The Onomasticon, a monumental endeavor begun in the 1960s by the late
Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah, collates all the known Greek and Latin literary
and documentary sources mentioning geographical and ethnic names
attested in Iudaea, under the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasties, and in
the Roman and Byzantine provinces of Palaestina and Arabia an area today
spread over Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Sinai and
southern Syria. The source texts, dating from the fourth century BCE to
the seventh century CE, are culled from over 1,300 texts by more than
750 separate authors, and from papyri, inscriptions and coins. The
individual place names are arranged in alphabetical entries, each
presenting a comprehensive collection of excerpts from the texts in
which that place is mentioned. Where possible, the places are identified
and described on the basis of up-to-date archaeological and
bibliographical research. Volume I contains an annotated bibliography of
the primary source texts, a collection of major texts from which many of
the sources in the alphabetical entries are excerpted, and a listing of
all the place names covered in the series. With some 1,400 pages in two
parts, Volume II contains the entries for the hundreds of places whose
names begin with the letter A, including the massive 438-page entry on
Arabia and the sizeable entries for Ascalon (Ashkelon) and Azotus
(Ashdod). Alongside entries from the great Onomasticon of Eusebius and
the Latin version of Jerome, the source texts include descriptions of
the landscape, fauna and flora of ancient Judaea/Palaestina and Arabia,
stories of the pilgrims who made their way to the holy places, accounts
of the battles for the liberation and conquest of the land, lists of
bishops serving the dioceses of the Holy Land who joined in the great
church councils of the Byzantine period, prescriptions for the treatment
of diseases, contracts, milestone inscriptions, coins, lading dockets
and many other passages of widely varying types. All of the extracts are
presented in the original Greek or Latin and in English translation,
except for those that were preserved only in Syriac, which are presented
in English translation.
