Endnote 10 – Modi’in: Hometown of the Maccabees

William of Tyre mentioned it was located next to Emmaus; see William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea I, VIII, c1, Emily A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, eds. and trans. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1943), p. 339. Theoderich identified it in Bel-Mont, which is Zuba; see Theoderich’s Description of the Holy Places: Circa 1172 A.D., Aubrey Stewart, ed. (London: Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, 1897), p. 57. Fetellus noted that “Mount Modiin from where Mattathias, father of the Maccabees came, is located nine miles from Jerusalem, on the road that leads past Rimta, where one can see the two seas: the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea,” and that “one can still see the gravestones of Mattathias, his four sons and two grandsons”; see: Melchior de Vogüé, Les églisesde la Terre Sainte (Paris: V. Didron, 1860), p. 429, and Description of Jerusalem and the Holy Land by Fetellus, James R. Macpherson, ed. (London: Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, 1897), p. 44.