Damage patterns of earthquakes in Israel and its vicinity: Evaluation according

to the historical sources

Motti Zohar

This thesis was submitted for the degree of "Doctor of Philosophy" to the senate of the Hebrew

University of Jerusalem, Israel.

The study was carried out under the supervision of:

Prof. Rehav Rubin, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Dr. Amos Salamon, Geological Survey of Israel.

Report GSI/22/2016 Jerusalem, July 2016

Geological Survey of Israel Ministry of National infrastructures

Energy and Water Resources

ABSTRACT

Numerous historical reports of earthquakes in the Levant, including the damage and effects

they caused have been accumulated over the last 3,000 years. Understanding the impact of

damage from past events significantly improves our ability to cope with future events, for

strong earthquakes in Israel are inevitable. The target of the PhD study was to examine and

analyze the existing damage reports as well as to develop new methodologies to track the

damage that was not recognizable so far. This study pioneers the investigation of earthquake

damage in Israel as a proxy for past seismicity and contains five chapters:

1. Reappraised list of historical earthquakes that affected Israel and its close

surroundings

The target of this chapter was to fully screen the historical sources and construct a

reliable list of historical earthquakes and the damage they caused. What emerges from

that list is that Israel and its close surroundings suffered damage about 32 times during

the last two millennia, that is once in about 60 years, although not regularly. In addition, a

list of questionable events and a list of reliable events that were considered mistakenly to

hit Israel were developed.

2. Earthquake damage and repair: New evidence from Jerusalem on the 1927 Jericho

earthquake1

After the 1927 earthquake iron anchors were installed in Jerusalem on damaged buildings

in order to prevent their further deterioration. These anchors as indicators of damage were

tracked using sequences of old photographs and consequently portrayed the spread of the

damage in high resolution in the Old City.

3. Why is the minaret so short? Evidence for earthquake damage on Mt. Zion2

The aim of this chapter was to decipher why the al-Nabi Dau’d minaret is relatively

shorter in compare to other minarets in Jerusalem. In order to achieve this aim, written

sources, a sequence of old drawings and the minaret’s metric proportions were inspected.

It was found that the minaret was damaged during the 1834 earthquake and reconstructed

to a lower height shortly afterwards.

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4. A City hit by an earthquake: An HGIS reconstruction of the damage in Tiberias

(Israel) in 1837

Tiberias was hit badly during the 1837 earthquake. In this chapter HGIS models of

Tiberias prior to and after the earthquake were created. These two models were based

upon many visual historical sources such as maps, sketches, drawings, photographs and

air photos. Using the models, it was possible for the first time in Israel to portray

quantitatively the resulted damage and investigate its spatial distribution in relation with

the local geology.

5. Characterizing patterns of earthquake damage in and around Israel in space and

time

The temporal and spatial patterns of earthquakes’ damage in Israel (chapter 1) were

characterized. It was found that earthquakes struck typically the southern, central, central-

northern and northern parts of the Dead Sea Transform (DST), 4, 17, 8 and 2 times,

respectively. Jerusalem appears as the most reported site with 14 entries. Following are

Akko (Acre), Tiberias, Nablus and Tyre with 8, 7, 7 and 6 reports, respectively.

Overall, this research presents a comprehensive, updated, reliable list of earthquakes and the

damage they caused in Israel. It proposes innovative methodological techniques to identify

and examine past damage and characterizes the typical repeating patterns of the damage. This

database and understandings contribute significantly to the study of historical earthquakes in

Israel. Furthermore, the study also presents important practical tools such as an updated list

of reliable events to calibrate the Israeli building code (C-413) or an evaluation of the

accumulated damage in major cities of Israel. These tools are expected to enable the Israeli

decision makers and responsible authorities to better evaluate the potential impact of future

destructive earthquakes.

1 Zohar, M., Rubin, R., & Salamon, A. (2014). Earthquake damage and repair: new evidence from Jerusalem on the 1927 Jericho earthquake. Seismological Research Letters, 85 (4), 912-922. doi: 10.1785/0220140009

2 Zohar, M., Rubin, R., & Salamon, A. (2015). Why is the minaret so short? Evidence on earthquake damage in Mt. Zion. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 147 (3), 230-246. doi: 10.1179/1743130114Y.0000000016

CONTENTS

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 1

Chapter 1: Reappraised list of historical earthquakes that affected Israel

and its close surroundings ………………………………………………………… 8

Chapter 2: In search of earthquake damage: New evidence of repairs after the 1927

Jericho earthquake using old photographs of Jerusalem …………………………….. 24

Chapter 3: Why is the minaret so short? Evidence on earthquake damage in

Mt. Zion ……………………………………………………………………………… 36

Chapter 4: A city hit by an earthquake: An HGIS approach to reconstructing the damage

in Tiberias (Israel) in 1837 ………………………………………………………… 54

Chapter 5: Spatial and temporal patterns of earthquake damage in Israel and

its close surroundings: Lessons from historical accounts …………………………… 74

Summary …………………………………………………………………………………. 107

Supplementary material (in the attached CD):

Chapter 1:

Appendix 1: List of reliable historical earthquakes most probably associated with the DST

activity that affected Israel and its close surroundings.

Appendix 2: Questionable earthquakes that allegedly affected Israel and its surroundings.

Appendix 3: Reliable earthquakes originated either along or off the DST that were reported

erroneously to cause damage in Israel.

Appendix 4: List of abbreviations.

Chapter 2:

Additional old photographs presenting installed iron anchors on buildings at the Jaffa Gate area,

the Old City of Jerusalem.

Chapter 4:

Appendix 1: Visual sources (drawings, maps, sketches, photographs and air photos) used for the

reconstruction of Tiberias prior and after the 1837 earthquake.

Appendix 2: Historical earthquakes hitting or affecting Tiberias and its close surroundings

INTRODUCTION

Earthquakes are considered one of the most devastating events mankind faces. The

intensity, the extent of damage and the number of victims destructive earthquakes cause

have always frightened the living societies. In historical times, narratives surrounding the

earthquakes evolved both orally and literally and occasionally were well preserved long

after their impact had faded away. Obviously, the physical origin of the earthquakes we

are familiar with today was not known at the time and instead, theological beliefs were

promoted and used as proof for divine supervision.1 A representative example from the

Bible appears in the book of Zechariah: “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of

Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west,

forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.

