Mamre

Research and analysis

The archaeological site of Ramat el-Khalil (Grid Ref. 160300/107200) was first excavated by Andreas Evaristus Mader [de] in 1926–1928, followed by Sayf al-Din Haddad (1977), 'Abd el-Aziz Arjub (1984–1985),^[2] and Yitzhak Magen (1986–1988),^[8] Magen publishing his findings in 1991 and 2003.^[2] Greenberg & Keinan, summarising previous dig reports, list the outstanding components of the site as being a large Roman-era enclosure, a Byzantine church, and a Crusader church.^[2] However, Denys Pringle's analysis of both historical and archaeological sources leads to the firm conclusion that the Crusader-era Church of the Trinity, mentioned by medieval pilgrims, stood at the foot of a hill, not at its top, and certainly not at Ramat el-Khalil, where the remains of the Constantinian church were found undisturbed by any later building in 1926.^[7] Greenberg & Keinan are listing the main periods of settlement as: Early Roman, Late Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader, with less substantial findings from the Iron Age IIc and the Hellenistic period.^[2] However, Yitzhak Magen, the last to excavate the site, claims that findings previously attributed to the biblical time of the Kings during the Iron Age, and the Hellenistic Hasmoneans, are in fact of far newer date, Byzantine or later.^[5]

Bronze Age

Early Bronze Age pottery sherds found at the Ramat el-Khalil site may indicate that a cultic shrine of some kind was in use from 2600–2000 BCE,^[23] but there is no archaeological evidence for the site being occupied from the first half of the second millennium down to the end of the Iron Age^[12] – that is, very broadly speaking, between 2000 and 600 BCE.

Herod: the enclosure

Herod the Great transferred the Mamre tradition 2.5 km to the north, from the site at Khirbet Nimra (see above) to the site at Ramet el-Khalil.^[10] This was part of Herod's upgrade of Hebron as a cult centre dedicated to the patriarch Abraham, by erecting two shrines: one at Abraham's tomb, and one at a site he connected to his place of residence, where the patriarch dined under a tree together with the three men.^[10] It has been noted that Hebron and Mamre were located in Idumaean territory, that both Jews and Idumaeans regarded Abraham as their common ancestor, and that Herod came from an Idumaean family that had only recently converted to Judaism.^[24]

The 2 m thick stone wall enclosing an area 49 m wide and 65 m long was constructed by Herod, possibly as a cultic place of worship.^[25][26] It contained an ancient well, more than 5 m^{[dubious – discuss]} in diameter,^{[27][15][dubious – discuss]} referred to as Abraham's Well.^{[28][dubious – discuss]}

Josephus: the terebinth

Josephus's terebinth tree is distinct from the modern Oak of Mamre and stood at a different location

Josephus (37 – c. 100) records a tradition according to which the terebinth at Mamre was as old as the world itself (War 4.534). The site was soaked in legend. Jews, Christians and Pagans made sacrifices on the site, burning animals, and the tree was considered immune to the flames of the sacrifices.^[29] Constantine the Great (r. 302–337) was still attempting, without success, to stop this tradition.^[29]

Late Roman period: Hadrian's temple

The Herodian structure was destroyed by Simon bar Kokhba's army, only to be rebuilt by the Roman emperor Hadrian. Hadrian revived the fair, which had long been an important one as it took place at an intersection forming the transport and communications nub of the southern Judean mountains. This mercatus (Heb. yerid or shuq: Ancient Greek: πανήγυρις) or "fair, market" was one of the sites, according to a Jewish tradition conserved in Jerome,^[29] chosen by Hadrian to sell remnants of Bar Kochba's defeated army into slavery.^{[citation needed]}

Rabbinical tradition

Due to the idolatrous nature of the rituals at the fair, Jews were forbidden to participate by their rabbis.^[30] According to the Jerusalem Talmud:

They prohibited a fair only in the case of one of the character of that at Botnah. As it has been taught along these same lines in a Tannaitic tradition. "There are three fairs, the fair at Gaza, the fair at Acre, and the fair at Botnah, and the most debased of the lot of them is the fair of Botnah."^[29][31][32]

