Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894/Fauna and Flora

by Palestine Exploration Fund

 

XIV.—Fauna and Flora.

The common animals of the country are often noticed in the Mishnah, including oxen, sheep, goats, camels, asses, and mules, with the gazelle (צבי) as already noticed. Among wild beasts we find the wolf, lion, bear, leopard (נמר Arab نمر‎), and the small panther, pardulus (ברדלס), which some render basilisk (Baba Kama, i, 4); they were all hunted apparently in Palestine (Sanhedrin, i, 4) which, if we could be certain of locality, would make the survival of the lion very late. The pardulus was perhaps a large wild cat, still found in wild districts. The wolf, bear, and leopard are still to be found.

The pig and dog were unclean (Baba Kama, vii, 7) with the wild boar, which is still numerous (Kholin, ix, 2). A wild ox (שור הבר or שור המדבר) is also noticed (Kilaim, viii, 6; Baba Kama, iv, 7), but whether this was the Reem (A. V. unicorn) hunted by Assyrians in the seventh century b.c., or the bubale or bovine antilope^[1] is not clear. The latter is the Bakr el Wahash or "wild cow" of modern Arabs. Another doubtful animal was the Coi, which was a wild sheep (Bicurim, ii, 8; Nezir, v, 7; Kholin, vi, 1). It was doubtful whether the Coi (כוי) was cattle (בהמה) or game (חיה). It is to be noted that Coi is an ancient Turkish word for a "sheep," and that wild sheep are hunted in Cyprus. Probably they were found in Northern Syria at the time of which we treat. Tame sheep it may also be noted wore bells, as they still do (Nezir, vi, 2).

Another wild animal was the "sea dog," which was amphibious and came at times on land (כלב המים Kelim, xvii, 13), but whether in Palestine or elsewhere is not stated. There can be little doubt that the seal is intended, which would be familiar to the Jews in the Black Sea and in the Caspian, and which is occasionally found off the Syrian coast, as has been noted in the Quarterly Statement, Palestine Exploration Fund. ^[2] The Lybian ass like a camel (Kilaim, viii, 4)) was apparently only a large breed of ass from Egypt. The mole rat (Middoth, i, 3)^[3] and the mole which was blind (Kelim, xxvi, 6) are noticed, with the frog (Taharoth, v, 1) and various snakes, including the basilisk^[4] (Baba Metzia, vii, 7). There are few allusions to birds, other than cocks, and pigeons, and doves (Baba Kama, vii, 7),^[5] both wild and tame; the fish, tunny, herring, and Spanish Colis have been already mentioned. All reptiles were unclean^[6] (Kelim, iv, v, &c.), and centipedes as well (Mikvaoth, v, 3). There remain only to be noticed bees, which were kept in hives (Shebiith, X, 7; Ouketzin, iii, 10) and also found producing wild honey (Macshirin, vi, 4). The hare and the "coney" (שפן) are noticed (Ouketzin, iii, 3) as mentioned in Scripture. The latter is the Arab Wabr or Thofan which still inhabits the rocks near the Dead Sea. It is not a rabbit or hare at all, but belongs to quite another genus. The Shamir^[7] or mythical worm that cut the stones for the temple was the size of a grain of corn (Pirki Aboth, V, 6; Sotah, viii, 12), and some suppose the diamond to be intended, as indeed the name would seem to imply.

Of the vegetable, productions of Palestine, fruits, trees, shrubs, grains, and plants, there are many notices in the Mishnah, though some of these products bear names of doubtful meaning. As regards vineyards something has been said, and it need only be added that Helioston refers to grapes prematurely ripened by artificial means under the Sun (Menakhoth, viii, 6), such being considered unfit for consecrated wine. In the same tract (Menakhoth, viii, 3) we read of Anphikinon (אנפיקינון), a purgative oil of bitter taste, made from unripe olives. The best oil came from the ripe olives, beaten from the trees and allowed to ooze; the second quality was beaten on the roofs, and apparently squeezed in the stone mill; the third quality was stored till the olives were rotten, dried on the roofs, and beaten, and put in a basket (Menakhoth, viii, 3, 4). The best was used for the golden seven-branched lamp, and the second for the Menakhoth or "meat (bread) offerings." Other oils were known to the Jews, including sesame oil, nut oil, radish oil, fish oil, that from colocynth or wild cucumber, and naphthah or mineral oil, as well as castor oil (קיקי Κἰκι) all of which were unfit for sacred purposes (Sabbath, ii, 1, 2). The olives are still beaten from the trees in Palestine, and the castor oil plant grows to a tree near Jericho. Mineral oil is now much used by the Jews for lighting.