You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled

from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will

come, and all the holy ones with him”.2

Modern science however, explains that the strong and major earthquakes in the Levantine

area are related to ongoing plate tectonic processes3 and are commonly triggered in and

around the plate borders.4 Unfortunately, source parameters of earthquakes have been

measured only for the last century, since the deployment of the first modern

seismographs. This period is very short in relation to typical long seismic cycles and slow

geological processes. Thus, in order to widen the existing knowledge, studies using

historical, archaeological and paleoseismological evidence are conducted continuously.

1 I. Karcz, Implications of some early Jewish sources for estimates of earthquake hazard in the Holy Land, Annals of Geophysics 47 (2004) 759-792.

2 Zechariah, 14. 4-5. The Bible: New international version, London, 1989.

3 Z. Garfunkel, I. Zak, R. Freund, Active faulting in the Dead Sea rift, Tectonophysics 80 (1981) 1-26; Z. Garfunkel and Z. Ben-Avraham, The structure of the Dead Sea basin, Tectonophysics 266 (1996) 155-176.

4 A. Salamon, A. Hofstetter, Z. Garfunkel, H. Ron, Seismicity of the eastern Mediterranean region: perspective from the Sinai subplate, Tectonophysics 263 (1996) 293–305; A. Salamon, A. Hofstetter, Z. Garfunkel, H. Ron, Seismotectonics of the Sinai subplate–the eastern Mediterranean region, Geophysical Journal International 155 (2003) 149-173.

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In fact, in the absence of quantitative data prior to the 20th century, these disciplines are

almost the only available sources of information. Of these three types of sources, the

historical share seems to be the richest for many descriptions of earthquakes have been

accumulating during the last two millennia. Yet, not all of the seismic activity was

reported,5 and surely there have been earthquakes and damage that were not documented.

Many of the historical sources contain damage reports of cities, localities and

constructions; some even describe in detail the extent and severity of the damage.

Although subjective, their interpretation is of great importance, in particular when

converted into a qualitative estimation of seismic intensities.6 The latter represent the

severity of the damage at a given locality, ranging from slightly feeling the earthquake to

total destruction. However, although the damage and its expression in seismic intensities

are used worldwide to determine earthquake parameters,7 consistent evaluation of past

damage in Israel has not been fully carried out so far. Such evaluation, confined within

the geographic scope of Israel and its close vicinity, is significant for understanding past

seismicity in our region but is also important for preparation towards future events.

Consequently, this study focused mainly on the resulting damage. The relevant historical

accounts were systematically collected, compiled and the authenticity of each of the

5 Assessing the incompleteness of the historical share is a major aspect of historical earthquake studies. See for example J. Woessner and S. Wiemer, Assessing the quality of earthquake catalogues: estimating the magnitude of completeness and its uncertainty, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 95 (2005) 684-698; M. Stucchi, P. Albini, C. Mirto, A. Rebez, Assessing the completeness of Italian historical earthquake data, Annals of Geophysics 47 (2004) 659-673.

6 E.g., R. Avni, The 1927 Jericho earthquake, comprehensive macroseismic analysis based on contemporary sources, Ph.D., Department of Geography, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, 1999, 63 (Hebrew with English abstract).

7 E.g., W. H. Bakun, Estimating locations and magnitudes of earthquakes in Southern California from Modified Mercalli Intensities, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 96 (2006) 1278–1295; L. Sirovich and F. Pattenati, Tests of source-parameter inversion of the U.S. Geological Survey intensities of the Whittier Narrows 1987 earthquake, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 93 (2003) 47-60; P. Gasperini, G. Vannucci, D. Tripone, E. Boschi, The location and sizing of historical earthquakes using the attenuation of macroseismic intensity with distance, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 100 (2010) 2035-2066; M. Zohar and S. Marco, Re-estimating the epicenter of the 1927 Jericho earthquake using spatial distribution of intensity data, Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 19-29.

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original reports was verified. In addition, new cases of past damage were evaluated and

the temporal and spatial distribution of the damage was characterized and resolved.

Objectives

The underlying hypothesis of the study was that a systematic and comprehensive

examination of historical earthquakes and the damage they caused is expected to

significantly increase our understanding of the Levantine seismic behavior. The second

important hypothesis was that not all of the damage reports were fully resolved and there

are still sources and archives left that were not yet exploited sufficiently. Furthermore, I

argue that the rapid development of imagery software and GIS (Geographic Information

Systems) enable us to develop new methodologies targeted at tracking past earthquake

damage. Thus, the objectives of the research were formulated so as to analyze the

cumulative damage reports as well as to develop methodological techniques that add new

evidence of damage to the common knowledge:

1. Compile a reliable and comprehensive database of historical earthquakes that hit

or affected Israel and its close vicinity (chapter 1).

2. Develop new methodologies and techniques to trace past damage (chapters 2, 3

and 4).

3. Construct a reliable, GIS supported inventory of past damage and characterize

repeating patterns in time and space (chapter 5).

Sources of information

Chapters 1 and 5 focused on the historical earthquakes and the damage they caused

during a period lasting nearly two millennia. Thus, the scope of the relevant sources was

very large and varied in language, location and historical context. Fortunately, most of

the relevant accounts were already collected and are presented in the existing literature.

Still, before comprehensive analyses could be carried out, further verification,

organization, characterization and interpretation of the damage reports were required.

3

The main sources of information utilized in these chapters, starting from the most

important and reliable, were:

1. Modern catalogues that include damage reports extracted from historical sources

using a critical approach.8 These were credited with high level of reliability.

2. Reappraisals and published investigations of earthquakes and tsunamis.9

3. Focused investigations of specific events.10

4. Early catalogues that draw from the historical sources but use little or no criticism

at all.11

8 N. N. Ambraseys, Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East. A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900, New York, 2009; E. Guidoboni and A. Comastri, Catalogue of Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Area from the 11th to the 15th Century, Bologna, 2005; E. Guidoboni, A. Comastri, G. Traina, Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century, Bologna, 1994; I. Karcz and P. Lom, Bibliographic Reliability of Catalogues of Historic Earthquakes in and Around Israel: Methodology and Background, Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, 1987, 89.

