Toponymy

Regions

Settlements

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

33.511612, 36.309102 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The city of Damascus was established in the middle of the second millennium BC, and it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Damascus is located on a plateau and was surrounded by the fertile land of an oasis named Ghouta, irrigated by the Barada River, which used to be an important stream of water. The three other rivers crossing near the city that Bede refers to are the Awaj River, which comes from the Hermon and maybe Baniyas and Qanawat [?]. In the east of the Ghouta, the Barada and the Awaj formed two large end lakes, that were a continuous body of water until the 19th century. These two rivers are recorded in the Old Testament as Abana / Amana and Pharpar (2 Kings 5: 10-12, where they are represented as more important than the Jordan). In the 1st century BC, Damascus was conquered by the Romans and incorporated into the province of Syria; the Christianization of the city is likely to have started early in the 1st century AD, as Paul already met a Christian community there (around 33 AD). Flavius Josephus mentions the existence of a Jewish colony in Damascus, as he gives an account of the Jewish victims during the first uprising against Rome in 66 AD (War II 559-561 and VII 368). Under Theodosius I, the temple of Jupiter was converted into a Christian cathedral, later dedicated to Saint John the Baptist [See the notice Church of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus]. After the Arab conquest of the city in 634, a prayer room for Muslims was built as an annex to the church [See the notice Prayer room], before the Umayyad Mosque was built on the site at the beginning of the 8th century. Damascus is the first of the three cities outside of the Holy Land that Bede describes in the last chapters of his DLS [with Alexandria and Constantinople], as the pilgrim Arculf, Adomnan’s source, visited it after his stay in Galilee.

Holy places (buildings and sites)

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.837100, 35.546310 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The site of the baptism of Jesus Christ by John is a clear example of Bede’s goal within the DLS: to describe the commemorative landscape of the Holy Land at his time. Bede’s short account comes after a long line of discussions, descriptions, and reports on the subject. For centuries, the exact location of the baptism and the place name were discussed by commentators, and pilgrims gave different indications about the site and its sacred buildings [see Tsafrir, 1986; Waheed, 2013]. Up until the 6th century, the baptism was considered to have happened in Bethany/Bethabara beyond the Jordan, either directly on the east bank of the Jordan River or a bit further in the land. However, because it was easier or safer to access, pilgrims started commemorating the baptism on the west bank. Here Bede copies the most important points of Adomnan’s description, reorganizing the various elements: he starts with the cross marking the exact point in the river where Jesus was baptized and notes the width of the Jordan there. Bede, following Adomnan, says that the other bank is a slingshot away, which could indicate that at that location, the river was not very wide: for John to practice baptisms in the Jordan, an easy access to the water was necessary, which would be permitted by a ford. The location of the site, about 8 km north of the Dead Sea, where the Wadi Al-Kharrar joins the Jordan river, matches such a description. Afterwards, Bede reviews the commemorative buildings located close to the site: the monastery of John with its church [see the notice Monastery of Saint John the Baptist], and the square church in the water where Jesus left his clothes [see the notice Church where the Lord's clothes were kept]. He states that a bridge links the monastery to the cross in the river, permitting the pilgrims to access the site to pray. This bridge could correspond to the stairs from the Byzantine era leading to the river that have been found on the east bank of the river. No structure of this kind can be seen today on the west bank of the river.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.778078, 35.245192 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