Late Roman festival and Byzantine basilica

Eusebius and Sozomen describe how, notwithstanding the rabbinic ban, by the time of Constantine the Great's reign (302–337), the market had become an informal interdenominational festival, in addition to its functions as a trade fair, frequented by Christians, Jews and pagans.^[7] The cultic shrine was made over for Christian use after Eutropia, Constantine's mother-in-law, visited it and was scandalised by its pagan character.^[30] Constantine, informed of these pagan practices, attempted without success to put an end to the festive rituals celebrated around the tree.^[29] He angrily wrote to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem and all the other bishops of Palestine and admonished them, letting them know that he had ordered the comes Acacius to destroy all pagan idols and punish those holding on to pagan practices.^[33][34] The enclosure was then consecrated, Constantine had a basilica built, dedicated to Saint George (its foundations are still visible), and the enclosure of the Terebinth of Mamre roofed over.^[30][35]

The 1957 plan and reconstruction of the site made after the excavation performed by German scholar A. E. Mader in 1926–1928, shows the Constantinian basilica along the eastern wall of the Haram Ramet el-Khalil enclosure, with a well, altar, and tree in the unroofed western part of the enclosure.^{[4][36][37][38]}

The venerated tree was destroyed by Christian visitors taking souvenirs, leaving only a stump which survived down to the seventh century.^[34][39]

The fifth-century account by Sozomen (Historia Ecclesiastica Book II 4-54) is the most detailed account of the practices at Mamre during the early Christian period.^[34]

The place is presently called the Terebinth, and is situated at the distance of fifteen stadia from Hebron. ... There every year a very famous festival is held in the summer time, by people of the neighbourhood as well as by the inhabitants of more distant parts of Palestine and by Phoenicians and Arabians. Very many go there for the sake of business, some to sell and some to buy. The feast is celebrated by a very big congregation of Jews, since they boast of Abraham as their forefather, of heathens since angels came there, of Christians since he who should be born from the Virgin for the salvation of humankind appeared there to that pious man. Everyone venerates this place according to his religion: some praying [to] God the ruler of all, some calling upon the angels and offering libations of wine, burning incense or sacrificing an ox, a goat, a sheep or a cock. ... Constantine's mother in law (Euthropia), having gone there to fulfill a vow, gave notice of all this to the Emperor. So he wrote to the bishops of Palestine reproaching them for having forgot[ten] their mission and permitted (sic) such a most holy place to be defiled by those libations and sacrifices.'^[40]

A vignette of the Constantinian basilica with its colonnaded atrium appears on the 6th-century Madaba Map, under the partially preserved Greek caption "Arbo, also the Terebinth. The Oak of Mambre".^[4]

Antoninus of Piacenza in his Itinerarium, an account of his journey to the Holy Land (ca.570 CE) comments on the basilica, with its four porticoes, and an unroofed atrium. Both Christians and Jews worshipped there, separated by a small screen (cancellus). The Jewish worshippers would flock there to celebrate the deposition of Jacob and David on the day after the traditional date of Christ's birthday.^[41]

The Constantinian basilica was destroyed during the Persian invasion of 614.^[6]

Early Muslim period

Arculf, a Frankish bishop who toured the Levant in around 670–680, witnessed the monastery still being active around 670, a few decades after Umar's conquest.^[1] He reported, indicating a slightly erroneous location in relation to the Tombs of the Patriarchs:

A mile to the north of the Tombs that have been described above, is the very grassy and flowery hill of Mambre, looking towards Hebron, which lies to the south of it. This little mountain, which is called Mambre, has a level summit, at the north side of which a great stone church has been built, in the right side of which between the two walls of this great Basilica, the Oak of Mambre, wonderful to relate, stands rooted in the earth; it is also called the oak of Abraham, because under it he once hospitably received the Angels. St. Hieronymus elsewhere relates, that this tree had existed from the beginning of the world to the reign of the Emperor Constantine; but he did not say that it had utterly perished, perhaps because at that time, although the whole of that vast tree was not to be seen as it had been formerly, yet a spurious trunk still remained rooted in the ground, protected under the roof of the church, of the height of two men; from this wasted spurious trunk, which has been cut on all sides by axes, small chips are carried to the different provinces of the world, on account of the veneration and memory of that oak, under which, as has been mentioned above, that famous and notable visit of the Angels was granted to the patriarch Abraham.^[1]

Crusader period

Yitzhak Magen was in 1993 of the opinion that during the Crusades, the site may have been used by a Church of the Trinity.^[4] Denys Pringle firmly refutes this possibility, based on the analysis of pilgrims' reports.^[7]

Avraham Negev considers the last clear identification and description of the Byzantine church remains at Ramat el-Khalil to come from the Russian pilgrim known as Abbot Daniel, who visited the site in 1106/8, and he qualifies other medieval reports from the 12th century onwards as not clear with regard to the location of the site they describe.^[6]