9 E.g., N. N. Ambraseys, Historical earthquakes in Jerusalem - A methodological discussion, Journal of Seismology 9 (2005) 329-340; I. Karcz, Implications of some early Jewish sources for estimates of earthquake hazard in the Holy Land; A. Salamon, T. Rockwell, E. Guidoboni, A. Comastri, A critical evaluation of tsunami records reported for the Levant coast from the second millennium BCE to the present, Israel Journal of Earth Sciences 58 (2011) 327-354; A. Salamon, Patterns of seismic sequences in the Levant-interpretation of historical seismicity, Journal of Seismology 14 (2009) 339-367.

10 E.g., N. N. Ambraseys, The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel, Annals of Geophysics 11 (1997) 923-935; N. N. Ambraseys and M. Barazangi, The 1759 Earthquake in the Bekaa Valley - Implications for earthquake hazard assessment in the eastern Mediterranean region, Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth and Planets 94 (1989) 4007-4013; N. N. Ambraseys and C. P. Melville, An analysis of the Eastern Mediterranean earthquake of 20 May 1202, in: W. K. H. Lee, Meyers, H., and Shimazaki, K. (ed.), Historical Seismograms and Earthquakes of the World, Vol. 1, San Diego, California, 1988, 181-200; R. Avni, The 1927 Jericho earthquake; R. Darawcheh, C. Margottini, S. Paolini, The 9 July 551 AD Beirut Earthquake, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Journal of Earthquake Engineering 4 (2000) 403-414; E. Guidoboni, F. Bernardini, A. Comastri, The 1138-1139 and 1156-1159 destructive seismic crises in Syria, south-eastern Turkey and northern Lebanon, Journal of Seismology 8 (2004) 105-127; E. Guidoboni, F. Bernardini, A. Comastri, E. Boschi, The large earthquake on 29 June 1170 (Syria, Lebanon, and central southern Turkey), Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004); S. Marco, M. Hartal, N. Hazan, L. Lev, M. Stein, Archaeology, history, and geology of the A.D. 749 earthquake, Dead Sea Transform, Geology 31 (2003) 665-668.

11 E.g., D. H. K. Amiran, E. Arieh, T. Turcotte, Earthquakes in Israel and adjacent areas: Macroseismic observation since 100 B.C.E, Israel Exploration Journal 44 (1994) 260-305; D. H. K. Amiran, A Revised

4

Contrary to chapters 1 and 5, chapters 2, 3 and 4 focused each on a single earthquake: the

1927, 1834 and 1837 events, respectively. The data used to support these chapters was

primarily contemporary and secondary historical reports, in particular visual sources such

as photographs, drawings and maps. Specific listing of these sources is presented in each

of these chapters.

Methodology and structure

To analyze the cumulated damage from historical earthquakes, first a comprehensive and

reliable list of the events that hit or affected Israel and its close vicinity had to be

constructed. In chapter 1, the wealth of the historical reports of earthquakes was compiled

to provide that list. The list contains the earthquakes considered as most probably having

occurred, and also caused damage or were felt in at least one locality in Israel and its

close vicinity. The compilation resulted also in a list of doubtful events that were

excluded from the reliable list, and another list containing reliable events that were

mistakenly listed in the literature to have caused damage in our area of interest but

actually did not hit Israel.

Once the relevant list of reliable earthquakes was established, the evidence for the

associated damage was collected. First, new methodological approaches were developed

in order to uncover new evidence (chapters 2, 3 and 4). For this task existing archives of

various visual sources were exploited and compiled along with textual reports,

archeological data and field surveys.12 All these resources were analyzed using imagery

and GIS software. This approach, referred to as HGIS (Historical GIS), provides

Earthquake-Catalogue of Palestine, Israel Exploration Journal 1 (1952) 223-246; A. Ben-Menahem, Earthquake catalog for the Middle East (92 B.C.-1980 A.D.), Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica ed Applicata 21 (1979) 245-310; M. R. Sbeinati, R. Darawcheh, M. Mouty, The historical earthquakes of Syria: an analysis of large and moderate earthquakes from 1365 B.C. to 1900 A.D., Annals of Geophysics 48 (2005) 347-435.

12 Similar techniques appear in N. N. Ambraseys and I. Karcz, The earthquake of 1546 in the Holy Land, Terra Nova 4 (1992) 253-262; G. K. Hinzen, Support of Macroseismic Documentation by Data from Google Street View, Seismological Research Letters 84 (2013) 982-990.

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powerful capabilities to complement the 'traditional' historical-geography set of tools.13

Accordingly, in chapter 2 photograph viewers (e.g., Windows Photo Viewer™, Adobe

Photoshop™) were used to magnify old photographs of Jerusalem (including early air-

photos) in high resolution that were taken prior to and after the 1927 earthquake. Metal

iron anchors, installed on damaged walls after the earthquake to prevent their further

deterioration were thus detected. Some of these anchors are so small and well embedded

within their surroundings that without considerable magnification accompanied by

detailed field surveys their detection within the photographs was almost impossible. In

chapter 3 old drawings of Jerusalem with views of Mt. Zion and the Tomb of David were

used in order to investigate the squat-like appearance of the al-Nabi Dau’d minaret due to

the 1834 earthquake. The drawings were superimposed within a GIS project and

consequently, the minaret dimensions as drawn by the various artists were measured and

analyzed. The last stage was to compare the pre- and after- earthquake drawings with

field measurements of the al-Nabi Dau’d and al-Qal’a (David citadel) Ottoman minarets

and determine the impact of the earthquake. Extensive use of HGIS was implemented

also in chapter 4 in order to construct the damage in Tiberias after the 1837 earthquake.

Nearly 50 drawings, maps and photographs were examined and compiled with written

accounts. These were analyzed in a GIS-based framework to produce a full

reconstruction of the city. Precise digitations of the shape of Tiberias’s main features

were made and three-dimensional models of the city prior and after the 1837 earthquake

were established. The models allow for 360˚ areal and vertical examination and

evaluation of the damage, not available before.

In chapter 5 the temporal and spatial distribution of the damage in and around Israel was

characterized.14 First, the existing damage reports available in the catalogues and

literature listed previously were extensively screened and collected. Then, they were

13 I. N. Gregory and P. S. Ell, Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies, and Scholarship, Cambridge, 2007, 8-10; A. K. Knowles, Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholarship, Redlands, California, 2008, 9-17.

