Talk:Ein es-Sultan

Fake! False concept, name, photo.

1. Not a fountain, a SPRING.
2. The spring is best known as Ein es-Sultan (many spelling variants). Elisha's Spring or Spring of Elisha is a name derived from a Hebrew Bible story and is only used for and by pilgrims.
3. Photo of fake site: business owner has created a fountain next to his shop and restaurant, using tap water, and lazy guides sell it to naive tourists as the biblical spring.

Urgent need to fix this. Arminden (talk) 09:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Done Arminden (talk) 10:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the harsh wording. That tourist trap got more than just clueless pilgrims caught in it, it's ridiculosly hard to remove the fake info spread by business owners & associated tour guides. Arminden (talk) 22:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Crusader sugar production - related?

It would make sense, except for one detail: the ruined medieval sugar mill known as Tawaheen es-Sukkar, at least the one everybody gets to see and easily read about, is at a higher elevation than Ein es-Sultan. I didn't check where it got its water from, mainly for powering it (chute-and-wheel system). Maybe Ein el-Duyuk? So quite plausible that water from the main spring in the area, Ein es-Sultan, also got used, probably for irrigation only (low elevation), but is there a proof (source) for that? For now we don't have anything connecting this specific spring to this specific topic. Arminden (talk) 22:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Dumper (2007) isn't available at Google Books. Udovitch (1981) only offers snippets, and A) there's nothing explicit on Ein es-Sultan I could find, and B) the closest topics I could take a peep at in that book are on p. 112, not the indicated p. 122. Mistake?

Can someone pls check if the sources support the text? Thanks.

PS: Encyclopaedia Judaica (see at JVL) speaks about the 3 Crusader sugar mills at the foot of Mons Qarantana, so the same Tawaheen es-Sukkar that's way higher than Ein es-Sultan, but doesn't say they were the only ones ("...the monastery was granted the tithes of Jericho city and the rights of the sugar mills in 1136. At the foot of the hill are the remains of three Crusader sugar mills (one nearly intact) which were referred to as early as 1116.") Arminden (talk) 22:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Lorenzo Nigro from La Sapienza, Jericho entry in "Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology", Daniel M. Master (ed. in chief), vol. 2:

"During the crusader period one of the main installations near Tell es-Sultan was the sugar mills of Tawaheen es-Sukar. During the middle and late Islamic period the site was gradually abandoned, while the spring was constantly preserved until the Ottoman period, when a monumental pool (229.7 by 49.2 ft [70 by 15 m]) was erected."

So only those higher up are mentioned. He dug at the tell, so he knows the area maybe better than anyone else today. Lack of mention in a brief entry of any further mills down at the spring still not a clear indication such didn't exist, but I'm getting more and more skeptical.

Can anyone access the 2 refs? The Dumper (2007) book is an ABC-CLIO publication, so general reference, maybe Udovitch's book goes more into detail, although it's a bit too old by now (1981), Nigro, Taha and others have done a lot of work since. Arminden (talk) 23:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Onceinawhile, hi. I see you wrote the page. Do you have those books? Arminden (talk) 23:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I brought those sources in with this edit with the edit comment moving from Ein as-Sultan camp, see that page for attribution. Onceinawhile (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Problem not solved, the refs were introduced in March 2009 by an editor who stopped editing 10 yrs ago. See her edits 1 (Udovitch) and 2 (Dumper).

Does anyone have access to the Udovitch and Dumper refs? Thanks.

If not, I'm considering to remove the section and place it here.

Zero0000, hi, sorry to bother, sometimes you manage to get to sources others cannot. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 11:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Dumper p205: "Although the Sassanians briefly controlled the oasis after 612, the Muslim assumption of power brought significant changes. Ruling from Damascus, the Umayyad caliph Hisham (AD 724–748) built Khirbet al-Mafjar, a hunting palace one mile northeast of Tulul Abu al-Alayiq, in the eighth century. Known for its magnificent bathhouse mosaics and monumental sculpture, the palace was destroyed soon after its completion by an earthquake. Under Umayyad and Abbasid rule, the sugarcane industry of the oasis was established. After the Crusader capture of Jerusalem in 1099, Jericho became both a defensive site as well as a garden for Jerusalem, producing food for the city. The modern village of today grew up around the Crusader castle and church. The Crusaders improved the local water mills, which harnessed the dramatic flow of Ein as-Sultan, and built tawahin es-sukkar (sugar mills) to crush sugarcane from the oasis to make sugar for their tables in Jerusalem." Zero^talk 12:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Udovitch is miscited. The work is a collection and he is the editor not the author. I'll send details tomorrow or edit the article. Zero^talk 12:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

