Apollonia–Arsuf

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Apollonia (Ancient Greek: ; Hebrew: ), known in the Early Islamic period as Arsuf (Arabic: , romanized: Arsūf) and in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem as Arsur, was an ancient city on the Mediterranean coast of today's Israel. In Israeli archaeology it is known as Tel Arshaf . Founded by the Phoenicians during the Persian period in the late sixth century BCE, it was inhabited continuously until the Crusader period, through the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, during the latter being renamed to Sozusa (Ancient Greek: , or Sozusa in Palaestina to differentiate it from Sozusa in Libya). It was situated on a sandy area ending towards the sea with a cliff, about 34 kilometres (21 mi) south of Caesarea. It fell to the Muslims in 640, was fortified against Byzantine attacks and became known as Arsuf. In 1101 it was conquered by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and was a strategically important stronghold in the Third Crusade, during which the Battle of Arsuf (1191) was fought nearby. The fortified city and the castle fell to the Mamluks in 1265, when both were completely destroyed. The site of Arsuf (also Apollonia–Arsuf -) is now in Herzliya municipality, Israel (just north of Tel Aviv). The site was intensively excavated from 1994. In 2002 Apollonia National Park was opened to the public. The city is first recorded under its Greek name Apollonia in the final decades of the Persian period (mid-4th century BCE). In a long-standing suggestion, first proposed by Clermont-Ganneau in 1876, it was assumed that the Greek name was given due to the interpretatio graeca of the Canaanite deity Resheph (ršp) as Apollo (as god of the plague), suggesting that the settlement would originally have been a "Phoenician" foundation. The Semitic name ršp would then have been "restored" in the medieval Arabic toponym of Arsūf. There is indeed no archaeological evidence for a settlement prior to the Persian period, and Izre'el (1999) upholds this identification, suggesting that the Semitic name might have been preserved by the Aramaic-speaking Samaritan community. The Samaritan chronicle of Abu l-Fath (14th century, written in Arabic) records a toponym ršfyn (with ayin). Izre'el (1999) considers the possibility of identifying this toponym with the Arabic Arsūf, assuming that the ayin may derive from a mater lectionis used in Samaritan Aramaic orthography. A tradition connecting the name with the biblical Resheph, a grandson of Ephraim, is spurious. The name of the nearby Israeli settlement of Rishpon was given in 1936, inspired by a misreading of an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III, where *rašpūna was read for kašpūna; recognition of the misreading rendered void the identification of Arsuf with a supposed Iron Age Phoenician settlement of *Rašpūna. The renaming of Apollonia "city of Apollo" to Sozusa ( Sōzousa) "city of the Saviour" took place in the Byzantine period, under the influence of Christianity as the state religion, motivated by Soter "savior" being a byname of Apollo as well as of Christ. The renaming is paralleled in at least three other cities called Apollonia: Sozusa in Cyrenaica, Sozopolis in Pisidia and Sozopolis in Thrace. The identification of ancient Apollonia with Byzantine-era Sozusa is due to Stark (1852), that of medieval Arsuf with Apollonia/Sozusa to Clermont-Ganneau (1876). The site is variously referred to as Apollonia, Arsin, Arsuf, Arsuph, Arsur, Arsuth, Assur, Orsuf and Sozusa in Crusader-era documents, with a large dominance of "Arsur" among the secondary sources discussed by Schmidt. An Umayyad lead bulla discovered at Apollonia–Arsuf bears the inscription “seal of the district of Qaysārīyah” on one side and “city of Arsūf” on t

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