Sarepta (near modernSarafand,Lebanon) was aPhoenician city on theMediterranean coast betweenSidon andTyre, also known biblically asZarephath. It became a bishopric, which faded, and remains a double (Latin and Maronite) Catholictitular see.
Most of the objects by which Phoenician culture is characterised are those that have been recovered scattered among Phoenician colonies and trading posts; such carefully excavated colonial sites are inSpain,Sicily,Sardinia andTunisia. The sites of many Phoenician cities, like Sidon and Tyre, by contrast, are still occupied, unavailable to archaeology except in highly restricted chance sites, usually much disturbed. Sarepta[1] is the exception, the one Phoenician city in the heartland of the culture that has been unearthed and thoroughly studied.
Sarepta is mentioned for the first time in the voyage of anancient Egyptian in the 14th century BCE.[2]Obadiah says it was the northern boundary ofCanaan: “And the exiles of this host of the sons of Israel who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath (צרפת), and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the south.”[3] The medieval lexicographerDavid ben Abraham al-Fasi identifiedZarephath with the city of Ṣarfanda (Judeo-Arabic:צרפנדה).[4] OriginallySidonian, the town passed to theTyrians after the invasion ofShalmaneser IV, 722 BCE. It fell toSennacherib in 701 BCE.
1 Kings 17:8-24 describes the city as being subject to Sidon in the time ofAhab and says that the prophetElijah, after leaving thewadi Kerith (Hebrew:נַחַל כְּרִית,romanized: naḥal Kəriṯ, multiplied the meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath andresurrected her son, an incident also referred to byJesus inLuke 4:26.
After the Islamization of the area, in 1185, theByzantinemonk Phocas, making a gazetteer of theHoly Land (De locis sanctis, 7), found the town almost in its ancient condition. A century later, according toBurchard of Mount Sion, it was in ruins and contained only seven or eight houses.[9] Even after theCrusader states had collapsed, theCatholic Church continued to appoint purelytitular bishops of Sarepta, the most noted being Thomas, the auxiliary Bishop of Wrocław, who held the post from 1350 until 1378.[10]
Sarepta as a Christian city was mentioned in theItinerarium Burdigalense; theOnomasticon ofEusebius and inJerome; by Theodosius and Pseudo-Antoninus who, in the 6th century call it a small town but very Christian.[11] It contained at that time a church dedicated toElijah. TheNotitiae Episcopatuum, a list of bishoprics made inAntioch in the 6th century, speaks of Sarepta as a suffragansee of Tyre; all of its bishops are unknown.
Nicolas Bureau, O.F.M. (1519.12.02 – death 1551) as Auxiliary Bishop ofDiocese of Tournai (Belgium) (1519.12.02 – 1551)
Guillaume Hanwere (1552.04.27 – 1560) as Auxiliary Bishop of above Tournai (Belgium) (1552.04.27 – 1560)
Johannes Kaspar Stredele 'Austrian) (1631.12.15 – death 1642.12.28) as Auxiliary Bishop ofDiocese of Passau (Bavaria, Germany) (1631.12.15 – 1642.12.28)
Wojciech Ignacy Bardziński (1709.01.28 – death 1722?) as Auxiliary Bishop ofDiocese of Kujawy–Pomorze (Poland) (1709.01.28 – 1722?)
Charles Antoine de La Roche-Aymon (1725.06.11 – 1730.10.02) as Auxiliary Bishop ofDiocese of Limoges (France) (1725.06.11 – 1730.10.02); later Bishop ofTarbes (France) ([1729.12.27] 1730.10.02 – 1740.11.11), Metropolitan Archbishop ofToulouse (France) ([1740.01.10] 1740.11.11 – 1752.12.18), Metropolitan Archbishop ofNarbonne (France) ([1752.10.02] 1752.12.18 – 1763.01.24), Metropolitan Archbishop ofReims (France) ([1762.12.05] 1763.01.24 – death 1777.10.27), createdCardinal-Priest with no Title assigned (1771.12.16 – 1777.10.27)
Johann Anton Wallreuther (1731.03.05 – 1734.01.16) as Auxiliary Bishop ofDiocese of Worms (Germany) (1731.03.05 – 1734.01.16)
Jean de Cairol de Madaillan (1760.01.28 – 1770.01.29) as Auxiliary Bishop ofArchdiocese of Narbonne (France) (1760.01.28 – ?); later Bishop ofVence (France) (1770.01.29 – 1771.12.16), Bishop ofGrenoble (France) (1771.12.16 [1772.01.23] – 1779.12.10)
Jean-Denis de Vienne (1775.12.18 – death 1800) as Auxiliary Bishop ofLyon (France) (1775.12.18 – 1800)
AHeavy Neolithic archaeological site of theQaraoun culture that pre-dated Sarepta by several thousand years was discovered at Sarafand byHajji Khalaf. He made a collection of material and passed it to theNational Museum of Beirut. It consisted of anassemblage of large flakes andbifaces inEoceneflint. Somepiebald flint blades were also found along withhammerstones inNummuliticlimestone that resemble finds fromAadloun II (Bezez Cave), which is located 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to the South. Khalaf also found a well-madeadze and a narrow, slightly polishedchisel. A collection in the National Museum of Beirut marked "Jezzine ou Sarepta" consisted of around twelve neatly madediscoid- andtortoise-cores incherty flint of a cream colour with a tinge of red.[13]
The lowtell on the seashore was excavated byJames B. Pritchard over five years from 1969 to 1974.[14][15]Civil war in Lebanon put an end to the excavations.
