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Via Maris (a Latin language phrase meaning ) was an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia – along the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Syria. Today, Via Maris is a historic road that runs in part along the Israeli Mediterranean coast.
Together with the King's Highway, the Via Maris was one of the major trade routes connecting Egypt and the Levant with Anatolia and Mesopotamia. It was in use from the 6th century BC, until the end of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 16th century. It followed the coastal plain before crossing over into the plain of Jezreel and the Jordan valley. Other names are "Way of the Philistines", "Great Trunk Road" "Northern Exposure: Launching Excavations at Tell Abil el-Qameḥ" (Abel Beth Maacah), p. 32, in Strata: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 2013, Vol. 31 and "International Coastal Highway."Barry J. Beitzel, "Bible Lands: How to Draw Ancient Highways on Biblical Maps", Bible Review 4:5, October 1988
The Via Maris was crossed by other trading routes, so that one could travel from Africa to Europe or from Asia to Africa. It began in al-Qantara and went east to Pelusium, following the northern coast of Sinai Peninsula through el-Arish and Rafah. From there it followed the coast of Canaan through Gaza City, Ascalon, Isdud, Antipatris avoiding the Yarkon River, and Tel Dor before turning east again through Tel Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley until it reached Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Again turning northward along the lake shore, the Via Maris passed through Magdala, Capernaum, and Tel Hazor. From Hazor it crossed the northern Jordan River at what later became known as Jacob's Ford, then climbed sharply over the Golan Heights and wound its way northeast into Damascus. Here travellers could continue on the King's Highway as far as the Euphrates or proceed northward into Anatolia.
According to Anson Rainey (1981),Anson Rainey, "Toponomic Problems (cont.)" in Tel Aviv 8 (1981), cited after Stephen Langfur, The "Via Maris" (netours.com) , cf. also Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley's Carta's New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible(2007), p. 76: "The coastal trunk route (popularly and wrongly called Via Maris),..." "Via Maris" derives from the Latin translation of דֶּ֤רֶךְ הַיָּם֙ "by the way of the sea" (translated ὁδὸν θαλάσσης in the Septuagint) – 8:23 in the Hebrew Bible.Isaiah 9:1/Hebrew Bible Isaiah 8:23: "In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan." The Vulgate (the Christian Bible, both the Old and New Testament in Latin translation), reads: terra Zabulon et terra Nephthalim via maris trans Iordanen Galilaeae gentium – "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan River, Galilee of the Gentiles." (NKJV translation). The prophet was probably referring to the road from Dan to the sea at Tyre, passing through Abel-beth-maachah, Nava Panitz-Cohen et al., "Northern Exposure: Launching Excavations at Tell Abil el-Qameḥ" (Abel Beth Maacah), p. 32 in Strata: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 2013, Vol. 31 which marked the northern border of Israel at the time of the Assyrian conquest.
This Egypt-to-Damascus route is designated by Barry J. Beitzel as the Great Trunk Road in The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (2009), p. 85. John D. Currid and David P. Barrett use this name in the ESV Bible Atlas (2010), p. 41, as do Rainey and Notley in Carta's New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible (2007), p. 76. Carl G. Rasmussen in the Zondervan Atlas of the Bible (2010), p. 32, also notes the traditional misnomer and calls the Egypt–Damascus route "the International North-South Route."
Rasmussen, in agreement with Langfur and Rainey, suggests that the Via Maris was the road that connected Tyre with Damascus. Beitzel, in contrast, denotes the Via Maris as a road from Ptolemais (Acco / Acre) to Kedesh (Kedesh-naphtali) in the Galilee – also leading west to east, but slightly further south and not reaching so far inland.
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