Among trees the principal ones noticed are the olive and the fig, but many wild kinds are also mentioned. The Persian fig (Shebiith, v, 1) was a foreign tree, but the locust tree or carob (Shebiith, vii, 7; Baba Bathra, ii, 9; Edioth, iv, 7) was the same tree still common in Palestine

(חרוב خروب‎), of which the pods are edible. The sycamore fig (Baba Bathra, ii, 9; Trumoth, xi, 4) is still to be found in the plains, but the apple (Trumoth, xi, 4) is less common. The mulberry, pomegranate, date palm, peach, quince, and citron occur among fruit trees (Maaseroth, i, 2) with the walnut, almond, and Sorba (עזורין) which appears, according to the commentators, to be the Arabic Z'arûr (زعرور‎), a kind of hawthorn, of which I have eaten the haws on Carmel. The chestnut is not a common tree now (קטף, Shebiith, vii, 6) though planted on Lebanon, but the oak and terebinth are plentiful (Shebiith, vii, 5). Willows are noticed at Kolonia below Jerusalem (Succah, iii, 3; iv, 5) and cedar wood, with ash, cypress, and fig wood for burning (Yoma, iii, 8). The altar fire was fed with fig-tree wood, nut, and wood of the "oil tree," not with olive wood or vines (Tamid, ii, 3). The lulab bunch consisted of palm, myrtle, and willow, and a citron was carried with it (Succah, iii, 4). The palm branches were laid on the roof of the Temple Court, or carried into the synagogue (Succah, iii, 12, 13): the willows were put in gold vases (Succah, iv, 6); and the children at this same feast of Tabernacles strewed palm branches and ate their citrons (Succah, iii, 7).

Another tree (אשכרוע) is sometimes rendered "elm," but appears to have been a kind of pine or cedar, of which pure vessels were made (Kelim, xii, 8). There is a species of fir which grows wild in the Gilead woods (Pinus Carica), but the Aleppo pine (Pinus Halepensis) of the Lebanon now bears a foreign name, viz., sinobar (صنوبر‎), which is apparently the זנובילא (Buxtorff, 679), Κιννάβαρις, otherwise צנובר and Σιγγεβερις (T. B. Pesakhim, 4:2b), and though believed in the fourth and fifth centuries to have been the tree of which Solomon built the temple, it is not impossibly a stranger to Palestine, though now plentiful in Lebanon.

By the "oil tree" may perhaps be understood the oleaster or wild olive (עץ שמן, Tamid, ii, 3), though Bartenora says "pine" or "balsam."^[8] It was one of the woods for the altar fire. Finally, the og (אוג) is believed to have been the sumach (Kelim, xxvi, 3). It had a red fruit, fit for eating and for dyeing skins.

Among shrubs the most famous is the hyssop. There can be little doubt that the origany or wild marjoram is the plant intended, as has always been traditionally supposed. The caper is quite out of the question, nor does its Arab name Asâf bear any relation to the Hebrew word for hyssop (אזוב, ezob), which the Greeks seem to have borrowed as ὕσσωπος. Maimonides says that hyssop was صعتر‎, which is a kind of marjoram (on Maaseroth, iii, 9), and the plant called Miriamîyeh in Palestine (as Dr. Chaplin pointed out to me) is not only of this family, but grows from ruined walls, and is used for purposes of disinfection. There are several kinds of salvias, origanies, and satureias in Palestine, remarkable for their grey thick leaves, and to one of these growing above the Jordan valley the name' Adhbeh (عذبه‎) is given by the Arabs, which may be a corruption of ezob. There were several kinds of hyssop, such as Greek, coloured, Roman, or desert hyssop (Negaim, xiv, 6 : Parah, xi, 7), bvit only one kind was sacred, of which the seeds are noticed (תמרות) in the latter passage, with the sprouts or stalks. Three species of origany or hyssop are noticed (Ouketzin, ii, 2) as eaten, and Greek hyssop (Sabbath, xiv, 3), with another kind of marjoram, as medicine. Greek hyssop is believed by botanists to have been a Satureia, of the same family with the mint and the marjoram ; and the Greek word is used in the New Testament (Hebrews, ix, 19) as equivalent to the Hebrew hyssop. Short hyssop was tied into a bunch (Parah, xii, 1) for sprinkling.

