Endnote 11 – Eroticism and Infanticide at Ashkelon

This reconstruction of the evidence allows us to make sense of some other texts that mention the Wells of Abraham. Ibn Batutah observes that “you descend to these [Wells of Abraham] by broad steps leading to a chamber. On all four sides of the chamber are springs of water gushing out from the stone conduits.” Antoninus Martyr, writing c. 560 A.D., describes the Well of Peace (Puteus Pacis) at Ashkelon in similar words: “There is a Well of Peace made after the manner of a theater, in which one descends by steps into the water.” Garstang mistakenly located the Well of Peace in the apse of the large basilica, i.e., in his putative bouleuterion. Of course, when he completed the excavations in the apse, there was no well to be found. The Well of Peace is just another name for the Wells of Abraham or the Bir Ibrahim. And it is now clear that Origen, Antoninus Martyr and Ibn Batutah were describing all that remained of the Greco-Roman the water: “wells” noted for “their strange and extraordinary style of construction” and “built after the manner of a theater.” Compare, for example, John Garstang, “The Fund’s Excavation of Askalon” Palestine Exploration Quarterly (PEQ) 21 (1921), pp. 14–16; “The Excavations at Askelon,” PEQ 22 (1922), pp. 112–117; “Askalon,” PEQ 24 (1924), pp. 24–35.