Excerpt from The American Cyclopedia, Vol. 13: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge; Palestine-Printing

Chapels, or altars every spot supposed to have been the scene Of the acts of the Saviour. In 614 the Persians under Chosroes II. Invaded Palestine, and, assisted by the Jews to the number of captured Jerusalem. It was regained by Heraclius, but was conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs in 637. For the next two centuries the country was the scene of civil war between the rival factions of the Ommiyade, the Abbasside, and the Fatimite caliphs. From the middle of the 8th century it was a province of the Abbasside caliphs of Bagdad till 969, when it fell under the power of the F atimite rulers of Egypt. In 1076 it was conquered by the Seljuk Turks, but in 1096 it was regained by the Egyptian sultans, in whose possession it was when invaded by the crusaders in the following year. The crusaders made Godfrey of Bouillon ruler of Jerusalem, and he and his successors reigned in Palestine till Jerusalem was retaken by Sultan Saladin in 1187, and the Christian kingdom overthrown. Twoyears afterward another crusade was un dertaken under Philip, king of France, Richard I. Of England, and the emperor Frederick Bar barossa of Germany. It did not regain J erusa lem, but partially restored the Christian rule upon the coast. Another crusade in 1216, chief ly of Hungarians and Germans, met with little more success. Still another, undertaken by the emperor Frederick II. In 1228, resulted in the recovery of Jerusalem, and the Christian dominion was reestablished over a considerable extent Of territory; but after various vicissi tudes of fortune, and in spite Of repeated suc cors from Europe, it finally yielded to the arms of the Egyptian Mamelukes in 1291. The sul tans of Egypt held it till 1517, when it was conquered by the Turks, in whose possession it has remained till the present time. With the exception of a brief occupation in 1839 by the forces of the rebellious pasha of Egypt, Mehemet ail - Much attention has been given in recent times to the careful exploration of Palestine, with important results in the identi fication of places named in Scripture. This began with the work of Dr. Edward Robin son, the results Of which were published in his Biblical Researches (3 vols. 8vo, Boston, 1841) and Later Researches Among the most recent explorations have been those of the British society organized in 1865 under the name of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the reports of which appear in the work of Captains Wilson and Warren, entitled The Recovery of J erusalem (8vo, London, and in quarterly statements issued since that work. Among the results of the English ex plorations have been the trigonometrical sur vey of a great part Of Samaria and J udea, the discovery of some remarkable Greek inscrip tions of Christian origin within the Haram enclosure at Jerusalem, and the identification of a great number of Biblical and classical sites.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.