Bashan | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 26.

Bashan.

BASHAN was but a small portion of trans-Jordanie Palestine, and yet contained sixty "fenced cities," with towering walls and gates secured with "brazen bars." Out of over one hundred places mentioned in the Scriptures as belonging to this region, a few only have been identified; of most of them nothing is left but heaps of shapeless ruins without either name or story. Sometimes a solitary column will be found, standing like a lone sentinel with all his comrades lying at his feet, guarding the gate-way to some long deserted city. The old highways connecting these cities may still be traced by the deeply-worn ruts of chariot wheels in their solid beds, though no wayfaring man has ever walked therein for ages; and occasionally a bridge may be seen spanning some stream, or a mile-stone marking the distance to some unknown place, but nothing remains by which the names of many of these places can be determined.

In a few of these cities houses may be found perfect as the day they were built. They are constructed entirely of stone, generally of black basalt, hard as flint. Not only are the walls stone, but the floors, roofs, doors, even the window shutters and hinges. No mortar was used in the construction of these buildings, but the stones were scarfed, so as to bind them firmly together. In some instances the doors are beautifully paneled, with mouldings running round, and ornamented with clusters of fruit and flowers. Some of the houses consist of several apartments with folding doors communicating, each door a single slab of stone. The streets are paved with stone, the court yards flagged with stone, the gates leading to them are stone, some of them ten feet high and eight inches thick, with stone hinges, and grooves for brazen bolts. In the stables all the stalls and mangers are stone, and from the character of their habitations, one would suppose that the great aim of the former inhabitants of this land was to fortify themselves against their enemies, as each house is a fortification of itself. The cisterns, baths, and aqueducts which supplied them are all hewn in the solid rock, and in some of them water may still be found.—Bible Lands.