Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Map of Palestine from 1876


This gorgeous map was drawn by a man named Ridgaway, a couple decades before Herzl gathered the early Zionists together in Switzerland. Although it is called "Middle Palestine," it actually covers what is today northern Israel, the easternmost part of Jordan, southern Lebanon, and maybe a tiny corner of Syria. You might want to compare the map with a contemporary one of the same region.

Things to note on the map are the place names (mostly in Anglicized Arabic), the as-yet undefined borders of the Arab nations as well as Israel, all of which only became separate nations in the 20th Century. Modern Israeli cities which had already been established by 1876 (and appear on the map), include Tzfat (Safed) and Kaysariyya (Caesaria).

A larger image can be found here:
Blue Letter Bible

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