At the end of the chapter on the Mount of Olives, Bede refers to the last of the main commemorative buildings situated on the hill, that is the church of the Disciples – known from Egeria as the church of the Eleona (Greek for “olive grove”), commissioned by Constantine and built under the direction of the emperor’s mother Helena at the beginning of the 4th century. Bede explicitly links the building to the site where Jesus made the prophecy about the end, in the days before his crucifixion (the “Olivet Discourse”, cf. Mark 13; Matt. 24:3-14; Luke 21). The church was destroyed in 614 when the Persians took Jerusalem: the site remained associated to the Christ’s teaching, but no church was rebuilt there before the Crusader period. Thus, the church that Bede mentions, following Adomnan’s DLS, did not exist anymore at the time Arculf visited the Holy Land. It is unlikely that Adomnan did not know about its destruction, but he says nothing about it, maybe in order to maintain the sacredness of the site. In the chapter 1,25 of his DLS, Adomnan takes a step back from Arculf’s tour to comment on the Discourse episode related by the three Gospels. It is interesting to remark that here again, Bede severely abridged his source’s text: where Adomnan clarified the time, place, content and audience of the prophecy, Bede only noted that a church was built to commemorate the site of this episode of the Christ’s life. Finally, if the Constantinian church of the Eleona, built on the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount corresponds to the place described by the Gospels, the location given by Adomnan and copied by Bede is slightly problematic: they both refer to a church south of Bethany, while the Eleona is northwest of the town. As Adomnan describes the Mount of Olives from northwest to southeast and top to bottom, maybe locating the church to the south permitted him to have a coherent literary progression. Bede then simply copied what he found in his source, without noticing the mistake.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

33.511944, 36.306667 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The site of the church of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus had been holy at least since the Iron Age. While Damascus was the capital of the Kingdom of Aram-Damascus, a temple to Hadad, the storm god, was built by the Arameans. With the Hellenization of the city during the 2nd century BC, there was a progressive transition to a dedication to Zeus, the Greek equivalent to Hadad; and when the Romans conquered the city, they erected a monumental temple to Jupiter on the site, following a different plan than the original building. Under Theodosius, in 391, the temple was converted into a Christian cathedral. It is however impossible today to determine the shape of the Christian building or its exact location on the site. It is also unclear when the church was dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, as no information can be found before the 6th century, but the tradition held that the head of the saint was kept in the crypt as a holy relic. Adomnan stated that Arculf saw this church during his pilgrimage, which corresponds to the known chronology of the building. After the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 635, a treaty was concluded in order for the cathedral to be kept as a worship place for Christians. A prayer room for Muslims was added in the temenos of the church, which is probably the building built by the Saracen King (Mu'awiya I, already named in the Chapter 5) mentioned by Adomnan and Bede. The church was destroyed in 706 by the caliph al-Walid I, to give place to the Umayyad Mosque. The head of John the Baptist is still kept in a golden shrine inside the Mosque.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.778470, 35.229790 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

Bede's description of the Anastasis ("the church of the resurrection") is another abridgement from Adomnan's DLS. As it is described and shown on the drawn plans in the manuscripts, the church was a round structure built around the tomb of Jesus, with three concentric walls, three altars and two main series of doors, going throughout each wall, on the northeast and the southeast. Some plans in Bede's manuscripts (such as N and P) don't represent the doors, maybe because Bede's directions were unclear. This confusion is still distinct in the various translations of the text, as it appears that both Adomnan and Bede might have misunderstood the winds used as reference points. Foley (1999) translated uulturnum and eurum by south-east and east; Wilkinson (2002), by west and east. However, Bede's directions are coherent with what is found in his source's text. Adomnan says ex quibus quattuor exitus ad uulturnum spectant, qui et caecias dicitur uentus, alii uero quattuor ad eurum respiciunt, "four of them are on the north facing east, also called the Caecias wind, and the other four are on the south facing east" [Wilkinson, 2002: 171]. It seems that Bede omitted the insert where Adomnan equates the Vulturnus (a south-east wind) to the Caecias (a north-east wind), but did not realize that this made the indication almost redundant with the Eurus (a south-east wind) and thus unclear. Considering that the plan in Ms W shows the entrances on the south-east and on the north-east, copying exactly the drawings in Adomnan's manuscripts, we decided to translate uulturnus as "north-east", considering that this is how Bede understood it.

