One is left, nevertheless, to wonder how BiblicalCanaan compared with the real fertile areas of antiquity-areas like the Nile Valley or ancient Babylonia, And ifthere was a comparison-howdid the land reach such a lowebb as is evident today ?I t must be confessed that certain archaeological findingshave not enhanced the notion that Palestine was once a landof fabulous natural endowments. Excavations, for example,have produced a disproportionately small amount of goldand silver in the Israelite strata when compared tocontempoafter ANET). Ancient religious philosophy was obsessed with findinga means to prevent the corrosive influences of time and restore theprimeval, mythical golden age of plenty. The concept underlying theBiblical description of the Promised Land likens Canaan to this goldenage when all was once prosperous; see Gaster, Eoc. cit. ; Mircea Eliade,Cosmos and History (New York, 19jg).4 Amos z : 9. The Old Testament speaks of the land as being soproductive that a single cluster of grapes was too large for one man tocarry (Num I 3 : 23)1But note, for instance, the Israeli reclamation work which is nowsucceeding in establishing a flourishing agricultural population in thelow-lying plains and valleys of Palestine.As a sample of the astounding productivity of these areas in ancienttimes, see particularly the article of Waldo H. Dubberstein :'Comparative Prices in Later Babylonia (625-400 B.c.),' A JSL,LVI (1939),20-43.He writes: 'Mass production was . . .the style in later Babylonia(625-400 KC.). Contracts show as many as forty thousand bushelsgrown on one tract . . . Barley, the most common grain in Babylonia,i;as produced on a scale rivaling grain production on present-day farmsand ranches. Nearly fifty thousand bushels of barley were measuredinto Eanna, the temple of Ishtar of Uruk, from one piece of property. . .Glimpses of p a t flocks and herds are given . . . A temple income listof wool shows over ten thousand pounds of sheep wool and severalhundred pounds of goat 'wool' being weighed in,' etc. (Ibid., pp.25-29).rary strata of Syria, Egypt, or Me~opotamia.A~lthoughgold and silver have not been so meager in the earlier Canaanitelevels, the question persists as to whether or not Canaandeserves its lustrous fame as a bounteous land of wealth?Some have even suggested that the Biblical outlook wascolored from the standpoint of a nomadic desert peopleinured to the waste lands prior t o their entry into Canaan.9The purpose of this article is especially directed to deal withthis claim.Climatic theorists, the most notable of which was EllsworthHuntington, puzzled by the formerly productive but nowarid landscape of Syro-Palestine, explained the apparentdesiccation of the land as due to drastic recurring climatic cycles-a notion which was freely drawn upon in explaining thefall and rise of past civilizations.1° There is, however, no realevidence to support those who attribute the presentcomparative poverty of the Mediterranean area to either cyclicchanges in rainfall and temperature or to a gradual change inclimate.ll After all, it was no climatic change that turnedOklahoma into a dust-bowl in half a century!PP-70-74l1 Baly leans toward the view that though there was no differentclimatic regime during the Biblical period from the present, the balanceof that regime has varied from time to time. In a logical argument,Baly points out that any slight variation of the climate a t all must insome way affectthe position of the marginal frontierland lying betweenthe desert and the sown; Baly; loc. cit. F. S . Bodenheimer follows thesame thought: 'We do not suppose that any important fluctuationsHappily for the historical investigator, Palestine offers themost complete and continuous picture of human history thatis at present available in any part of the world. Past theories,built to explain the obviously drastic changes (dealt withmore fully below), which Palestine has experienced throughoutits long history, have had to face an ever relentless increaseof knowledge. I t was for some years assumed, for example,that the prehistoric fauna of the Eastern Mediterraneanlittoral reflected a real cold-period of 'glacial age' Europe.Such fossil flora (found in Lebanon) as beech, hazel, elm andlarge-leaved oak were taken as indicators of a northernboreal invasion caused by a southward moving cold front.Subsequent discovery, however, has revealed that thesesame plants, far from having any bearing on