14 Chapters 1 and 5 are two parts of a scientific report conducted at the Geological Survey of Israel. See M. Zohar, A. Salamon, R. Rubin, Damage patterns of past earthquakes in Israel – preliminary evaluation of historical sources, Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, 2013, 37.

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organized and the newly discovered damage (chapters 2, 3 and 4) was added. Next, the

severity of each of the damage reports was evaluated and its location was geo-coded on a

map. Finally, the temporal and spatial patterns of the cumulative damage along the Dead

Sea Transform (DST) system were characterized. Furthermore, this stage also attempted

to evaluate the scope of the damage that for some reason (not reported, lost, not found

yet) did not reach our hands. Accordingly, the cumulative damage in ancient cities in

Israel and its close surroundings was reappraised.

The combination of general examination of all the events that affected Israel, on the one

hand, and the focused investigations of several test cases, on the other hand, proved to be

very effective and useful. It enabled, for the first time in Israel, systematic and

comprehensive characterization of the temporal and spatial spread of the damage during

the last two millennia and opened a new door for such future studies.

7

Chapter one

Reappraised list of historical earthquakes that affected

Israel and its close surroundings

(Published)

Motti Zohar, Amos Salamon and Rehav Rubin

Zohar, M., Salamon, A, & Rubin, R. (2016) Reappraised list of historical earthquakes in Israel

and its close surroundings, Journal of Seismology. DOI: 10.1007/s10950-016-9575-7.

8

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Reappraised list of historical earthquakes that affected Israeland its close surroundings

Motti Zohar & Amos Salamon & Rehav Rubin

Received: 10 January 2015 /Accepted: 6 April 2016# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract Numerous historical reports of damagingearthquakes in the Levant have accumulated over thelast 3000 years. Here, we screen that information andfocus on the damaging earthquakes that affected Israelfrom the second millennia BCE to the 1927 CE Jerichoearthquake and list the earthquakes by date, of majordamage, type of sequence, and degree of size. Thecompilation results in three different lists: (i) 71 reliableearthquakes that in our opinion were most probablyassociated with the Dead Sea Transform (DST) andaffected Israel and its close surroundings; (ii) 41 ques-tionable earthquakes that should be re-evaluated or ig-nored; and (iii) 46 earthquakes that probably occurredbut were erroneously associated with damage in Israel.What emerges from the list of the reliable earthquakes isthat (i) Israel and its close surroundings suffered damageabout 32 times during the last two millennia, that is,once in about 60 years, although not regularly; (ii) 21 ofthe earthquakes occurred during the last millennia, i.e.,an event every ∼45 years; and (iii) three intervals ofincreased reporting are noticed: between the fourth and

the mid-eighth century, from the beginning of the elev-enth to the end of the thirteenth century, and from theend of the eighteenth century up to the last entry in 1927,though this periodmay be extended until today. In-depthevaluation of the changing regimes over time within thestudy area, the historical reports of earthquake damageoutside of Israel, and comparison with physical paleo-and archaeo-seismology evidence, such as the B137–206^ and B165–236^ paleoseismic earthquakes forwhich there is no historical match, indicates that thehistorical list is far from being complete. Thus, we arguethat the apparent cycles of historical reporting do notnecessarily reflect the actual rate of seismic activity andfurther investigation is needed to establish a compiled,multi-sourced list to decipher the true nature of cycles ofstrong earthquakes in this region during historical times.

Keywords Dead Sea Transform . Earthquake damage .

Historical earthquakes . Israel . Seismic cycles

1 Introduction

Numerous accounts of past earthquakes, tsunamis, andthe damage they caused in the Levant have been accu-mulating during the last three millennia. They includehistorical contemporary reports, chronicles, manu-scripts, newspapers, drawings, maps, and in recent timesevenmodern photographs. The majority of the historicalshare was already collected, translated, and organizedwithin several catalogues and lists. However, up to thelast three decades, many of these studies were not

J SeismolDOI 10.1007/s10950-016-9575-7

Electronic supplementary material The online version of thisarticle (doi:10.1007/s10950-016-9575-7) contains supplementarymaterial, which is available to authorized users.

M. Zohar : R. RubinDepartment of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel

M. Zohar (*) :A. SalamonGeological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel Street,95501 Jerusalem, Israele-mail: motti.zohar@mail.huji.ac.il

9

critical enough and, consequently, there are a consider-able number of questionable, false, or duplicated entriesin these lists. Moreover, several errors were copied fromone catalogue to another, causing distortion of the infor-mation or even fabrication of new earthquakes(Ambraseys 2005a; Karcz 2004; Karcz and Lom1987). The implications of this shortcoming are tooimportant to ignore. For example, the ground accelera-tion maps of the current Israeli anti-seismic buildingcode (IC 413) are based upon such a list (GeophysicalInstitute of Israel, unpublished dataset). Thus, it is es-sential to screen and construct a reliable list of historicalearthquakes that hit or were felt in and around Israelduring historical times.

The compilation suggested in this paper is basedprimarily on a systematical review of the historicalshare. As the historical archive is partial and inhomoge-neous along time (Stucchi et al. 2004), we examine theextent to which it may have influenced the completenessof this archive. We thus compare the temporal spread ofthe earthquakes in light of their historical context as wellas with the archaeoseismic (e.g., Marco 2008) andpaleoseismic (e.g., Agnon 2014; Marco and Klinger2014) inventories available nowadays and concludewith an updated list of historical earthquakes that affect-ed Israel and discuss how complete it might be.

