عدلون: مطالعة في السياق التأريخي

Abstract

Since the middle of the 19th century, Adloun has received an increased interest at its southern coast, which allowed its historical sites, in spite of the excavation works that remained limited and chronologically non-continuous, to be ranked as one of the most important historical sites on the Eastern Mediterranean coast from Prehistory till late years of the Byzantine era. The French Jesuit archaeologist Rev. Fr. Godefroy Zumoffen (1848 – 1928) was not the first one to appoint Adloun out through the excavation works he executed on its prehistorical caves. However, what motivated him to discover and explore this site, was the interest towards Adloun at early times with the exploration missions and the trip of the orientalists to this region. When Ernest Renan (1923 – 1893) was back from his travels to Bilad al-Cham and Syria in the middle of the 19th century, and after having supervised many excavation works including the one started in Tyr in 1861 in Chalaaboun near Ain Ebel and Um el-Omd on Naqoura hills, he wrote: “If I had to choose an excavation site in Phoenicia, after Um el-Awameed, I would choose Adloun”. Having showed a big interest in the Phoenician-Canaanite and early Christian eras, he didn’t mean with this only the prehistorical caves, but also the funerary grottos in its surrounding going back to Phoenician, Roman, early Christians and Byzantine eras, which shows Adloun’s continuous presence during this era. Moreover, this site was pointed out by the geologist Louis Lartet (1840 – 1899) (son of the geologist Edouard Lartet) who participated in the exploration and research campaign in the Dead Sea in 1863. During his way back from an observatory trip to Nahr el-Kalb caves, he passed by Adloun and saw its “famous” funerary grottos surrounded by the prehistoric caves, showing the flint tools found buried at the entrance of Bziz Cave. Lartet supposed that this site has a “station of caves”, but he didn’t make any exploration.