Location:

uncertain

Coordinates:

32.702700, 35.296800 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

When Bede comes to Nazareth, he mentions two churches: the Church of the Nutrition, built on the site of the house where Jesus was fed as a child, and the Church of the Annunciation, built on the site of the house of Mary, where Angel Gabriel announced that she would bear the Son of God [see the notice Church of the Annunciation]. He takes the time to describe the architecture of the Church of the Nutrition, situated in the middle of the city: it was constructed on two piles with arches, above a clear spring of water, situated in between the piles [see the notice Well in the church of Nutrition]. Bede, following Adomnan, uses Latin cancer (“lattice”) and tumulus (“mound” or “vault”) to designate these two piles: in the text, we understand these to form the structure supporting the building above, and not actual tombs. The localisation of this byzantine church has long been disputed, and various propositions have been made, at the modern sites of the Church of St Gabriel (close to Mary’s Well), St Joseph’s Church and the Sisters of Nazareth convent. Recent excavations underneath this last edifice indicate that this is the most probable location: remains of a large artificial cave church, smaller rooms, and a water system including a cistern, underneath a surface-level church, have been found and studied [for a full description, see Dark, 2012]. It appears to be a vast and important religious structure, which could explain why Adomnan, following Arculf’s words, described it with precision.

Other name(s):

Ecclesia Constantiniana

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.778611, 35.229444 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

After explaining the overall setting of the city of Jerusalem, Bede discusses the various sacred places within its walls. He starts by the most important site, what is today known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a whole complex containing, most notably, the tomb of Jesus Christ. Bede starts his description of intramural Jerusalem from the north of the city, following the structure of Eucherius's brief overlook of the site, and walks the reader through the complex from East to West, and then back to the entrance. He first mentions the Martyrium (the eastern building), then to the West, Golgotha, where Jesus Christ was crucified, and the Anastasis, which contains the Tomb of Jesus. Once Bede is done with the main sites, he walks back to the East and mentions the secondary sacred buildings encountered, the church of the holy Mother of God, the chapel of the Chalice, the place where Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son and finally, the portico of the Martyrium which holds the soldier's lance. Most details in these descriptions come from Adomnan's DLS, which Bede reorganized to match his walkthrough of the buildings [cf. Aist 2018: 123-124]. The plan of the Holy Sepulchre drawn in some of the manuscripts (copied from Adomnan's texts) gives a good overview of the layout of the complex and illustrates well Bede's literary description. They partly represent the complex as it had been rebuilt by Modestus in the 7th century, after the destruction of the Constantinian building in 614 during the Persian invasion.
Bede gives few information about the Martyrium, the church originally built by Constantine in 335. He mainly insists on the magnificence of the construction and recalls the fact that this is the place where Helena, the mother of Constantine would have found the Holy Cross. If Adomnan mentions the finding of the cross, the attribution to Helena is added by Bede through other sources (such as Sulpicius Severus, Chronicon 2,33,2). The drawn plan of the building represents three crosses in a rectangular basilica, omitting the legend of Adomnan's drawings, which explains that there were the two crosses of the robbers around the Holy Cross.

Location:

certain

Comment:

One of the most important sacred places around the city of Hebron is the Oak of Mamre. Following biblical tradition, it is on the hill of Mamre, near an oak tree, that Abraham pitched his tent and was visited by the three angels (Gen.13:18, 18:21, 23:19). The holy place described by Bede is situated on the site of Ramat el-Khalil, and not on the site of Khirbet es-Sibte a few kilometres south-west of the former, where an old oak tree has been identified as Abraham’s Oak by a more recent tradition. At Ramat el-Khalil, archaeological findings include a rectangular sacred wall on the flat top of the hill, built under Herod, and a Christian complex within the wall that can be attributed to the emperor Constantine. This is without doubt the church built around the tree that Arculf saw and described to Adomnan. Bede has abridged Adomnan’s paragraph to a minimum, only keeping the fact that the trunk was the height of two men: we know, from Adomnan’s text, that in the 7th century, the tree was mostly cut off, and only the roots and parts of its trunk remained, protected by the roof of the church.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