2 The available information of the historicalearthquakes

The first attempt to systematically collect and organizethe historical reports of earthquakes and construct aMediterranean inventory was probably in the mid-fifteenth century by (Manetti 1457). Following,Ligorio (1574-77) organized the Mediterranean earth-quakes and expanded the time frame, beginning with thefirst millennium BCE up to his times. During the nine-teenth century, a few important catalogues were alsopublished (Hoff 1840; Mallet 1852; Perrey 1850;Schmidt 1881). Although these works were more accu-rate than the pre-nineteenth century lists, they were stillincomplete and contained several inaccuracies and con-fused items. Unfortunately, the early twentieth centurylists of Arvanitakis (1903), de Ballore (1906), Willis(1928), and Sieberg (1932) partially adopted these cat-alogues along with the inaccuracies already existing,and thus, these ambiguities became rooted in the scien-tific literature in several of the following compilations

(e.g., Karcz and Lom 1987). In the mid-twentieth cen-tury, Shalem (1951) made a pioneering attempt to assessthe historical earthquakes and their damage consistently.The following compilations (e.g., Amiran 1952; Amiranet al. 1994; Ben-Menahem 1979; Turcotte and Arieh1988) were more detailed and also listed damaged lo-calities but still preserved several of the significantinaccuracies. For instance, the alleged 92 BCE earth-quake in Jerusalem appears in Amiran (1952), Amiranet al. (1994), Ben-Menahem (1979), and elsewhere butwas later strongly rejected by Karcz (2004). A secondexample is the amalgamationmade byAmiran (1952) ofthe local 363 CE and the 365 CE Crete earthquakes, butthis was subsequently corrected by the same author(Amiran et al. 1994). Recently, however, the importanceof critical interpretation of the historical sources wasstrongly raised (e.g., Ambraseys 2005a; Guidoboniand Ebel 2009; Karcz 2004; Karcz and Lom 1987)and consequently more critical screenings were con-ducted. Perhaps, the first harbingers were the reviewmade by Karcz (1987) and the catalogues ofAmbraseys et al. (1994) and Guidoboni et al. (1994).Following, their critical approach was adopted in mod-ern catalogues (e.g., Ambraseys 2009; Guidoboni andComastri 2005), reappraisals (e.g., Ambraseys andWhite 1997; Salamon et al. 2011; Salamon et al.2007), and reviews (e.g., Ambraseys 2004; Ambraseysand Finkel 1995; Salamon 2009). Additional sources ofhistorical information can be found in focused investi-gations of specific earthquakes (e.g., Ambraseys 1997;Ambraseys 2005b; Ambraseys and Barazangi 1989;Ambraseys and Karcz 1992; Ambraseys and Melville1988; Austin et al. 2000; Avni 1999; Hough and Avni2010; Russell 1980).

Archaeoseismic and paleoseismic findings constituteevidence complementary to the historical reports. Whilethe historical portion provides information only from thelast 3000–4000 years, archaeological remains (e.g.,Ambraseys 2006; Bikai 2002; Hayens et al. 2006;Karcz et al. 1977; Korjenkov and Mazor 1999; Marco2008; Rucker and Niemi 2010; Russell 1985; Thomas etal. 2007; Tsafrir and Foester 1992) and paleoseismicfindings (e.g., Agnon et al. 2006; Alsop and Marco2011; Enzel et al. 2000; Kagan et al. 2005; Kagan etal. 2011; Ken-Tor et al. 2001; Ken-Tor et al. 2002;Marco et al. 1996; Migowski et al. 2004; Wechsler etal. 2014; Zilberman et al. 2005) provide evidence ofseveral thousand years much earlier and up to thePleistocene, respectively. Thus, they may support and

J Seismol

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even augment the scope of the historical share. Therecent archaeoseismic and paleoseismic reviews ofMarco (2008), Agnon (2014), and Marco and Klinger(2014) reflect that modern tendency. In the last fewdecades, scientists become aware of the benefits incollaboration and a sharp increase in multidisciplinaryefforts is evident (e.g., Ellenblum et al. 1998; Ferry et al.2011; Marco et al. 1997; Marco et al. 2003; Meghraouiet al. 2003; Niemi 2011; Panza et al. 1997; Reinhardt etal. 2006; Shaked et al. 2004; Wechsler et al. 2009;Yagoda-Biran and Hatzor 2010).

3 Methodology—the compilation of the historicalreports

3.1 General settings

Our investigation begins at the biblical event of Sodomand Gomorrah (Genesis 19: Bible 1989) which datesback approximately to the second millennium BCE(Ambraseys 2009) and ends with the first recording ofthe damaging event in 1927 (Avni 1999), which practi-cally ends the pre-instrumental period. Within this timeframe, we focused mainly on the earthquakes thatcaused damage or were felt in at least one locality inIsrael and/or its close vicinity. Accordingly, and in lightof the existing tectonic settings and the population dis-tribution, we limited our search for damage to an areaextending between the geographic latitude coordinates28.5° and 33.5° and from the Mediterranean coast in thewest to about 50 km east of the Jordan and the Aravavalleys (Fig. 1). The most southern, northern, and east-ern localities within this area are the St. Catherine mon-astery in Sinai, Egypt and the cities of Tyre (Lebanon)and Zarka (Jordan), respectively.

The main seismogenic unit that crosses the region isthe Dead Sea Transform (DST), left lateral fault systemextending from the Red Sea in the south to southeasternTurkey in the north, and borders the tectonic plate ofArabia on the east side and the Sinai sub-plate on thewest (Freund et al. 1968; Garfunkel and Ben-Avraham1996; Garfunkel et al. 1981).

For the purpose of review and compilation of thehistorical reports, we based our evaluation mainly onthe critical catalogues, reappraisals, reviews, and fo-cused investigations listed in the previous section. Ingeneral, we used the English translations of the rawmaterials, but in cases of unclear reports or

disagreements between the interpretations of some ofthe scholars, we checked the original document. Inaddition, in order to substantiate some of the historicalreports, we also consulted several paleoseismic (Agnon2014) and archaeoseismic (Marco 2008) reviews andstudies relevant to our work but refrained from circularreasoning (Ambraseys 2005a; Karcz and Kafri 1978) incases which the historical studies rely on the archaeo- orpaleoseismic information or vice versa.

