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Many place names in Palestine were Arabized forms of ancient Hebrew and Canaanite place-names used in biblical times or later Aramaic formations.[1][2][3][4][5] Most of these names have been handed down for thousands of years though their meaning was understood by only a few. The cultural interchange fostered by the various successive empires to have ruled the region is apparent in its place names. Any particular place can be known by the different names used in the past, with each of these corresponding to a historical period.[6] For example, the city of Beit Shean, today in Israel, was known during the Israelite period as Beth-shean, under Hellenistic rule and Roman rule as Scythopolis, and under Arab and Islamic rule as Beisan.
![Thumb](#/media/File:Thomas_Fuller,_1639,_The_Historie_of_the_Holy_Warre,_Chapter_I_page_38,_"A_table_shewing_the_varietie_of_place_names_in_Palestine".jpg)
The importance of toponymy, or geographical naming, was first recognized by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), a British organization who mounted geographical map-making expeditions in the region in the late 19th century. Shortly thereafter, the British Mandatory authorities set out to gather toponymic information from local fellahin, who had been proven to have preserved knowledge of the ancient place names which could help identify archaeological sites.[7]
Since the establishment of the State of Israel, many place names have since been Hebraicized, and are referred to by their revived biblical names.[6] In some cases, even sites with only Arabic names and no pre-existing ancient Hebrew names or associations have been given new Hebrew names.[8][6] Place names in the region have been the subject of much scholarship and contention, particularly in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. Their significance lies in their potential to legitimize the historical claims asserted by the involved parties, all of whom claim priority in chronology, and who use archaeology, cartography, and place names as their proofs.[9]
The local population of Palestine used Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Samaritan Aramaic and Arabic for thousands of years.[10] Almost all place names in the region have Semitic roots, with only a few place names being of Latin origin, and hardly any of Greek or Turkish origins.[10] The Semitic roots of the oldest names continued to be used by the local population, though during classical antiquity, many names underwent modifications due to the influence of local ruling elites well versed in Greek and Latin.[6]
In his 4th-century work, the Onomasticon, Eusebius of Caesarea provides a listing of the place-names of Palestine with geographical and historical commentary, and his text was later translated into Latin and edited and corrected by Jerome.[11]
Following the Arab conquest of the Levant, many of the pre-classical Semitic names were revived, though often the spelling and pronunciation differed. Of course, for places where the old name had been lost or for new settlements established during this period, new Arabic names were coined.[6]
According to Roy Marom and Ran Zadok, the general outlines of the Palestinian nomenclature of space were well developed, by the 16th century, "instead of being the more recent linguistic product of later centuries as previously thought." Palestinian place-names "traditionally regarded as the product of modern Palestinian rural society, reflect instead a long-lasting linguistic continuity of the country’s Arabic speaking village communities."[12] A local study of place-names around Hamama has shown that Palestinian toponymy contained a limited stratum of pre-Ottoman place-names, to which residents added new toponyms, referring in cases to families living in or around the village.[13]
European travelers composed travel accounts describing its topography and demography. However, even in last century of Ottoman imperial rule, there was still much confusion over the place names in Palestine.[14] Existing Turkish transliterations of the Arabic and Arabicized names made identification and study into the etymology of the place names even more challenging.[14]
Edward Robinson identified more than 100 biblical place names in Palestine, by pursuing his belief that linguistic analysis of the place names used by the Arab fellahin would reveal preserved traces of their ancient roots.[15][16] The PEF's Names and Places in the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha, with their Modern Identifications (1895) lists more than 1,150 place names related to the Old Testament and 162 related to the New, most of which are located in Palestine.[17] These surveys by Robinson the PEF, and other Western biblical geographers in late 19th and early 20th centuries, also eventually contributed to the shape of the borders delineated for the British Mandate in Palestine, as proposed by the League of Nations.[15]
With the establishment of Israel, in parts of Palestine, many place names have since been Hebraized or are referred to by their revived Biblical names.[6] In some cases, even sites with only Arabic names and no pre-existing ancient Hebrew names or associations have been given new Hebrew names.[8]
A systematic study of place-names showed very high levels of pre-modern name preservation rates along the Eastern Mediterranean highland chain, primarily of site names, and oronyms.[18] The preservation of place names "with amazing consistency" is noted by Yohanan Aharoni in The Land of the Bible (1979).[19] He attributes this continuity to the common Semitic background of Palestine's local inhabitants throughout the ages, and the fact that place names tended to reflect extant agricultural features at the site in question.[19] According to Aharoni, 190 out of the 475 placenames in the southern Levant may be identified based on name preservation. Ahituv wrote that out of the 358 placenames referenced in the Book of Joshua, he was able to identify 149 (41%) of them using this method. On the same time, out of the 450 names mentioned, names from Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic sources, roughly 75% have been preserved.[20]