historicalinterpretation, are still thriving today in North Syria andAnatolia!12Similarly, a supposed 'faunal breakn-anextinction of certain biotypes-was taken as one of the mainevidences for distinguishing between 'the Upper and LowerLevaloiso-Mousterian levels' in Palestine. More recentinvestigation, however, has demonstrated that such 'warm'species, as the hippopotamus, did not disappear by a sudden,prehistoric shift in climate but survived in Palestine way intohistorical times.l3 The case against climatic changes, even inthe remote past, has therefore been strengthened.l4of temperature occurred since the mesolithic era. But even relativelysmall changes in the field of precipitations, slight increases of rainfrom IOO to 200 mm per annum, combined with a greater stabilityof annual and seasonal rain distribution, must have had far-reachingconsequences, changing wide areas and patches of desert into steppesand savannas, permitting passage and penetration of animals from theeast, west and south.' Animal and Man in Bible Lands (Leiden, 1960),P. 129.l2 Bodenheimer, op. cit., p. 18.l3 Georg Haas, 'On the Occurrence of Hippopotamus in the IronAge of the Coastal Area of Israel (Tell Qasfleh),' BASOR, No. 132(19.53). 30-34.l4 It is stdl generally held, however, that a past age of tropicalconditions prevailed when the land was 'raw and damp and hot.'This condition is said to have been changed 'at the beginning of theDirect evidences against any drastic climatic changes arenot wanting. A type of terrestrial mollusc, sensitive tovariations in humidity, thrives today in the Beershebaregion much as i t did when men first settled in that locality.lbEven in such an exotic milieu as that of the prehistoric caveremains of Palestine, climatic forces seem to have been verymuch like that of the present, e.g., the lack of fossilizationamong the early vertebrate-remains fromGeulah Cave B(in the proximity of Mount Carmel) clearly indicate thatconditions of humidity did not change significantly (withinthe cave) since the deposition of the bones there. l6In past millennia rain was certainly more effective inPalestine. Then there were forests and woodlands whoseroots would hold back the water and prevent the drying upof springs.17At the dawn of recorded history, when theSyroPalestinian littoral enjoyed a pristine state, this was especiallytrue. The land was then extremely lush.18 At a time priorMesolithicNatufianperiod' by the advent of a cooler, drier climate; cf.Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert (New York, 1g57),pp.2-3;Bodcnheimer, op. cit., p. 32; Haas, loc. cit.l6 J . Perrot, 'The Excavations a t Tell Abu Matar, near Ueersheba,'IEJ, V (1g55), 83, n. 10. The she11 remains of Sphincterochila boissierzCharp. are dated to the Ghassulean (Chalcolithic)era.l6 The remains of the Geulah Caves are dated to theLevalloisMousterian, e.g., Middle Palaeolithicum. I t is also of significance that'this skeletal assemblage appears in situ and has not been washed inhither,' S. Angress, 'The Vertebrate Remains from Gculah Cave 13,'IEJ, X (19601, 84-89. The biotype remains from the Abu Ijsba Cave(dated to the Mesolithic-Natufian) point toward the same climaticconditions then as found today, M, Stekelis and G. Haas, 'The AbuUsba Cave,' IEJ, I1 (1952)~46.l7 Baly, op. cit., p. 76.l8 The modern Near East with the aridity of its present climatehardly prepares one in imagining its early history when there weremany more rivers, much more vegetation, and a land replete withvarious forms of animal life. A brief survey of conditions as they thenappeared is given in Henri Frankfort, T h e Birth of Civilization i i z theNear East (DoubledayAnchor Books, 19j6), pp. 26-29 ;37-4j. speakingof his approach to field research dealing with the prehistory of westernAsia, liobert J. Braidwood expressesdoubts on the feasibility of beingable to find data from that early a period in Palestine: 'I would noi;to that of the Egyptian Fifth Dynasty (e.g., prior to about2400 B . C . ) , ~Sy~ro-Palestine was purportedly clothed withgreenery; an abundance of herbage supported what musthave been a veritable parkland teeming with wild life.Scholarly research has made i t possible to catch a snatchingglimpse of that primeval setting. Although rain wasdistributed, in all likelihood, in a manner similar to that of today,20permanent, sizable rivers were not uncommon. Along thecoastal low country, open grassy plains and perennial poolsexisted inland from the dune