The crops grown in Palestine have been noted, and included wheat, barley, rye (or spelt), and probably oats (שיפון, see Kilaim, i, 1), with sesame and millet. In the same chapter we tind noticed beans, peas, French beans, white beans, Egyptian beans, chick peas, eshalots, Greek pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, cardamums, mustard, I'ape, carrots or radishes, hemp, indigo, fenugrec, flax, wild crocus ; and tares, jackal-spike and wild corn, growing in good corn. In the next tract of the Mishnah (Shebiith, ii) are noticed cucumbers and gourds, rice, millet, poppies, Egyptian beans, and onions, with the luf (v, i) either an eshalot or a pumpkin ; and (vii, 1) mint, succory, cresses, leeks, milk-wort (נצ חלב), thistles or thorns of some kind (דרדר), indigo, madder (which is now eaten), scolopendrium, wormwood, and other plants with doubtful names. Blackberries are also noticed (אטדין, Shebiith, vii, 5) according to Maimonides, and among flowers the rose (vii, 6) ; also wild asparagus, coriander in the mountains, rocket in the desert, and apparently cabbage (ix, 1) with rue and other plants. There were two kinds of melon, the melopepo and the water melon (Trumoth, ii, 6 ; iii, 1). In another passage we read of rocket, nasturtium, carrots, garlic, and onions, and Cilician pounded beans, Egyptian lentils, and another kind of lentil (Maaseroth, iv, 5 ; v, 4) with (כריש) a word variously explained as leeks or as cresses. The ladanum (לוטם, Shebiith, vii, 6), which is rendered "myrrh" in the Bible, was the gum cistus, which is common in Palestine (Gen., xxxvii, 25), and the word survives in the Arabic ladan (لدن‎). The Cilician lentils (קלקי) and Egyptian lentils are again noticed (Negaim, vi, i, and Kelim, xvii, 8). Bread was made of wheat, barley, and rye or spelt (Shebuoth, iv, 2), and another enumeration we find garlic, leeks, mint, rue, lettuce, carrot, rape, onions, cabbage, beetroot, cucumbers, pears, quince, and hawthorn, artichokes, chick peas, cistus, cinnamon, and crocus (Ouketzin, i, 2, to iii, 3). The general result of this inquiry is to show that both the fauna and flora of the country were the same as at the present day, as were also the seasons and climate. All the plants and trees mentioned grow and are cultivated still, and it is only the area of cultivation, and in some parts of woods and forests, that has diminished. Yet Palestine, which was fully cultivated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D., is regarded by many as a stony desert without crops, trees, or flowers.

1. The "Cambridge Companion to the Bible," 1893, asserts that the Yahmur is the Bubale, which is an error. The Yahmur is the roebuck, as I ascertained in 1872. The Authorised Version (Deut., xiv, 5, 1 Kings, iv, 23) renders the word "fallow deer," but the Revised Version has adopted the true meaning in consequence of the note on the subject which I submitted to the revisers. This is an instance in which a new discovery has still not found its place in handbooks supposed to be well up to date, even after having been published for some 15 years.
2. See Quarterly Statement, April, 1888, p. 106. The seal is still called Kelb el Bahr, "the sea dog." A mother and calf were caught in nets at Surafend, south of Haifa.
3. The חלד is often translated "mole," but the term is now applied to the Khuld or Spalax Typhlus, "the mole rat." The mole is called אישה in the Talmud, and mentioned with the Jerboa (עכבר) in the Gemara (T. B. Moed Katon, 6b). It was caught in nets, and was blind.
4. Otherwise the small panther.
5. The turtle-doves were presented in nests (Maaser Sheni, i, 7; Kenim, iii, 6).
6. As to locusts, see Kholin, iii, 7.
7. The celebrated story of the Shamir worm is found in T. B. Gittin, 68.
8. The balsam כפר is noticed with cypress rose and chestnut (Shebiith, vii, 6).