The site of the ancient town is marked by theruins on the shore to the south of the modern village, about eight miles to the south of Sidon, which extend along the shore for a mile or more. They are in two distinct groups, one on a headland to the west of a fountain called ‛Ain el-Ḳantara, which is not far from the shore. Here was the ancient harbor which still affords shelter for small craft. The other group of ruins, to the south, consists ofcolumns,sarcophagi and marble slabs, indicating a city of considerable importance.
Pritchard's excavations revealed many artifacts of daily life in the ancient Phoenician city of Sarepta: pottery workshops andkilns, artifacts of daily use and religious figurines, numerous inscriptions that included some inUgaritic.Pillar worship is traceable from an 8th-century shrine ofTanit-Ashtart, and a seal with the city's name made the identification secure. The local Bronze Age-Iron Age stratigraphy was established in detail; absolute dating depends in part on correlations with Cypriote and Aegean stratigraphy.
The climax of the Sarepta discoveries at Sarafand is the cult shrine of "Tanit/Astart", who is identified in the site by an inscribed votive ivory plaque, the first identification of Tanit in her homeland. The site revealed figurines, further carved ivories,amulets and a cultic mask.[16]
InHebrew after theDiaspora, the nameצרפת, ts-r-f-t,Tsarfat (Zarephath) is used to meanFrance, perhaps because the Hebrew lettersts-r-f, if reversed, becomef-r-ts.[19] That usage is retained in daily use in contemporary Hebrew.
^Monachus Borchardus, Descriptio Terrae sanctae, et regionum finitarum, vol. 2, pp. 9, 1593
^Piotr Górecki, Parishes, Tithes and Society in Earlier Medieval Poland c. 1100-c. 1250, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. i-ix+1-146, 1993
^James B. Pritchard, SAREPTA. A Preliminary Report on the Iron Age. Excavations of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1970-72. With contributions by William P. Anderson; Ellen Herscher; Javier Teixidor, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1975,ISBN0-934718-24-5
^James B. Pritchard, Sarepta in History and Tradition, in J. Reumann (ed.). Understanding the Sacred Text: Essays in honor of Morton S. Enslin on the Hebrew Bible and Christian beginnings, pp. 101-114, Judson Press, 1972,ISBN0-8170-0487-4
^Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia. “Two Phoenician Inscriptions Carved in Ivory: Again the Ur Box and the Sarepta Plaque.” Orientalia 59, no. 1 (1990): 58–66.http://www.jstor.org/stable/43075770.
Pritchard, James B.Recovering Sarepta, a Phoenician City: Excavations at Sarafund, 1969-1974, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (Princeton: Princeton University Press) 1978,ISBN0-691-09378-4
William P. Anderson, Sarepta I: The late bronze and Iron Age strata of area II.Y : the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania excavations at Sarafand, Lebanon (Publications de l'Universite libanaise), Département des publications de l'Universite Libanaise, 1988
Issam A. Khalifeh, Sarepta II: The Late Bronze and Iron Age Periods of Area Ii.X, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1988,ISBN99943-751-5-6
Robert Koehl, Sarepta III: the Imported Bronze & Iron Age, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1985,ISBN99943-751-7-2
James B. Pritchard, Sarepta IV: The Objects from Area Ii.X, University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1988,ISBN99943-751-9-9
Lloyd W. Daly, A Greek-Syllabic Cypriot Inscription from Sarafand, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 40, pp. 223–225, 1980
Dimitri Baramki, A Late Bronze Age tomb at Sarafend, ancient Sarepta, Berytus, vol. 12, pp. 129–42, 1959
Charles Cutler Torrey, The Exiled God of Sarepta, Berytus, vol. 9, pp. 45–49, 1949
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