belt.22 Houses (Chalcolithic)were of necessity raised on piles above what was evidentlyan extremely marshy land.23A glimpse is also afforded of theJordan Valley which is seen in tropical abundance 'wellwatered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the landof Egypt' (Gn 13: 10) Archaeological investigations havenot only made it reasonably certain that at that time manymore lateral streams flowed in the Jordan than there aretoday, but also that it was intensively developed, in spiteof its present summer heat and mosquito-breeding swamps.25This primeval picture did not last long into historical times.Toward the end of the third millennium B.C., there was amarked desiccation in the amount of available moisture.26I n the environs of ancient Jericho a major drop in water leveloccurred concomitantly with a severe erosion which removeda t least three feet of the overlying, soft, limestone rock.Consequently, underground tombs of Jericho, built priort o the Egyptian Sixth Dynasty, were left roofless.27At thesame time, settlements may have been abandoned along theMediterranean coasta1 ~ l a i n . ~P8resumably, with the dryingup of the marshes, the Philistian-Sharon coastal inhabitantswere affected by the growing shortage of water.An increase in population and a decrease in forests and topsoil were evidently already joining hands with the corrosiveinfluence of passing time! The trend toward contemporaryconditions of aridity, however, was never again to bite sodeeply into Palestine's waterAs Canaan moved more clearly into the Old Testamentworld, its natural endowments were far from abated. Densewoodlands covered districts which are now largely, or evenentirely, bereft of tree growth. Today, meager remnants ofthese once extensive forests are found in the Judean andupper Galilean hill country. While the Camel ridge and theTransjordan section of the 'AjlGn are still substantiallywooded, even these regions are poor reminders of the toweringthickets of tree growth found in former centuries. TheMeri-kaRe texts of the Egyptian Ninth or Tenth Dynasties (cir.2100 B.c.) speak of southern Palestine as troubled by waterand made inaccessible by many trees.' Interestingly, in theKenyon, loc. cit.Cf. Yeivin, op. cit., p. 191.29 Since the second millennium B.C. the water-level of Palestine hasremained roughly the same as it is today; Albright, AP, pp. 250-25I ;W. C. Lowdermilk, Palestine: Land of Promise (New York, 1944).pp. 63-64. That boundary between the desert and the sown hasremained the same since Biblical times is shown by archaeologicalinvestigation and such Biblical passages as 2 Ki 3 : g where Transjordan is seenwith the same dry, climatic conditions as is found there today. Cf.Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (2d edition; Baltimore,1946)~p. 100.30 Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961),p. 37.An Egyptian literary text from the second half of the thirteenthenvirons of the Judean hill country, there existed a largeconiferous forest of pine and cypress where now there isscarcely a tree substantial enough to be used for the buildingof houses or furniture! 31If one considers the fuel requirements of the earlymetallurgical industries and the considerable amount of trees utilizedfor the walls and houses of such ancient cities as that ofJerich0,3~wood must have really been abundant ! The formerlyrich supply of timber, a stately legacy of pre-Israelite Canaan,was to wane rapidly with the coming of the he brew^.^^By the twelfth century B.c., the coniferous forest had largelydisappeared from the hillcountry,3* and by Solomon's reign,in the tenth century B.c., Hiram, king of Tyre, had to becalled upon to supply wood for the building of the temple inJerusalem (I Ki 5 :6-18) !Of the wild life which in former times filled the land, anamazing number show strong affinities to animal-formspresently associated only with the African savanna country.Lions once roamed in the forested sections of the land andcentury B.C. describes Palestinian roads as being darkened with anovergrowth of cypresses, oaks, and cedars; ANET, p. 477. On theformer forestation of Palestine see especially B. S. J. Isserlin, 'AncientForests in Palestine: Some Archaeological Indication,' PEQ,LXXXVII (1g55), 87-88; Siegfried H. Horn, Seventh-day AdventistBible Dictionary (Washington, D. C., 1960),pp. 804-806.31 Albright, AASOR, IV (1942)~7-8, 20.32 Perrot, o p . cit., p. 84; Kenyon, op. cit., pp. 183-184.33 Note, for