Arsuf (Apollonia): The Battle of Arsuf (1191)

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Image links:  image 1: CrusaderMap1;   image 2: Arsuf1;  image 3: from Arsuf2;  image 4: from Arsuf3;  image 5: from Arsuf4;  image 6: from Arsuf5.

The Battle of Arsuf is widely referenced, and serves as inspiration for video and board games, television documentaries, and discussions of military strategy and technologies.

The battle took place on September 7th, 1191.  While Saladin's forces were defeated on this day, it is difficult to know who really won in the larger context. Richard went on to take and hold Jaffa, but he never made it to Jerusalem.  Saladin learned that Richard was a very able commander, and opted to shift strategies, relying more on harassment and wearing down the Crusaders, playing rope-a-dope, rather than engaging in a pitched battle.  Richard returned to England in October of 1192 concerned over the news of his brother John's shenanigans back home.  Saladin agreed to a truce, and agreed to allow free Christian access to their Holy Sites.

An interesting back story to the Third Crusade was the reported respect and admiration shared by the two commanders toward each other.  By example, before his departure from the Holy Land, Richard sent messengers to Saladin proposing a truce.  The legates explained that once completing some business back home, Richard's intent was to return and kick Saladin's butt, if Saladin chose to resist.  In reply, Saladin remarked that "he thought King Richard so pleasant, upright, magnanimous, and excellent that, if the land were to be lost in his time, he would rather have it taken into Richard's power than to have it go into the hands of any other prince whom he had ever seen"  (from Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gestes Regis Ricardi).  Sweet.

The battle was well-chronicled, from both sides.  It's great reading:  a study in hyperbole, fanatical faith, and mythic heroes.  

A nice counterpoint and context to this rather self-serving, inflated source material is Terry Jones' The Holy Crusades, available for viewing on youtube.  

For other media links, see:

Battle of Arsuf (introduction to a video game)

Battle of Arsuf (in Arabic)

Batala de Arsuf (in Spanish)

The Advantages of Being a Biped

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Images (top to bottom):  1: Class conducting focused foot research (observing the roles of the heel/ball, toes, big toe, arch, etc., in walking); 2:  Ben carrying a tube of glue stick balanced on a whiteboard, walking as a biped;  3:  Rhynardt carrying apple as a quadruped; 4:  Emily balancing a full cup of water as a quadruped;  Rhynardt & Ben rolling at the finish line after carrying water balloons as quadrupeds.  

For video of this activity, see biped on BOT.

As my former students will recognize from the photos above, we're currently studying human ancestry in my 6th grade class.  It's a fun unit, with lots of hands-on (and feet-on) activities.  

In photo 1, students walk around the school barefoot, with their attention focused on various parts of their feet, exploring questions such as:  What is the role of the arch in walking?  What does it do for us?  What is the role of the heel, and the ball of our foot?  Why is the skin tougher there?  Can we observe the small muscle contractions in the bottoms of our feet as we walk?  What's going on there?  Etc., etc.

Understanding requires that we interact with a skill or concept from multiple points of entry, and in a rich context.  Thus, in exploring the advantages of being bipedal, students are asked to transport a variety of objects (a meter stick, a tube of glue stick balanced on a whiteboard, a dictionary, a cup of water) both as a biped and as a quadruped.  

I don't mind that the activity is noisy and draws attention, particularly of students in other grade levels.  I'm not concerned that our walking barefoot around campus looks a little weird.  These activities are a public demonstration of teaching for understanding, and a reminder that our teaching need not, and should not, be confined to the four walls of a classroom.

Knuckle-Walking at Hann Zoo

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For lots more media (video and stills) from this trip, go to zoo on BOT.  Look for Gallery 10.

Dakar has a zoo.  Like many things in the area, and I suppose in West Africa generally, the zoo is a little rough, cracked and worn, under-funded.  When I mentioned my interest in taking my students to the zoo, they collectively groaned, the zoo not being high on their list of favorite places.  The kids find the zoo sad, the animals in too-small enclosures, their frame of reference being either large game parks, or well-kept, modern zoos, with larger, landscaped enclosures.

We would be going to visit the chimpanzees, and their handler, hopefully for an up-close and personal encounter with them, an extension of our current study of human origins.

Randi and I visited the weekend prior.  The zoo reminded me of what American zoos might have looked like in the 1960s, prior what I take has been a renaissance in our understanding of animal behavior, and the design of zoos which attempts to more closely approximate their natural habitats.  When I was a youngster, I recall see big cats pacing in relatively small concrete enclosures.  What we attribute to mental illness today was then perceived as normal behavior.  The pacing made them appear more ferocious, as if they were impatiently waiting to escape and eat us. 

The class had a very memorable visit, for the incredible access we were allowed, under the watchful eye of the chimpanzee handler, who permitted students to interact directly with the animals.  Note the videos on BOT, which capture a few golden moments from this trip.

For visitors to this blog, email me at tspedding@sbcglobal.net for username/password access to our class website.

