Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894/Notes on the Winged Figure at Jaffa, on Bether, &c.
NOTES ON THE WINGED FIGURE AT JAFFA, ON BETHER, &C.
By Rev. J. E. Hanauer.
1. I have seen the figure described in Herr Baurath Schick's paper, Quarterly Statement, 1893, p. 296, para. 6, Fig. 14. It is doubtless that of a Psyche sculptured on a small block of marble. That the material is marble is clearly seen in places where the stone has been slightly chipped. The generally reddish colour of the surface of the stone may be due to former gilding. It is an undoubtedly genuine "antique," probably the work of a native artist whose unskilful treatment has caused one hand only of the figure to appear webbed. The butterfly wings leave no doubt whatever as to the mythological person the sculpture is intended to represent. The ancients frequently carved either a Psyche (a butterfly winged maiden) or a butterfly alone on funeral monuments in order to personify the soul of the departed. I would call special attention to this statuette, as I believe it to be the original "antique" which suggested "ideas" to some modern forgers of antiquities. In writing this I have especially in my mind a slab of reddish limestone (in the possession of an American collector of note, still resident at Jerusalem) representing a nude female figure with pendant breasts and one knee bent, the foot of which ends like "a fish tail." This sculpture bears underneath in Greek the words "My Goddess," or "Goddess of my people" or some such legend. As it is now about three years since this caricature of ancient art was shown me I forget the exact wording of the inscription it bears.
2. The remains near the Austrian Hospice alluded to by Herr Von Schick in the Quarterly Statement for 1894, p. 20, para. 4, I believe to mark the site of the house occupied by the nuns of Bethany during times of war, and containing the chapel of St. John the Evangelist. The description of the remains as "Mohammedan" is vague, for the term "Mohammedan remains" is applicable to buildings erected between A.D. 637 and the present date. The vaults in the ruin I mention are undoubtedly mediæval, probably Crusading, and later Mohammedan work has been incorporated into the older building in several places. This is especially clear in the case of the Mihrab, which has been built in sideways, and somewhat askew to the old chapel wall. The very fact that a now ruined mosque once occupied this site is in itself sufficient to warrant the supposition that there was once a Christian place of worship here.
3. At Jerusalem the carved "hand of might" is also often met with painted blue, that colour being supposed to be peculiarly effective in warding off the malignant effects of "the evil eye."
4. Bether (see Quarterly Statement, 1894, p. 73). The Rev. J. E. Dowling and I visited Bittir and its vicinity last summer in order to study the ground and thus to arrive at a personal independent judgment as to the claims of the place to be the site of the Bether of Rabbi Akiba's and Bar Cocheba's days. We had no difficulty whatever in recovering the name of "Khirbet el Yehud," i.e., "Ruin of the Jews," and on a rocky platform on the very top of the hill south of and commanding the "Khirbeh," on the steep northern side of which the present village is built, a fellah pointed out to us the isolated and shattered pedestal of an ancient monument (probably of a "tropæum" erected by Hadrian to commemorate his victory), and told us that it was known by the country people of the district as حجر المنجَنيك i.e., the mangonel or catapult stone. As ever since the times of Fabius, Maximus and Ahenobarbus, B.C. 121, the Romans were accustomed to raise triumphal stone monuments on the held of battle, and place on them trophies adorned with the weapons and other spoils of the vanquished,[1] we may safely conclude that Hadrian would not be backward in following an example set by Pompey (Strabo, III, p. 156; Pliny, H. N., III, 3; Dion. Cass., XLI, 24; &c., &c.), Julius Cæsar (Dion. Cass., XLII, 48), and Drusus (Dion. Cass., LI, 1; Florus, IV, 12), and that a catapult may probably have formed a distinguishing feature of the "tropæum" at Bether. The interesting relic (of which I enclose my original rough pencil sketch) was too heavy for us to turn over, though we tried to do so in hopes of finding an inscription. The fellah who showed it to us told us that it marked the very spot from which the "Neby" had "cannonaded" the Jews.
We could make nothing out of the illegible inscription at the spring. In the village itself we noticed, besides traces of the old rock-hewn aqueduct, many well-hewn stones, some with mouldings, and, built into the mosque, an ancient window, formed of a quatre-foil perforated stone slab about two feet square.
In the valley called "Wady Halule" running up south-east towards Beit Jala, we were shown a huge boulder lying in the torrent bed and having a little rock-hewn chamber inside it with door aperture 14 inches square. This chamber may perhaps at one time have been a tomb, but the marks of bars in the doorway, and indications of grooves or channels to carry off or collect the rain water, seem to show that it was at one time the abode of a recluse. The fellahin call the boulder "Kala'at Sabah el Kheir,"[2] i.e., "Good Morning Castle," and state that it was once inhabited by a ghoul who used to devour every passing wayfarer who omitted to wish "Good morning." The chamber is very small, only 3 feet 3 inches high in the centre of the arched rock-hewn roof, and it is only at the very end of the hatchet-shaped space that a full grown man can lie full length.[3]
The limestone around Bittir is fossiliferous. Fossil sea urchins (Echinidæ) and hippurites abound.
Jaffa, February 13th, 1894.