example, that Joshua told the men of the Joseph tribesto make room for themselves in Mt. Ephraim by clearing the forest(Jos 17 : 15). In making the land habitable, the Hebrews undoubtedlypushed back the forested areas to much smaller perimeters; see below,note 34.34 Evidence from the excavations a t Gibeah indicate the apparentdisappearance of pine and cypress in that locality sometime betweenthe thirteenth and the eleventh centuries B.c.; Albright, AASOR, IV(1942),7-8, 20. Originally, a very extensive coniferousforest may haveformed a more or less continuous belt from the heights of Lebanondown through the entire length of the Palestinian hillcountry. The soiland climate of the hillcountry is said to be 'admirably adapted' tothis type of forest.S. DOUGLAS W-4TERHOUSEhad their lairs in rocky caves, An Egyptian literary documentdated from the second half of the thirteenth century B.C.states that : 'the soldier, when he goeth up to Retenu(Palestine) hath no staff and no sandals. He knoweth not whether hebe dead or alive, by reason of the fierce lions.' Anotherdocument from the same period complains that Canaan hasmore lions than panthers or hyenas!S5 I t may be recalledthat the Old Testament speaks of actual encounters withlions-Samson tore a young lion 'and he had nothing in hishand' (Jugs 14: 5-6) ; even the youthful David attackedlions and bears and killed them (I Sa 17 : 34-36). Surprisingly,the lion was still to be seen in Palestine as late as A.D. 1850.36The hippopotamus was once found in the rivers of thecoastal plain, (until a t least the fourth century B.c.), possibly inthe Jordan, and as far north as the Orontes River. Luxuriantswamp flora, such as water lilies and papyrus, served as anideal habitat for these great beasts. Remnants of this florawere still surviving as recently as a hundred years ago alongthe upper Jordan and the coastal rivers.37TheSyro-Palestinian hippo is spoken of by Job as lying under 'the lotusplants . . . in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh . . . .Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he isconfident though Jordan rushes against his mouth' (Job35 Bodenheimer, op. cit., p. 169; ANET, p. 477.36 Ludwig Kohler, Hebrew Man (Nashville, Tenn., 1g53), p. 26.Layard reports that in the 1840's lions were frequently caught 'in theSinjar, [in Mesopotamia] and on the banks of the Kabour [Khabur] . . .by the Arabs.' The lion, a t that time, was still well known alongtheEuphrates and lower Tigris rivers, Austen Henry Layard, Ninevehand Its Remains (London, 1850)~p. 48.37 Haas, BASOR, No. 132 (1g53), 30-34. Excavations a t Tell Qasilehnear Tel-Aviv have unearthed hippopotamus remains from the I2th4th century B.c.; elsewhere, hippo remains are dated to the r3th-1@century B.C. from Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and to about 1500 B.C. fromthe Orontes River. Only prehistoric hippopotamus remains have sofar been dredged up from the Jordan, but it seems very likely thatthey persisted in this river way into historic times (cf. Job 40: 23;although behemoth is a general expression for beasts, Job undoubtedl~is here referring to the hippo).40 : 15-23). Such a scene may presently only be paralleled inequatorial Africa! Job also mentions the crocodile (41:1-10)which up to the beginning of this century still survived inPalestine (south of Haifa) in a limited coastal swamp area(Nahr ez-Zerq8).38Strange as it may now seem, until a t least the thirteenthcentury B.c., elephant herds roamed within range of theOrontes and possibly on the lake of Apamea, in centralSyria.3gThe jackal, spotted hyena, wart hog, Megaderma-batand even the rhino, were surprisingly all part of early,SyroPalestinian history and represent (with the animalsenumerated above) the last survivors of a fauna which had once invadedthe country from the north and east-beforereaching thethen virgin African t e r r i t o ~ i e s . ~ ~Historical sources illuminate not only the fact thatPalestine's fauna has undergone continuous reduction and thinningfrom human dawn until our own days,41 but also throw lighton how the ancients themselves esteemed the EasternMediterranean littoral. The ('novel' of Sinuhe, dating from thetwentieth century B.c., describes the high land of Palestine-Syriaas a land of figs and vines, having more wine than water.'Plentiful was its honey, abundant its oil and all fruits were38 Haas, op. cit., pp. 32-33; Bodenheirner, up. cit., p. 65.39 