32.873658, 35.548975 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The first place that Bede describes in chapter 15 is the site where Jesus performed the miracle of the five loaves and the two fishes (Matt. 14:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16; John 6:11). Even though he does not give a precise location, the general description of the place north of Tiberias and close to Capernaum corresponds to the site of Tabgha, commonly associated with the biblical episode, alongside the teaching of the Beatitudes and the confirmation of the primacy of Peter [See Finegan, 1992: 85-87]. This denomination is the Arabic contraction of the Greek name Heptapegon (“seven springs”). When Egeria visited the site in the 4th century, she reports that she could see steps on the shore and a church, containing the stone on which Jesus divided the bread to feed the five thousand, but no other signs of human settlement, corresponding with the description of a “solitary place” (Mark 6:32). The church, enlarged during the following century, was destroyed during the 7th century, probably during the Persian invasion of 614, which would explain Arculf’s description of the site, only bearing a few columns. Bede, wishing to insist on the isolation of this sacred place, untouched by human construction or cultivation, only recalls a grassy field and the spring to which the people drank [see the notice Tabgha Spring].

Topography (mountains and valleys)

Other name(s):

mons Oliuarum

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.780240, 35.246460 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The Mount of Olives is part of a ridge of hills going from north to south, to the east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley [See the notice Kidron]. It is 818 meters high facing the Temple area. Bede situates it a mile away from Jerusalem (1480 m. – which is coherent with the walking distance between the Mount and the Temple area), equal in heights to Mount Sion (it is, in reality, slightly higher) but larger and wider [See the notice Mount Sion]. The hill takes its name from the main vegetation growing on its slopes and top, olive trees. Bede, following the Vulgate, names it Mons Oliueti, “Mountain of the Olive Grove”, and once, Mons Oliuarum, “Mountain of the Olive Trees”. It seems that the Latin name was not fixed in the textual sources. As Bede explains, it was cultivated, thanks to a soil good for vines and olive trees, but also for wheat and barley. The Latin text of the last sentence describing the vegetation on the Mount is a bit problematic, as the manuscripts all present an unattested word, bruc(h)osa or brucos: bruchus is a type of locust and bruscosa – Meehan’s conjecture in his edition of Adomnan's DLS – designates, in later texts, a “shrubland”. As Bede here opposes two type of soils, one brucosus and one grassy, we decided to follow Meehan’s proposition. After this description, Bede gives details about the sacred building located on this Mount: the Church of the Ascension, on top of the hill, the Tomb of Lazarus (with its church and monastery), and the Eleona, both close to the town of Bethany [see the corresponding notices].

Topography (bodies of water)

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

33.248611, 35.694444 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

Banias (Latin Panium, from the Greek Paneon / Panias) is the location of a spring gushing from a limestone cave, source of the Banias river, one of the main tributaries of the Jordan. However, it was believed, since the experiment led by Philip the Tetrarch, that the spring was fed by underground channels out of Lake Ram (Phiala). The site around the spring had been associated with various deities throughout the centuries, and during the Hellenistic period, was dedicated to the god Pan, which gave his name to the cave, the spring (Panias), the city nearby (Paneas) and the region (Panion). A temple dedicated to Pan was built close to the cave, and Bede refers to a monument built or renovated by Agrippa II, who carried out many urban improvements during his reign over the region. Bede makes no reference to the fact that, at his time, the city was mostly depopulated, following the Muslim victories: his knowledge about the cave and the source is directly taken from Hegesippus's adaptation of The Jewish War of Flavius Josephus, thus referring solely to the situation in the 1st century.

