File:The giant cities of Bashan; and Syria's holy places (1874) (14779017832).jpg

Identifier: giantcitiesofbas00port (find matches)
Title: The giant cities of Bashan; and Syria's holy places
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Porter, Josias Leslie, 1823-1889. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Edinburgh and New York, T. Nelson and sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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he works of one of the most enlightened nations ofantiquity; the palaces of Nineveh are still more interesting, asthe memorials of a great city which lay buried for two thousandyears; but the massive houses of Kerioth scarcely yield in in-terest to either. They are antiquities of another kind. In sizethey cannot vie with the temples of Karnac; in splendour theydo not approach the palaces of Khorsabad; yet they are thememorials of a race of giant warriors that has been extinct formore than three thousand years, and of which Og, king of.Bashan, was one of the last representatives; and they are, Ibelieve, the only specimens in the world of the ordinary privatedwellings of remote antiquity. The monuments designed bythe genius and reared by the wealth of imperial Rome are fast- mouldering to ruin in this land; temples, palaces, tombs,fortresses, are all shattered, or prostrate in the dust; but thesimple, massive houses of the Rephaim are in many cases perfectas if only completed yesterday.
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THE HOUSES OF THE REPHAIM. §5 It is worthy of note here, as tending to prove the truth of mystatements, and to illustrate the words of the sacred writers, thatthe towns of Bashan were considered ancient even in the daysof the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who says re-garding this country : Fortresses and strong castles have beenerected by the ancient inhabitants among the retired mountainsand forests. Here in the midst of numerous towns, are somegreat cities, such as Bostra and Gerasa, encompassed by massivewails. Mr. Graham, the only other traveller since Burckhardt,who traversed eastern Bashan, entirely agrees with me in myconclusions. When we find, he writes, one after another,great stone cities, walled and unwalled, with stone gates, andso crowded together that it becomes almost a matter of wonderhow all the people could have lived in so small a place; whenwe see houses built of such huge and massive stones that noforce which can be brought against them in that country co

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