3.2 Compilation of the data

An accurate compilation process depends on the com-pleteness and reliability of the historical reports.Furthermore, the attempt to systematically review andcharacterize reports that span more than 2000 yearsencounters difficulties originating from the differentlanguages, authors, places, and historical contexts.Nevertheless, as most of the sources can be evaluatedand characterized in light of their contemporaneoussettings, we thus classified the inspected reports intocontemporary (or near contemporary) and secondarysources. Then, we tracked the Bchain of transmitters^(e.g., Elad 1982; Elad 2002), i.e., Bwho transmitted thereport to whom,^ and inquired whether the transmitter isconsidered reliable. In cases in which the credibility of agiven transmitter was controversial, we referred to dis-cussions concerning his reliability (e.g., Broshi 1982;Mazar 1982) so as to assess possible inaccuracies orexaggerations. Finally, we developed a five-level scaleof reliability based upon the number and contempora-neousness of the reports of each event entry (seeTable 1). It was then possible to formulate a unifiedmethod to determine and grade the degree of reliabilityof each of the historical earthquakes. Accordingly, anevent reported by at least two independent contempo-rary sources that describe the same phenomena wasattributed a Bvery high^ reliability degree. On the otherhand, an event reported by a single secondary sourcethat draws its account from unknown sources was at-tributed a Bpoor^ reliability degree. In cases of historicalreports supported also by independent archaeoseismicor paleoseismic evidence, the reliability degree of thereported event was strengthened (see Fig. 2 for the flowdiagram of the process). Whenever we were unable todetermine the reliability of an event, we used critical,conservative judgment based on the analysis of theunderlying historical reports.

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Date, degree of reliability, type (pre-, main, oraftershock) following (Salamon 2009), and zone ofmaximal damage were attributed to each of the com-piled earthquakes.We also added a short description andnoted the historical and scientific references we used foreach of the entries. The reports of casualties requiredspecial attention as in many of the earthquakes thenumber of casualties seems to be extremely exaggerat-ed. Furthermore, in several occasions, there are hardlyany reports of damage but relatively large numbers ofcasualties. For instance, apart from the general termBJudea,^ there is no authenticated report of damagefrom the 31 BCE event, but Josephus (Josephus.AN.15.121-4) still reports 30,000 casualties. This figure isstrongly questioned by Ambraseys (2009). Broshi

(1982) also claims that although the circumstancesJosephus reports about probably did occur, the figureshe notes in many cases are exaggerated.

In addition, we also determined the average of themagnitude values given by early researchers for thedamaging earthquakes (e.g., Ambraseys 1997;Ambraseys and Barazangi 1989; Ambraseys andJackson 1998; Ben-Menahem 1979; Ben-Menahem1981; Ellenblum et al. 1998; Hough and Avni 2010;Marco et al. 1997; Marco et al. 2003). Although some ofthese scholars were not aware of the limitations of thehistorical data, they are all professional geologists andseismologists, well experienced in earthquake studiesfrom all around the world. We therefore think that theearthquake magnitudes, as an opinion given by those

Fig. 1 Map of the study areawhich includes the central andsouthern parts of the Dead SeaTransform (DST) and itsassociated segments: GE thepull-apart structures in the Gulf ofElat and Aqaba, AFArava fault,DSF Dead Sea fault, HF Hulafault, RF Roum splay, YFYammouneh fault, RAF Rachayasplay, SF Serghaya splay, CFCarmel fault. A general overviewof the DST is presented in theinset map; note the division of thetransform into three geographicparts: South (S), Center (C), andNorth (N). Major ancientlocalities are marked and labeled

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researchers as an expert group (e.g., Dalkey 1969;Linstone and Turoff 2011), are well worth consulting.Accordingly, we also assigned each of the damagingearthquakes a size degree (see definitions in Table 2).

The compilation described above resulted in threeseparate lists: (i) reliable earthquakes that in our opinionwere most probably associated with the DSTand affect-ed Israel and its close surroundings; (ii) questionableearthquakes that should be re-evaluated or ignored; and(iii) earthquakes that probably occurred elsewhere butwere erroneously associated with damage in Israel. Thecomplete compilation process is presented in Fig. 3, andthe resulting lists appear in Appendices 1–3.

4 Classifying the earthquakes

The compiled list of reliable earthquakes we refer to asBprobably occurred^ contains 71 earthquakes (electron-ic supplement, Appendix 1) that were attributed to mod-erate degree of reliability (symbol MR) or higher (seedefinitions in Table 1 and Fig. 2). This threshold reflectsthe significance we ascribe to the use of contemporaryor near contemporary sources in determining the

reliability of a report. Of the 71 earthquakes, 32 causeddamage to at least one locality within the inspected area(Table 3). The other 39 are all mainshocks that wereonly felt within the study area, although some of themdid cause destruction beyond it.

Although the books of Genesis and Joshua giveseveral descriptions of environmental effects that mightbe associated with earthquakes (Bentor 1989), the firstreliable description that seems to cite a specific earth-quake appears at the beginning of the book of Amos(Amos 1.1). It does not specify any destruction or dam-age but clearly refers to the prophecy of Amos in rela-tion to the rule of kings Uziah of Judea and Yerova’m ofIsrael, a time frame that we are able nowadays to recon-struct reliably as c. 760 BCE (Ambraseys 2009;Guidoboni et al. 1994). After this event and up to the31 BCE event, no meaningful quakes are mentionedalthough further questionable reports do appear (e.g.,Zechariah, 14.4-5; Isaiah, 2.19, 21), but to date, we areunable to authenticate any of them. This means nearly700 years of Bsilence,^ although it is reasonable toassume that earthquakes did occur but somehow werenot documented. Thus, in order to better assess therecurrence interval of the damaging earthquakes, wefocus on the time frame between the 31 BCE and the1927 AC earthquakes. This leaves us with 31 reliabledamaging earthquakes in about 1960 years, that is, oneevent per ∼60 years on average, but not regularly withtime. This figure well coincides with Agnon (2014)estimating an event every 65–70 years. Consideringonly the 20 earthquakes reported also causing casualties(Table 3), indicates a single event per century, againirregularly. Inspecting the last millennium only, wecount 21 damaging earthquakes and 14 earthquakeswith casualties, i.e., one event per ∼45 and ∼70 years,respectively. Being aware of the possible incomplete-ness of the reports, these intervals might be even shorter.