R. D. Barnett, A Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories with otherExam+les of Ancient Near Eastern Ivories in the British Museum(London, 1g57), pp. 164-16j;Bayard Dodge, 'Elephants in the BibleLands,' BA, XVIII (1955)~17-18. For the location of Niya see SirAlan Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford, 1g47),I, 271.4OThus Bodenheimer, op. cit., pp. 16-17. I t would not be toosurprising if evidence should be forthcoming on the early existence inSyro-Palestine of other members of the so-called 'African fauna.'Both from reliefs (Barnett, op. cit., p. 59, n. 10)and the Assyrianannals (ANET, p. 297) it is known that Ashurbanipal (668-633 B.c.)received monkeys and apes from Phoenicia. The evidence, so far,however, is not of a decisive nature and it is generally held that theCanaanites regularly imported monkeys or apes for religious purposes,Barnett, op. cit., p. 108; W. C. McDermott, The Ape irt Antiquity(Baltimore, 1938), p. 23.Bodenheimer, op. cit., p. 29.on its trees. There was barley in i t and wheat, and countlesscattle of all kinds.' The daily fare, which the land offered,was said to have been bread, wine, cooked meat and roastfowl 'over and above the wild game of the desertJ' and 'milkprepared in every way.' As F. S. Bodenheimer has pointedout, this was obviously a country of 'milk and honey!'42Canaan's prosperous cities, fertile plains, rich mineralwealth, natural resources, strategic harbors and vital traderoutes (linking the land of the Nile with Asia Minor and themighty empires of the Tigris and the Euphrates) continuallylured invaders. One of the most notable was the greatEgyptian conqueror Thutmose I11 (fifteenth century B.c.) . Withthe advent of his reign, long lists of Asiatic tribute and bootyappear on Egyptian steles and on temple walls. These listsserve as a good indicator of Canaan's productivity, Quantitiesof grain, oil and wines, fruits and other luscious things of theland are listed. One year mentions that the kinglets of Canaanrendered unto Pharaoh: '30 horses, chariots wrought withsilver and gold, decorated with paintings, go man-servants,40 maid-servants, gold . . ., long-horned and dehorned cattle,sacrificial bulls and asses.' Among the tribute of anotheryear are to be found: '45 bulls, 749 rams, therebinth resin,823 jars of honey, ivory and carob wood.' 43 In a letter to alater Pharaoh, a prince of central Syria is found echoing thesetribute lists : 'When the troops and chariots of my lord came,food, drink cattle . . . honey and oil, were brought forth forthe troops and chariots of my lord.'J44Evidently, whenPharaoh's army penetrated into hither Asia, Canaan's bountywas depended upon to sustain the intruders.If doubt still persists that Canaan was not a land flowingwith milk and honey, an effective answer is given in theaccount of Thutmose's decisive victory over the famedfortressIbid., pp. 164-165;for the story of Sinuhe see ANET, pp. 18-22.43 Bodenheimer, op. cit., p. 166.44 S. A. B. Mercer, The Tell El-Amama Tablets (Toronto, 1939)~No. 55: 10-12.city of Megiddo. I n striking contrast to the few dozencasualties inflicted on the conquered and the 340 prisoners taken,an enormous booty is listed consisting of 20,500 sheep,2,041 horses, 2,000 goats, 1,929 cows, 191 foals, 6 stallions,924 chariots and other precious objects! 45 And this a t anage when such cities as Megiddo were small (18 acres) andthe population light (all Palestine may then not have hadmore than 200,000 people).46Significantly, pharaonic monuments markedly differentiatebetween the slight of built, slender Egyptians and the moreheavily constructed, inclined-to-be-corpulent Canaanite.47An Egyptian text of the thirteenth century B.C. even speaksof Canaanites having the height of 'four or five cubits (from)their noses to the heel' (or being around seven to nine feettall) !48 The Egyptian text is reminiscent of an Old Testamentpassage written in the same vein: 'All the people that we sawin it (Canaan) are men of a great stature. And there we sawthe giants . . . and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers,and so we were in their sight' (Num 13: 33). A more aptsymbol may not be found of a country's fruitful prosperitythan inhabitants famed for their great stature and tremendousgirth!What has happened to change the country where peopleonce lived off the 'fat of the land?' How did its former'luster', coveted in antiquity, become so dim ? Part of theanswer is certainly t o be found in studying