​Thank you very much. I'll wait for you about Udovitch. Regarding Dumper, it's what I thought:

1. "Under Umayyad and Abbasid rule, the sugarcane industry of the oasis was established." Not under the Crusaders, but they enhanced it. Unless Dumper improvised, writing about Jericho what is only known about the Jordan Valley or even the wider region. H. Taha doesn't seem to accept the Umayyad & Abbasid date, see "Some aspects of sugar production in Jericho, Jordan Valley", 2009 & a 2015 update, "The sugarcane industry in Jericho, Jordan Valley". In the latter there seems to be a contradiction ("new industry sugar production in operation from the 12th century onward", but sugar mills "in use during the Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods"), which - if Taha didn't just contradict himself - has only one possible solution: Fatimid sugar mills yes, but no "industry" until 12th c. Crusaders. Hard to tell, we must either remain vague (sugarcane introduction *before Crus.*), or offer both options.
2. The "Crusaders improved the local water mills, which harnessed the dramatic flow of Ein as-Sultan, and built tawahin es-sukkar" - not connected, although awkwardly juxtaposed, which explains why Ashley thought they were linked.

99% of the section must be moved to Jericho.

Tawahin es-sukkar used water installations built by Herod (Encyclopaedia Judaica via JVL) and repaired by the Crusaders (don't know what Herod used them for). I still guess they're connected to Ein Duyuk.

I also still believe it's plausible that Ein es-Sultan water would be used to irrigate sugarcane plantations, but we don't know that. What "local water mills, which harnessed the dramatic flow of Ein as-Sultan" were "improved" by the Crusaders and what they were used for, that's also not clear from Dumper (nomen est omen?). General dictionary articles tend to be overly brief or edited down to the bare bones, until some parts stop making sense or become self-contradictory. Again, that spring has a low elevation and mills could probably only use the power generated by the constant and relatively strong water flow, but hardly by a power-amplifying chute. Arminden (talk) 13:39, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Removed for now the Crusaders & sugarcane story from here, added a line on Jericho page.

... to crush sugar cane in sugar mills (tawahin es-sukkar in Arabic) and sent the sugar to Jerusalem.<ref>Michael Dumper, Bruce E. Stanley, Janet L. Abu-Lughod (2007). ''Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia''. ABC-CLIO, {{ISBN|1-57607-919-8}} p. 205.</ref><ref>Abraham L. Udovitch (1981). ''The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History''. Darwin Press, {{ISBN|0-87850-030-8}} p. 122.</ref> The Crusaders are credited with introducing sugarcane cultivation and sugar production to the city.<ref name=Hull>[[Edward Hull (geologist) |Hull, Edward]] (1855). ''Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine''. Richard Bently and Sons.</ref>

{{clarify |Spring used for sugar mills: not confused with those higher up the slope of Jebel Quruntul? See talk-page, no online access to sources in refs. |date= March 2024}}

{{dubious |Crusaders introducing sugar production: In general they just amplified to an industrial level local small-scale production already introduced during the Early Muslim period. Maybe true though specifically for Jericho? Very old source, newer one needed. |date= March 2024}} Arminden (talk) 14:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Name

When it says "known by Jews and Christians" does that include Palestinian Christians? As far as I know (anecdotal evidence), Palestinian Christians also call it by its Arabic name. So is it really a religious thing or cultural thing? So maybe better say: known by Westerners or something similar. --Crazyketchupguy (talk) 05:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. It's always a mix of religious and cultural. Jericho has no Palestinian Christian families as far as I know, most certainly none from 1900 or earlier. So visitors or new Christian residents are quite likely to adopt the local name. Also, Christianity is by no means reduced to "Westerners" - and what does Western actually mean? Before 1989, nobody would have automatically included Soviet satellite states into that definition, no matter if regarding to Orthodox-majority nations more to the east or Catholic nations like the Poles and Czechoslovaks of Central Europe. To the Byzantines and Crusaders, so historical Eastern and Western Christians, Jericho was very much related to Old & New Testament events, with Elisha being one of the biblical figure closest associated with the city and its spring, as were of course Jesus, Zacchaeus and the lesser character of Bartimaeus. So anecdotal evidence, even if taken into full account, is far from tipping the scales. Arminden (talk) 14:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It seems that Byzantine Jericho hasn't been comprehensively excavated and studied. The most recent publication is by L. Beliaev & H. Taha, but it's in Russian... Available at academia.edu. Can anyone help out?

A recent summary on what knowledge we have on Crusader Jericho is also hard to come by. Certain sites yes, but an overview - not so much. Arminden (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)