Location:

uncertain

Coordinates:

31.780339, 35.236208 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

It is plausible that the cisterns close to the Temple Mount and the Mosque correspond to the pool today named Birket Israel, built by the Romans as a water reservoir on the northern wall of the Temple Mount. It has been assumed that it was built during Hadrian's restoration of the city: the study of the masonry and the fact that Josephus does not mention it in his texts (but the pilgrim of Bordeaux does) points to this era [see Jacobson, 1990-1991: 37-44]. It was Jerusalem's largest reservoir, and it might have also served as a moat. Bede, copying Eucherius, talks about cisterns in the plural: it might refer to other reservoirs close by (e.g., to the east of the two main pools of Bethesda, there are 6 smaller pools, which could have been water reservoirs), or just be an emphasis, considering the size of this pool. Bede's account is quite imprecise: he does not keep the location given by Eucherius ("to the north"), but as he moves on north, from the Mosque on the Temple Mount to the pool of Bethesda, before going further east to the pool of Siloam, he could have felt that the direction was an unnecessary addition.

Other name(s):

Lacus Asfaltius

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.557470, 35.495450 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The Jordan ends in the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake in the southeast of Palestine, that has no outlet: the water is lost only through evaporation, and it is known for its high level of salinity and other minerals. In the Old Testament, it is called the "Sea of Salt" (e.g., Genesis 14.3; Numbers 34:12), the "sea of the plain" (Deuteronomy 3:17), the "Eastern Sea" (Ezek. 47:18; Joel 2:20), or the "Sea of the Arabah"; in Arabic, it is known as the "Sea of Lot" or the "Sea of Zoar". The first attestations of the name "Dead Sea" are in Greek (θάλασσα νεκρά‎), from the 2nd-century texts of Pausanias and Galen. Before that denomination, Greeks also designated the sea as the "Lake Asphaltites", because of the bitumen floating on its surface. In Latin, Pliny used the latter in his Natural History, and the name "Dead Sea" came in use during late Antiquity in Christian texts. Bede calls it indifferently Mare Mortuum and Asfaltius lacus. Because of its specificity, Bede dedicates a full chapter to the description of the Dead Sea. He follows the Hebrew tradition about its formation: the sea was born from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which explains its salinity. He then relates the most common features of its waters, as transmitted in his sources: the salt and bitumen collected and sold by the inhabitants of its shore; the special qualities of its waters, where everything and everyone float - he even recalls a specific episode about Vespasian - but where no living being can survive (which, incidentally, is the reason for its name); the poor quality of the air, maybe caused by the sulphur in the mud, and the inedible fruits growing in the neighbouring regions. The description of the Dead Sea is one of the few instances in the DLS where Bede did not omit all supernatural elements from the texts he abridged.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

32.209520, 35.285180 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The well, situated near Nablus, close to the archaeological site of Tell Balata - thought to be the site of Shechem -, has been associated with Jacob by all Jewish, Samaritan, Christian, and Muslim traditions. In Genesis 33:18–20, it is said that Jacob, returning to Shechem, bought the land on which he camped and built there an altar. The well itself is named in the New Testament in John 4:5–6, and the Gospel then relates the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Bede clearly abridged Adomnan's paragraph on the subject, only referring briefly to the biblical passage and describing the size of the well, in order to offer a mental image of the site to its readers. However, Bede’s Latin is not very clear here, indicating either that he misunderstood Adomnan or, more probably, that a copist inserted a marginal note within the text. The phrase a latere ipso usque ad summum digitorum extentus should be understood as a gloss explaining the length of a cubit – as it was done in Adomnan’s text –, but the syntax does not permit this reading: extentus can only qualify the subject fons, giving the impression that Bede informs us here on the width of the well. If this detail was indeed a note on the length of a cubit, we can conclude that Bede took a cubit to be a Roman ulna (about 1.2 meters), and the well would be around 48 meters deep.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.760250, 35.557920 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The Jordan river is the main river of the Holy Land, running north to south, from the foot of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, close to Mount Hermon, to the Dead Sea. Its full length is about 250 km, due to its meandering nature in the Jordan valley, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Beda mentions the Jordan river numerous times in the DLS, especially in chapter 10, dedicated to the river and the Sea of Galilee. Bede gives precise information about the course of the Jordan: he explains how its sources were discovered in the Trachonitis region before resurging near Panium (Banias); he quickly describes its course through the lakes of Merom (Hula) and Gennesaret (the Sea of Galilee). He does not comment on its descent but remarks on its winding nature down to the Dead Sea, where one can still follow the stream of the sweet water because of its milky colour. The Jordan river was the largest source of water for the region at the time and thus bears an important role in sustaining life in the region. It also has an essential significance in Judaism and Christianity: it appears in biblical history as the place of many miracles. Bede refers to the Jordan when he recalls the site where Saint John baptized Jesus Christ (in the river, 5 or 6 km north of the Dead Sea), and when he speaks about Gilgal, close to Jericho, where Joshua erected 12 stones to commemorate the miracle of the crossing of the river on dry ground.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