We also identify 41 questionable entries (electronicsupplement, Appendix 2) that appear in the existingliterature. These are classified into (1) doubtful earth-quakes, most probably originating from duplicated re-cords, amalgamations, and erroneous entries, and (2)earthquakes that appear in the literature without indica-tion of their historical sources or that are reported bydoubtful sources. Finally, we recognize 46 earthquakesthat, in our opinion, are reliable and did occur but wereinterpreted erroneously as causing damage in Israel(electronic supplement, Appendix 3). This list containsearthquakes that originated along the DST away from

Table 1 Degrees of reliability that characterize a report of anevent

Symbol Reliability Transmitters

VR Very high Based upon at least 2 contemporary or nearcontemporary independent sources withno confusion or contradiction regardingdate, location, and details of event

HR High Based on at least one contemporary or nearcontemporary source with no confusionor contradiction regarding date, location,and details of occurrence

MR Moderate Based on at least one secondary source thatdraws from at least one reliablecontemporary or near contemporarysource that is not available to us today

PR Poor Based on secondary sources that rely uponother secondary or unknown sources

DR Doubtful False, duplicated, or misinterpreted sources

In case of supporting, independent (dating not relying on historicalinformation) archaeoseismic, or paleoseismic evidence, the reli-ability of the given event is raised by a degree. For example, anevent based on secondary sources that rely upon other secondaryor unknown sources but is recorded in supporting archaeoseismicor paleoseismic evidence is graded Bmoderate^ degree instead ofBpoor^

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Israel as well as earthquakes associated with neighbor-ing tectonic sources off the DST system.

Althoughmuch effort has beenmade in screening thehistorical data, the compiled lists are far from beingcomplete. In case other original historical, archaeologi-cal, or paleoseismological evidence is discovered ornew interpretations of existing sources are raised, earth-quakes should accordingly be added, removed, orshifted between the three lists.

5 Temporal distribution of the earthquakes

Inspecting the documentation of the earthquakes overthe past history, we should bear in mind that the Levantis located at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, and Africa,and as such, it has been under several political regimesduring the last two millennia. Figure 4 presents thenumber of reported earthquakes per 100 years alongthese periods, classified into reliable and doubtful

Fig. 2 Decision flow chart for determining the reliability of agiven earthquake according to the following criteria: (A) At leasttwo contemporary or near contemporary independent sources; (B)at least one contemporary or near contemporary source; (C) at leastone secondary source that draws from at least one reliable

contemporary or near contemporary source; (D) secondary sourcesthat rely upon other secondary or unknown sources; (E) supportingindependent (dating not relying on historical information)archaeoseismic or paleoseismic evidence. For full description ofthe reliability degrees, see Table 1

Table 2 Size of earthquakes classified by degrees, from light (Lht) to great (Grt)

Degree Size Symbol Description Estimated magnitude

1 Light Lht Felt only 4 ≤M < 4.9

2 Moderate Mod Slight damage to buildings and other structures 5 ≤M < 5.9

3 Strong Str May cause a lot of damage in very populated areas 6 ≤M < 6.9

4 Major Maj Major earthquake. Serious damage 7 ≤M < 7.9

5 Great Grt Great earthquake. Can totally destroy communities near the epicenter M ≥ 8

Each degree represents a possible range of magnitudes (adapted from Ambraseys and Jackson 1998)

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entries. Accordingly, up to the Roman period, the num-ber of doubtful earthquakes is greater than that of thereliable ones. Starting from the Byzantine period, fromthe fourth century and onwards, the reliable earthquakesconstitute ∼60 to 80 % of the total reported number.Exceptional is the Mamluk period in which the numberof the reliable and the doubtful earthquakes is equal.This period also breaks the expected trend in growth inthe total number of reports as we get closer to ourpresent times—it has much fewer reports relative tothe preceding Crusader or the following Ottomanperiods.

Considering the temporal distribution of the damag-ing earthquakes (Table 3), we detected three intervals ofincreased reporting along with a rise in the strength ofthe earthquakes (Fig. 5): (1) between the fourth and mid-eighth centuries; (2) between the beginning of the elev-enth and the end of the thirteenth centuries; and (3) frommid-eighteenth century up to our last inspected histori-cal earthquake of 1927 CE, but this period may not have

faded out yet. The first interval includes the earthquakesof 363 and 749 that affected Palestine and the 303, 502,and 551 quakes that affected mainly the southernLebanese coast. The second period includes the destruc-tive earthquakes of 1033, 1063, 1068, 1157, 1170, 1202,1212, and 1293, while the third phase that consists offive destructive earthquakes (1759 October andNovember, 1834, 1837, and 1927) and many other feltones begins approximately at the first half of the eigh-teenth century.

5.1 Were there strong earthquakes missed by historians?

We witness cycles of reporting and it raises the questionwhether these periods reflect the actual seismic activityor they are just an artifact due to incomplete reporting.Figure 6 demonstrates the cumulative number of thereliable felt and damaging earthquakes against thechanging regimes in Palestine at the time, and they seemto be in accord, more or less, with each other. This is not

Fig. 3 The complete compilationprocess. Note the separation ofthe results into three lists: (1)reliable earthquakes (see alsoAppendix 1); (2) doubtfulearthquakes (Appendix 2); and(3) reliable earthquakes that occurbut did not damage any localitywithin the research area(Appendix 3)

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Table 3 List of reliable damaging earthquakes that occurred between c. 760 BCE and 1927 CE and hit Israel and its close surroundings in atleast one locality (see Fig. 1)

Date Reported damaged localities Estimated magnitude inprevious studies

Averagemagnitude

Sizedegree

Casualties

c. 760–750 BCE Jerusalem, Judea 7.8–8.2 (AUS); 8.2 (BM5); 7.3(BM)

– – –

31 early spring BCE Judea 6–6.5 (KA2); 6.7 (MIG); 6.7(BM); 7 (BM5); 7 (TUAR)

6.7 Str M

303 April 2 Tyre 7.1 (BM); 7.1 (MIG after BM) 7.1 Maj M

363 May 18–19 (night) Antipatris, Caesarea, Gophna, Hada (unknown),Areopolis, Ashdod, Zippori, A-Salt, Haifa, Jaffa,Baniyas [Israel], Palestine, Tiberias, Bet-Guvrin,Petra, Sebastia, Samaria, Zoar, Bet-She’an,Jerusalem, Nicopolis [Israel], Ashqelon, Lod

6.7 (BM); 6.4 (BM5); 7(TUAR); 6.7 (MIG after BM)

6.7 Str M

418 Palestine 6.2 (TUAR); 6.9 (MIG) 6.5 Str –

502 August 22 night Akko, Tyre 7 (TUAR); 7 (MIG after BM); 7(BM)

7.0 Maj –

551 July 9 Sarafand, Tyre 7.8 (TUAR); Ms 7.2 (DAR); 7.5(MIG); 7.5 (BM)

7.5 Maj M

634 September Jerusalem, Palestine 5.5 (light damage, personaljudgment)

5.5 Mod –

659 June 7 Jericho, St. John, Palestine 6.6 and 6.6 (BM; BM5) 6.6 Str M

749/Early 750 Jordan River, Palestine, Tabor Mt., Tiberias,Bet-She’an, Khirbet al Karak