According to Uzi Leibner, this preservation of names is "a function of continuity of settlement at the site itself, or at least in the immediate region", and most of the sites in question were inhabited during the Byzantine and Middle Islamic[clarification needed] periods.[21]
A study of place-name preservation between Jerusalem and Jaffa (1550-2000 CE), found that the lowest levels of preservation of recorded toponyms were in the lowlands (20–25%), while the highlands werecharacterized by much higher preservation rate of 40%–60%.[12]
Agricultural features are common to roots of place names in Palestine. For example, some place names incorporate the Semitic root for "spring" or "cistern", such as Beersheba or Bir as 'Saba, ("be'er" and "bir" meaning "well" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively) and En Gedi or 'Ayn Jeddi ("en" and "'ayn" meaning "spring" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively).[22]
Haim Ben-David notes that the word "caphar" appears just once in the Hebrew Bible (for Cephar-ammoni) but much more frequently in later sources, which implies it is of Aramaic origin and was introduced to the area only during the Second Temple period.[20]
Other place names preserve the names of Semitic gods and goddesses from ancient times. For example, the name of the goddess Anat survives in the name of the village of 'Anata, believed to be site of the ancient city of Anathoth.[23] The name Beit Shemesh means ‘House [of] Šamaš’, indicating that it was a site of worship of the Canaanite sun-deity Šapaš/Šamaš.[24]
In some cases the original name was simply translated, such as the ancient city of Dan (Hebrew: דן, "judge") which turned into the Arabic Tell el-Qadi, "mound of the judge".[25][26] However, the original name of the city was preserved in the nearby source of the Jordan river, which had the name "Dhan" (Arabic: ضان).[27]
Other examples are the names of Capitolias, which was referred to in the 6th century Talmud in Aramaic as Bet Reisha, and was later translated to Arabic as Beit Ras,[28][29][30][26] and the Ladder of Tyre, also known in Rabbinic literature as Lavanan or Lavlavan (from the Hebrew: לבן, "white"), was later translated into Arabic as Ras el-Bayda (White head), and into Latin by the Crusaders, as Album Promontorium.[26]
Yehuda Elitzor observes that in the majority of cases, Arabic-speakers did not give new names to places where their original names were known and existing; an exception is the city of Hebron, for which its historic name was replaced by the Arabic name "Khalil al-Rahman"; he suggests that the new name was lifted from a tradition prevalent among the Jews of Hebron.[26]
The Hebrew letter Ḥet (ח) is correctly Ḥāʾ (ح) in Arabic, though frequently also Ḫāʾ(خ), and sometimes 'Ayn (ع) takes its place (as happened in Beth Horon > Beit 'Ur). Guerin noted that in his time, Beit Hanina was sometimes referred to as Bayt 'Anina.[31]
Another similar case is the shift from 'Ayin ([ʕ], Hebrew: ע, Arabic: ع) into Aleph ([ʔ], Hebrew: א, Arabic: ا), even though both sounds exist in Arabic. For instance, the Biblical name Endor (עין דור, using [ʕ]) was changed to Indur (إندور, using [ʔ]). The Jews of Galilee (specifically in Haifa, Beth-shean and Tiv'on) were already "producing Ayins as Alephs," according to rabbinic literature, which already makes notice of this shift.[26]
The Hebrew suffix t (ת) tends to drop from Hebrew to Arabic, as in Ḥammat > al-Ḥamme (for Hamma), ‛Aqrabat > ‛Aqraba (for Aqraba), and Nāṣrat > en-Nāṣre (for Nazareth).[32]
The vast majority of place-name identifications are made upon their similarity to existing Palestinian Arabic place names, or else upon the assessment of other geographical information provided by the Biblical texts.[33]
Many of the local names were learned by the explorers by asking the local fellahin.
Clermont-Ganneau noted that the fellahin women were more ancient in their habits, attire, and language and frequently had greater knowledge of names than the fellahin men, which occasionally prompted the men to respond violently.[34]
Occasionally, the same geographic feature could go by several names among the locals. The valley next to Khirbet 'Adaseh, north of Jerusalem, was referred to as Wady ed-Dumm, "Valley of Blood" by the people of Beit Hanina (which some have claimed got its name from being the location of the battle of Adasa), and Wady 'Adaseh by the people of Bir Nabala.[35]
James B. Pritchard wrote in 1959 that of the thousands of ancient places throughout Palestine known by name from the Hebrew Bible and historical sources, only four had then been identified based on inscriptions found during archaeological excavations at the respective locations:[33] Gezer (boundary stones near Tell el-Jazari), Beit She'an (an Egyptian stela of Seti I found at Beisan), Lachish (the Lachish lettersfound at Tell ed-Duweir) and Gibeon (the Al Jib jar handles). Hershel Shanks wrote in 1983 that Gezer was the first of these, and that Tel Arad and Tel Hazor have also been identified in this manner.[36] In 1996, the location of Ekron was supported with the discovery of the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription.
Since the flight and exile of 1948, Palestinians have begun a tradition of naming their daughters after the depopulated villages.[63]
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