33.232630, 35.766130 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The question of the place where the Jordan takes its source is essential, considering the concrete and spiritual importance of the river. It is known today that the principal sources of the Jordan are the three springs near Tel Dan, Banias, and Hasbaya, filled by the precipitation on Mount Hermon. It was believed in Antiquity that the spring in Banias actually came from the crater lake now known as Lake Ram, named Phiala in Greek because of its round form. According to Bede's sources, Philip the Tetrarch, who ruled over the northeast part of his father's kingdom (Herod I) at the beginning of the 1st century, threw chaff in the lake and saw it reappear in Banias, after travelling through underground channels. Modern calculations show that this is probably untrue [cf. Mazor, E. (1976). "The Ram Crater Lake A note on the revival of a 2000-year-old groundwater tracing experiment." International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): IAEA]. The lake appears to have no outlet, and the only known underground spring is the one feeding it.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

30.161960, 31.149460 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

Considering the historical and spiritual importance of Egypt and the Nile, one full chapter of the DLS is devoted to the city of Alexandria and to the river. As the main source of sustenance in Egypt, the Nile, which runs through eastern Africa for 6650 km down to the Mediterranean Sea, was worshipped in the ancient world. However, it is interesting to note that Bede mainly comments on very practical matters concerning the conditions of living near the river. As the Nile rises and floods annually, thus fertilizing the land, the population had to adapt: they built dikes to protect the fields, so that they would not be flooded, and constructed their houses on stilts. It is probable that Bede mentions the specificity of the Nile by contrast with the climate of the Holy Land, where most of the water supply comes from the winter rains.

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.781300, 35.235800 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The Pool of Bethesda is a bathing pool in Jerusalem mentioned in the Gospel of John (5:1-15) as the location where Jesus miraculously healed a paralysed man. The waters were thought to have healing powers when they were agitated. The manuscripts of the Gospel and the commentators don't give a uniform version of the name: we find, for instance, Beth-zatha, derived from the name or the suburb Bezetha; Bethsaida, frequently used by commentators (including Jerome) and pilgrims, but probably a metathesis influenced by the city of the same name [Wieand, 1966]. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls showed that the Greek transcription Bethesda (= "house of mercy") is the most probable name. All the DLS manuscripts we have transcribed hold the reading Bethsaida, which was the one used by Eucherius. In the Gospel, the pool is situated near the Sheep Gate and briefly described as being surrounded by five porticoes. Archaeological digs conducted in the last two centuries close to the Lion's Gate unearthed first a large water tank, situated north-west of St. Anne's Church, then the remains of a second large pool, the dam between these two pools, a Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, the healing pools of an Asclepeion, a Byzantine and a Crusader church. This site is the most probable candidate to be associated with the Pool of Bethesda. Other sites have been considered (e.g. the Pool of the Virgin, also known as Gihon Spring, an intermittent spring feeding the pool of Siloam) but, as Bede names first the cisterns close to the Temple Mount (which may be a reference to Birket Israel [see Cisterns]), the pool of Bethesda and then the pool of Siloam [see Pool of Siloam] at the foot of Mount Sion, it is clear that they are three different reservoirs. Bede copies almost word for word Eucherius' text: he describes it briefly as containing two large tanks, one being filled by the winter rains, and the other being of a reddish colour. Jerome (sit. et nom. 142,9-15) links the red colour and the Greek name of the pool (προβατικὴ, "of / belonging to sheep") to the fact that priests would wash the sacrificial sheep in this pool. However, neither Eucherius nor Bede discuss the pool's functions, taken today [von Wahlde, 2009] as an otsar (the north pool, collecting rainwater) and a mikveh (the south pool, a ritual bath filled from the north pool). Adomnan does not mention it, which may imply that, during Arculf's time, the pool was not part of the pilgrims' tour of Jerusalem anymore. The last documented reference to the pool is in the Itinerarium S. Willibaldi (who was in Jerusalem in 724-725), but archaeological evidence shows that the pool was not completely abandoned before the 9th century [see Dauphin, 2005: 259-261].