the region'sclimate. The effect of too little rain and too much sunshine-where the weather is good, but the climate is bad 49-hascaused the Palestine area to be less tolerant of abuse thantemperate areas are. Although the robber economy that destroysforests and wastes the wealth of the soil has held sway inalmost every part of the world, it has been particularlyabusive in sub-tropical environments, such as that of theMediterranean. Particularly damaging is the absence of rainduring the long dry season, the excessive concentration ofrainfall in the torrential winter rains and the salinity of poorlydrained soils.50In such an environment the misuse of the landleads rapidly to extensive soil-destruction, which is difficultto repair. Where in Roman times, the soil may have been6 I/, feet deep, there is now only rock surfaces.s1 Cleared andcultivated, terraced and wasted through the centuries, the4g The climate is being spoken of as 'bad' in the historical sense.The Mediterranean climate is characterized by cold, rainy wintersand long, dry summers, separated by short spring and autumn seasonsduring which climatic conditions are extremely unpredictable. Thegeographer speaks of southern California, and some parts of Chileand South Africa as 'Mediterranean.' 'The relative dryness of thehill-country of Palestine joins with its elevation to make it one of themost healthful regions of the Near and Middle East, as well as one ofthe poorest areas occupied by a sedentary population . . .,' Albright,A P , p. 254. The problem of Palestine's climate is not lack of rain,but the fact that practically all the rain falls in the colder half of theyear when it is of little use for vegetation, cf. below, note 50.5O Exploration has revealed that extraordinary care was taken inantiquity for the conservation of watcr. 'Innumerable dams, reservoirs,and cisterns were constructed, in which the winter rain was collectedand from which a supply of water for the months of dryness wasobtained.' G. Ernest Wright and Floyd V. Filson, editors, TheWestminster Historical A tlas to the Bible (Rev. ed. ;Philadelphia, 1956),p. 64.Palestine-Syria, before erosion transformed it into a desert, maswell supplicd with water. 'One finds stone spring houses besidesprings which ceased to exist when the soil was removed by erosion.In some instances there appears to have been perennial water in thenow dry streambeds . . . it is impossible to explain the use of certslnolive oil presses except on the assumption that the soil was then 6 ' 1 2feet deep over the present rock surface. . . Man-induced erosio~lofthe soil has in this region . . . swept 3 to 6 feet of the soil from the hillland is frequently left stony and sterile. Unfortunately, soilwash is still continuing where there is any soil left.The present state of Palestine is also tied up with its pastpolitical struggles. In the bitter Jewish insurrection whichterminated with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70,thousands of Jews from all over Palestine were either killedor scattered as slaves throughout the Roman empire. Slightlymore than sixty years later, a disaster took place in an evenmore bitter rebellion which was cruelly and devastatinglycrushed. The result was a major disruption and a greatimpoverishment of town and city life. Finally, there was theArab invasion of A.D. 630 which opened up the country tonomadic Bedouin tribes of the desert. Speaking of theseintruders, Walter C. Lowdermilk writes :They pitch their black, batlike tents amidst ruins of themagnificence of the past and allow the terraces to break down and the soils towash away. They permit their goats to destroy and trample out theformer measures for conservation of the soil and water . . . Thenomadic invaders and their goats worked hand in hand with erosion todestroy the fertility of the lands . . .by fire and the axe they destroyedthe remaining forest as well as plantations of olives and vines. 62The geographical changes which man and time have inflictedupon Palestine is no more tellingly exemplified than by tracingthe history of the Dead Sea. Small in antiquity, situated inwhat once must have been a beauteous vale,53the Sea hassteadily risen, inundating and destroying-with its risingwaters-cities,64 roads,55 extensive tamarisksgroves,56masonlands,' Lowdcrmilk, 'Erosion a t its Worst, and a Hundred DeadCitiC!