Arsuf (Apollonia): The Battle Of Megiddo (1918)

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Image links:  1:  from map;  2:  from aerial;  3-6:  from the Imperial War Museum Collection On-Line.

As previous entries written in Israel explained, Apollonia (also Arsuf/Arsur) is an archaeological site located on the Mediterranean coast some 10 km north of Tel Aviv.  While there is evidence of occupation as far back as the Chalcolithic Period (4500-3500 BCE), Apollonia reached its prominence during the Byzantine Period (313-636 CE).  

Apollonia was subsequently occupied during the Early Arab Period (638-1099), and the Crusader Period (1099-1260 CE), during which time a castle, complete with a moat, was constructed.  Interestingly, the Byzantine city had no fortified city wall, attesting to the peace of the times, unlike the Crusader fortress, which had layers and layers of fortification.

In March and April of 1265, a large Muslim Mamluk army laid siege to the city for forty days, razed it to the ground, and left it in ruins.  A thousand Hospitallers, including 90 knights, died in the fighting;  the rest were taken as slaves.  Just like the movies.

During its long history, Apollonia was the setting for two major, well-chronicled battles, both taking place in September, separated by a mere 727 years.  The first was the Battle of Arsuf (September 7th, 1191), pitting Richard 1 of England (the Lion-Heart) against Saladin (Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and leader of the Muslim resistance during the Third Crusade).  The second was the Battle of Megiddo (September 19-21, 1918) featuring British Admiral Edmund Allenby's offensive against the Ottoman Turks toward the end of WWI.  Both stories are the stuff of high budget, block-buster movies.

In the early '90s, we found around Apollonia WWI bullets and M1 shell casings mixed on the surface with green-glazed Crusader-age ceramics.  On a class field trip, one of my 5th graders found a howitzer shell casing with the date 1917 stamped on the encrusted back surface.  Amazing.

Over the years, as the internet has grown and its resources expanded, I've occasionally surfed around for images and articles regarding the Battle of Megiddo, hoping to identify images of Apollonia.  A recent search revealed the images above.  Of particular interest is Photo 2, taken in 1917, showing the Arab village of El-Haram, which may be the source of the human bones observed on our holiday.  I have also just discovered that soldiers from the 52nd Division borrowed three Roman-Byzantine columns at the close of WWI to mark their three crossing points on the Auju River, located just north of Apollonia.  Photographs taken recently reveal that these three columns are still standing.

Note the following links for further information regarding the Battle of Megiddo:

Wikipedia

Battle of Megiddo

Allenby

The Soldier's Burden (includes links to column photos)

Mysteries Overhead and Underfoot

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Return to Dakar, back to school, return to the work routine.  Good to have a week down.  Mister Spedding's back in costume.

It seems that my eagle-eyed students -- Will, Yoel, Adam and Damir -- have been finding a lot of interesting artifacts around campus this past week, mostly in the shell-rich ground cover around ISD.  I suspect that the shells are old, coming either from geologically old sedimentary marine layers, or from prehistoric (likely Neolithic) shell mounds.  (Professor Thiaw has mentioned this in his writing.)

It happens that we've been talking about/looking at prehistoric artifacts in our current unit on human ancestry.  

Amongst the cool things discovered by students this past week was the object shown above in photos 2-5.  Consensus is that it is a jaw, lined with little teeth, but of what?  A turtle?  Thoughts?

W. shared with me a very different object, shown in photos 6-9.  He found it in the middle of ISD's large athletic field.  It's metal, one side with a pumice/scorie-like surface, fused with air vesicles, another side with several round bits, as if worked or machined. 

So what is this object, and how did it end up in the middle of a grassy field? 

Being that the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation, then someone must of dropped the object while walking across the field.  A few of the kids speculate that the object was dropped by a bird.  Whether pooped or carried in a beak, that must have been some painful baggage.

But what is it exactly?

R. thinks it's welding slag, the round bits being metal that curled in welding. 

I prefer to think big (some would prefer to use the word delusional), and offer a more exotic, astronomical solution:  The object is clearly space debris that survived reentry into the atmosphere.  There's a lot of it up there, you know.  See image 1 and these web sites (hunks of junk, space junk, NASA Orbital Debris Program) in support my albeit slightly fantastic, wishful theory. 

I'm sending the photos to NASA.  If they verify that the object's space junk, I'll be back to gloat.  If not, well, you'll not hear another word about it.

Christmas in Israel: Farewell Apollonia

Photos (top to bottom):  from the Crusader fortress looking down toward the built harbor (as opposed to the larger anchorage to the south);  wandering amongst the collapsed Crusader walls.

Randi and I were exceptionally fortunate to have become involved with the archaeology (terrestrial and marine) at Apollonia over the past 18 years.  The influence of the experience has been very significant for both of us.  A new generation of archaeologists are now coming on the scene at Apollonia, as Israel Roll, Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, and long-time lead researcher at Apollonia, has retired.