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

31.760070, 35.247490 (OpenStreetMap)

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Comment:

The pool of Siloam is one of the few sites whose identification is undisputed among topographers and scholars. This term refers precisely to rock-cut pools, at the foot of Mount Sion to the southeast, in the Lower City. These pools were fed by the Gihon Spring, through the Siloam tunnel, carved in the 9th-8th century BC. The "Old Pool" (originally - at least until 70 AD - the pool of Siloam), which is the lower and the bigger one, is known as Birket el Hamra, "the red pool". The excavations led at the site of the pool of Siloam showed that throughout the centuries, various pools have been built, destroyed and restored, which might have impeded a clear description of the site by pilgrims and commentators. The question of the location of the pool within the walls of the city (Bede places it so, probably referring to the wall built in the 1st century AD, enclosing Birkeh Silwan, the newer pool) is a good indicator of the evolution of the site since its construction [Wilkinson, 1978; Finegan, 1992: 187-192]. However, Bede, following Eucherius, does not really describe the pools, but the spring itself: Gihon Spring (probable derivation from Hebrew "giha", "gushing"; also known as the Fountain of the Virgin) was historically and culturally essential, as the main source of water that made possible the human settlement of what would become Jerusalem. It is an intermittent spring, with water gushing at specific times of the day. This specificity was bound to attract the attention of Bede, who relays many topographical peculiarities related to biblical episodes in the DLS.

Other name(s):

Genesar, Mare Chenereth

Location:

certain

Coordinates:

32.807230, 35.592790 (OpenStreetMap)

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Bede refers to the Sea of Galilee - the second freshwater lake crossed by the Jordan - under three of its names: Mare Galilaeae, Mare Chenereth and Lacus Genesar. Throughout history, the lake has been known under various names, depending usually on the importance of a neighbouring region or settlement. In the Old Testament, it is called Mare Chenereth, the "sea of Kinneret(h)" (Numbers 34:11; Joshua 13:27), linked to the major ancient city of the same name on its north-western shore. In the Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), it is frequently referred to as Mare Galilaeae, after the district of Galilee. The names Gen(n)esar (1 Maccabees 11:67), Gen(n)esareth (Luke 5:1 uses specifically the term "lake" of Gennesaret, while it is always referred to elsewhere as a sea), Ginosar (in the Talmud and Flavius Josephus) are also regularly used, and "Gennesaret" is considered to be the original designation by Josephus. It comes from the evolution, through Greek, of the more ancient name Chenereth. In the New Testament, it is also called Lake of Tiberias, from the new main city, named after the emperor Tiberius, on the western shore. In the text, Bede mainly mentions the Sea of Galilee for its importance as a freshwater source, the fertility of the soil and the abundance and quality of fish it contains. For these reasons, many settlements have been founded around the lake, such as Tiberias, Capernaum and Julias. Also, as Bede reports it, its shores have been the site of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.