Sarepta: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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'''Sarepta''' (modern Sarafand, [[Lebanon]]) was a [[Phoenician]] city on the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] coast between [[Sidon]] and [[Tyre]]. It was excavated by [[James B. Pritchard]] over five years ([[1969]]–[[1974|74]]). Generally speaking, most of the Phoenician objects that have been recovered were scattered among Phoenician colonies and trading posts; carefully-excavated colonial sites are in [[Spain]], [[Sicily]], [[Sardinia]] and [[Tunisia]]. The sites of many Phoenician cities, like Sidon and Tyre, are still occupied, unavailable to archaeology except in highly restricted chance sites, usually much disturbed. Sarepta is the exception, the one Phoenician city in the heartland of the culture that has been unearthed and thoroughly studied. Pritchard rewrote his professional reports for a wider public in ''Recovering Sarepta, A Phoenician City'' ([[1976]]).

Sarepta is mentioned for the first time in the voyage of an Egyptian in the [[14th century BCEBC]] (Chabas, ''Voyage d'un Egyptien'', 1866, pp 20, 161, 163). [[Abdias]] (i,20) says it was the northern boundary of [[Canaan]]. [[Sennacherib]] captured it in [[701 BCEBC]].

Pritchard's excavations revealed many artifacts of daily life in the ancient Phoenician city of Sarepta: pottery workshops and kilns, artifacts of daily use and religious figurines, numerous inscriptions that included some in Ugaritic. Pillar worship is traceable from an [[8th century BC|8th century]] shrine of [[Astarte|Tanit-Ashtart]], and a seal with the city's name made the identification secure. His article, "Sarepta in history and tradition" in ''Understanding the Sacred Texts'' (1972) displays the background research that informed all his meticulous work. In his book ''Recovering Sarepta, an Ancient Phoenician City'' (1978) he made the discovery comprehensible to the average reader in lucid prose.

We learn from [[Books of Kings|1 Kings]] 17:8-24 that the city was subject to Sidon in the time of [[Ahab]], and that the prophet [[Elijah]], having multiplied the meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath (Sarepta), raised her son from the dead. Zarephath in Hebrew became the [[eponym]] for any smelter or forge, or metalworking shop. In the [[1st century]] CEAD, Sarepta is mentioned by [[Josephus]], in ''Jewish Antiquities'' (Book VIII, xiii:2) and by [[Pliny]], in ''Natural History'' (Book V, 17).

Sarepta as a [[Christian]] city was mentioned in the ''Itinerarium Burdigalense''; the ''Onomasticon'' of [[Eusebius]] and in [[Jerome|St. Jerome]]; by Theodosius and Pseudo-Antoninus who, in the sixth[[6th century]] callscall it a small town, but very Christian (Geyer, ''Intinera hierosolymitana'', Vienna, 1898, 18, 147, 150). It contained at that time a church dedicated to St. Elias (Elijah). The ''Notitia episcopatuum'' a list of bishoprics made in Antioch in the 6th century, speaks of Sarepta as a suffragan see of Tyre; none of its bishops are known.

After the Islamization of the area, in [[1185]], the [[Greek]] [[monk]] [[Phocas]], making a gazetteer of the [[Holy landLand]] (''De locis sanctis'', 7), found the town almost in its ancient condition; a century later, according to Burchard, it was in ruins and contained only seven or eight houses (''Descriptio Terrae sanctae'', II, 9). Even after the Crusaders' kingdoms had collapsed, the [[Roman Catholic]] church continued to appoint purely titualar bishops of Sarepta. Some are mentioned after [[1346]].

==External links==