~,'Soit! Conservation, V (I939), 160-162.52 Ibid., p. 162.53 Cf. Gen 13: 10. In ancient times the whole Jordan Valley wasknown for its great productivity. In Roman times the Jericho regionwas famous for both its sweet wine and the fruit of its palm trees,Mowry, 09.cit., pp. 31-32; see above, note 24.5 < ~ n 14: 3; cf. also F. G. Clapp, 'The Site of Sodom andGomorrah,' A JA, XL (1936), 323-344.G5 In lloman times a causeway connected the present peninsula ofEl Lisan to the coast of Judah, near Masada. In fact, this crossing wasstill possible to ford as late as 1846, Ibid., pp. 204-205.56 Many square miles of former tamarisk groves are now clearlyry,57 fresh-water springs,' and even the recently (1886) visibleisland of Rujm el-Bahr (which formerly stood near thenorthern head of the Sea).69Although the factors which arecausing this 'overflowing' are not as yet fully understood,6*a major cause is surely to be found in the disruption of formerirrigation, the denudation of the forests, the loss ofmoistureabsorbing soil-cover, and the constant silting of erosion.The Biblical prediction that 'the earth shall wax old as agarmentJ' (Is 51:6) has certainly been dramatically fulfilledin the Holy Land!visible under the sea water south of El Lisan, hlbright, AASOR, V I7 W. F. Albright , The Archaeology of Palestine (Revised edition; Pelican Book , 1960 )~p. 252 ( hereafter A P ) .It is, of course, a well-known archaeological fact that Canaan enjoyed a material wealth unmatched by later Israelite strata . Cf. James L. Kelso , 'Excavations a t Bethel,' BAY XIX ( 1956 )~ 39 - 40 .@ Cf., for example, Cyrus H. Gordon, Introduction to Old Testament Times (Ventnor, N . J. , 1953 )~pp. 131 - 132 .loEllsworth Huntington , Palestine and its Transformation (Boston, 1911 ). For a scholarly appraisal of Huntington's climatic theories, see A, T .Olmstead, 'Climatic Changes in the Nearest East,' Bulletin of the American Geogra+hical Society , XLIV ( 1912 )~ 432 - 440 ; Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (zd edition; Baltimore , 1946 )~ pp. 71 - 74 ; Denis Baly, The Geograehy of the Bible (New Yorb, 1 9 5 7 ) ~ lay much of a bet on the lush Syro-Palestinian littoral : I've a hunch i t was too lush,' 'Jericho and its Setting in the Near Eastern History,' Antiquity, XXXI ( 1957 ), 80 .l5 Cf. John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago , 1956 ), p. 20 ; S. Yeivin , 'Tel Gath,' IEJ, XI (1g61 ), 191 ; Kathleen M. Kenyon , Digging Up Jericho (New York, 1957 ), pp. 184 - 185 .20 Stekelis and Haas, loc. czt.21 Dorothy A. E. Garrod , 'The Stone Age of Palestine,' Antiquity, VIII (1g34 ), 146 .22 Stckelis and Haas, Zoc. czt.23 Albright, AP, p. 68 .24 Both Biblical and extra-Biblical sources attest the former beauty and productiveness of the Jordan-enriched plains; see Albright, 'The Jordan Valley in the Bronze Age,' AASOR, VI ( 1926 ), 13 - 74 ; Lucetta Mo~ny,'Settlements in the Jericho Valley During the Roman Period (63 B .c.-A.D. 34), ' BA, XV ( ~ g p ) 2 , 6 - 42 .26 Albright, AP, p. 69 ; AASOR, VI ( 1926 ), 67 - 68 .26 See above , n. 19.46 Bodenheimer, op. cit., p. 165 ; ANET, p. 237 . Thutmose 111,in one of his additions to the great temple of Karnak, illustrated the strange plants and a number of animals he found in Palestine and Syria. These illustrations, only a part of which are extant, form the oldest zoological atlas from Palestine. Interestingly, 'all species of wild animals [the great majority are birds] represented in the Karnak temple are still present in Palestine,' Bodenheimer , 09 .cit., p. 168 .The population estimate is that of Albright's; see Edward F. Campbell, 'The Amarna Letters and the Amarna Period,' BA, XXIII ( 1960 )) 21 .47 George Steindorff and Keith C. Seele , When Egypt Ruled the East (Chicago , 1957 )~p. 48 .4e Papyrus Anastasi I; ANET , p. 477 . ( 1926 ), 14 .5' The level of the Sea 'has risen more than ten meters since masonry construction of some kind were buried under it,' Albright , BASOR , No. 163 ( 1961 )~ 51 , n. 73.68 There are now a number of fresh water springs which are right on the water's edge, Baly, op . cit., p. 203 .Clapp , o p . cit ., p. 338 .60 Why this peculiar 'dead-end' Sea is rising still remains as enigma. I t is obviously caused by the combination of many reasons. Albright suggests that the deposit of silt, and the influx of the salts into a body of water which already contains them in saturated solution 'naturally means that there is a constant and rapid deposition of mineral crystals on the bottom,' Albright , AASOR , VI ( 1926 ), 55 - 56 .