We toured Apollonia with Professor Roll last week, and he generously shared his encyclopedic knowledge with us.  He explained that the area of the former munitions' factory, adjacent to the national park, has already been purchased, and is anticipated to become one of the most affluent and exclusive neighborhoods in the country.  An American firm has been hired to clean-up the contaminants left by the munitions' factory for a cool $14 million (or was it $40 million?).  Once the clean-up is completed (and the responsible party pays the bill, which may have to be resolved in litigation), then the clearing of the land may begin.  The Israel Antiquities Authority will be on hand to oversee the rescue excavation of the extensive property to be developed.  What this means exactly has not been made clear.  At a minimum, officials may monitor the land development, and remove key artifacts for preservation. It will be a time to be in Israel to observe the process, as much of the commercial center of the ancient city may be revealed.

Yesterday, Randi, Eva and I chatted with Haggi, the administrator overseeing Apollonia.  Haggi is himself an archaeologist with years of experience excavating at Apollonia and other sites around Israel.  Here's what we learned from him:

An large earthen berm, perhaps 10 meters in height, located to the east of the Crusader fortress, was constructed by the munition's factory.  One of the weapons being produced here was nitroglycerin, and to buffer the factory from a possible explosion, the berm was built.  Haggi has observed that the berm is full of artifacts, all out of context, having been bulldozed.  He suspects, however, that the Byzantine layers beneath the berm may be intact, and it is a location he'd like to excavate. 

I asked Haggi about the area around the former munitions' factory, planned for development.  His understanding is that test digs by the Israeli Antiquities Authority have revealed few artifacts out there, and a rescue excavation may be not necessary.  This is surprising news.  I would have expected that remnants of the commercial center might be found out there.  However, as Professor Roll explained, the concentration of occupation and thus material artifacts diminishes as you move away from the city center.  

I've learned that two teams will be working at Apollonia this summer:  a group from Brown University, who will be using some high tech equipment to create a 3-D representation of the Crusader fortress;  and a group of students and volunteers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and solicited through the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review (see BAR for information about volunteering).  Professor Oren Tal, from Tel Aviv University, will be coordinating the TAU/BAR team, and will be focusing on an area immediately to the north of the Crusader fortress where an inscribed mosaic floor was discovered two years ago.  Haggi also mentioned the possible excavation of a site where a knight, accompanying Richard-the-Lion-Hearted in the 3rd Crusade, may be buried.  (I am thinking about returning to Israel this summer for the excavation season, despite the horrible heat.)

I asked Haggi about the worked flint we'd found to the south of the site, in the bluffs below a small school.  It is in this same area that we'd found a concentration of human bones eroding from the bluffs, and an abundance of rounded cobbles.  Based on his experience in using heavy machinery, Haggi felt that when the school was built, the soil may have been pushed seaward, leaving the layers in tact but sloping downward toward the west.  He explained that worked stone has been found throughout Apollonia, and is attributed to seasonal camps during the Neolithic.  The bones are thought to date to an Early Arab (638 - 1099 CE) cemetery.  Haggi felt that the cobbles may have been placed by the municipality to obscure the eroding bones, and thus avoid all the politics associated with the discovery of human remains.

Thus we leave Israel.  As Eva remarked, "We'll speak again when we have something to say."

 

Christmas in Israel: Diving Apollonia 2

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Photos:  (photo 1) top of human skull discovered by Randi this AM;  (photo 2) rib fragments adjacent to skull;  (photos 3) examples of encrusted metal objects in Apollonia harbor;  (photo 4) recorded for Dr. Eva Grossman, documenting dredging that took place through near Byzantine breakwater;  (photo 5) aerial photograph of Apollonia & the harbor, with dredged area circled. 

For video footage of this dive, see BOT.

Knowing that a storm system was on the way, I hopped into the water first thing this morning.  Eva asked that I investigate a cut in the breakwater, created two years ago when a boat ran aground and required dredging to be freed.  It is Eva's belief that the breakwater once held construction, evidenced by the abundance of ashlar stones (cut stones) around sections of the breakwater.  (Note photo 5 above and the video footage at ashlar stones.)  She was interested in the seeing whether the dredging might offer further evidence in support of her working theory.  While the video might not be interesting for you, I've uploaded a clip at breakwater.

One develops an eye for metal on an underwater archaeological site.  All metals tend to become encrusted with thick layers of calcium carbonate, along with shells, stones, and other forms of marine life.  Bronze and copper tends to develop a blue-green patina when exposed to saltwater.  Iron turns black.  I include photo 3 above as an example of an encrusted object, unidentified;  note also the video footage at metal.  These objects might be ancient or modern.  There's an abundance of modern junk here in the sea, and distinguishing between something modern and ancient is difficult.  I have observed that the marine encrustation around copper-bronze and lead objects simply knocks off, revealing a clean surface.  Not so with iron, where the metal seems to chemically bond to the encrustation.  Break the casing, and break the metal object.

While I was off diving, Randi roamed the bluffs and found two objects of note:  a coin, heavy with corrosion, likely Byzantine, judging by its size;  and a second human skull, this time exposed at the top, with the suture lines clearly exposed in the bone.  We went back to explore the area after my dive, and discovered other bone material scattered around.  Note the video footage of this at bones1, bones2, and bones3.