M > 7 (MAR); 7–7.5 (MIG); 7.3(BM); 7.3, 7.3 (BM5, BM3);less than 7 (KA2, BEG)

7.2 Maj M

756 March 9 Jerusalem, Palestine 6 (moderate damage, personaljudgment)

6.0 Str –

1033 December 05(night)

Jericho, Ramla, Palestine, Baniyas [Israel],Ashqelon, Jerusalem, Akko, Gaza, Nablus,Hebron, el-Badan

7.1 (MIG); 6.7 (BM); 6.7 (BM5) 6.8 Str M

1063 August Akko, Tyre 6.5–7 (MIG); 6.7 Str F

1068 March 18 Palestine, Elat 6.9 (MIG); 6.6–7 (ZIL);7.0 ≤MS ≤ 7.8 (AMJA); 7(BM); Me = 8.1 (GC)

7.3 Maj M

1068 May 29 Ramla 6 (GC) 6.0 Str M

1117 June 26 Jerusalem 5.5 (Light damage, personaljudgment)

5.5 Mod –

1157 August 12 (night) Jerusalem 7–7.5 (MIG); M > 7 (AMBR);7.3 (BM)

7.2 Maj M

1170 June 29 (0345) Baniyas [Israel] 7 (MIG); M > 7 (AMBR); 6.6(HOAV); 7.9 (TUAR);7.0 ≤MS ≥ 7.8 (AMJA); 7.5(BM)

7.3 Maj M

1202 May 20 (0240) Akko, Samaria, Tebnine, Vadum-Jakub, Baniyas[Israel], Hunin Castle, Nablus, Tyre, Jerusalem

7.5 (MIG); 7.5 (AMME); 7.6(HOAV); 6.8 (BM); 6.8(BM4); M > 7 (EMARB);7.0 ≤MS ≥ 7.8 (AMJA)

7.2 Maj M

1212 May 01 Karak, Elat, St. Catherine, el-Shaubak 6.7 (MIG) 6.7 Str F

1293 January 11–February 08

Karak, Ramla, Lod, Gaza, Tafilah, Qaqun 6.6 (MIG) 6.6 Str –

1458 November 16 Ramla, Lod, Hebron, Jerusalem, Karak 6.5 (MIG) 6.5 Str M

1546 January 14(afternoon)

Hebron, Maa’yan Elisha, Jericho, St. John, Bethany,Jerusalem, Jordan River, Nablus,Beit-Jala, Bet-Lehem, Batir

M∼ 6 (KA2); 7 (TUAR); 6.1(MIG); 7 (BM); 7.7 (BM5,BM3)

6.6 Str M

1588 January 04 (13:00) Elat, St. Catherine 6.7 (MIG) 6.7 Str –

1643 March 23 Jerusalem 5.5 (light damage, personaljudgment)

5.5 Mod –

1759 October 30(03:45)

Akko, Quneitra, Benot Ya’aqov Bridge, Sassa,Nazareth, Safed, Tiberias, Nablus

Ms∼ 6.6 (AMBR); 6.5 (BM) 6.5 Str M

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Table 3 (continued)

Date Reported damaged localities Estimated magnitude inprevious studies

Averagemagnitude

Sizedegree

Casualties

1759 November 25(19:23)

Hula, Deir Hanna, Safed, Nabatiya, Nablus, Sassa,Hermon Mt., Akko, Beit-Jann, Hasbaya, DeirHanna, Quneitra, Caesarea, Marjuyun, Tiberias,Haifa, el-Rama

7.4 (MIG); MS∼ 7.4 (AMBR,1989); Ms = 7.4 (AMJA;WECO); 7 ≤M ≤ 7.2 (GOM);7.4 (BM)

7.3 Maj M

1817 March Jerusalem 5.5 (light damage, personaljudgment)

5.5 Mod –

1834 May 26 (13:00) Dead Sea Southwest, Caesarea, Jerusalem, Jaffa,Umm al-Rassas, Deir Mar-Saba, Bet-Lehem,Medaba

6.4 (MIG); 6.3 (BM) 6.3 Str –

1837 January 01 (16:35) Nabatiya, Qana, el-Fara, el-Salha, Jish, MarunAl-Ras, Bint-Jbeil, Malkiyya, Qadas, Ya’tar,Tebnine, Hunin Castle, Baniyas [Israel], Metula,Zeqqieh, Deir Mimas, el-Khiam, el-Tahta, DeirMar-Elias, Qaddita, Jibshit, Gaza, Arraba, Attil,Qaqun, Tubas, Ajloon, Nablus, Zeita, Harithiya,Jerusalem, Kfar Bir’im, Lake Tiberias, Hasbaya,Kafr Aqab, Jeresh., Areopolis, Hula, Tarshiha,Dallata, Jaffa, Mrar, Ein-Zeitun, Tyre, Atlit,Meron, Eilabun, Akko, Migdal, Irbid, Reina,Safed, Tiberias, Hadatha, Haifa, Zemah, KafrKanna, Kafr, Sabt, Lubiya, Nazereth

7.4 (MIG); M > 7 (AM3);MS = 7.4 (WECO); Ms 7.1(NEM after AM3); 6.7 (BM)

7.1 Maj M

1839 St. Catherine 5.5 (light damage, personaljudgment)

5.5 Mod –

1927 July 11 (15:04) Salfit, Soreq River, Nabi-Musa, Abadia, Ajloon,Gaza, Atara,, Meslovia, Lod, Ein-el-Qilt,Ein-Dok, Azraa’, Deir, Mar-Saba, Merhavya,Masada, Mrar, Maa’yan Elisha, Moza, Medaba,Migdal, Karak, Kafaringi, En, Harod, RamatYishai, Migdal Yava, Qiryat Anavim, Dead, SeaNorth 1, Tel Aviv, Nablus, Shunam, Refidie,Ramat, Rahel, Dara’a, Ramla, Shiloah Village,Rehovot, Amman, Reina, Rammala, En-Kerem,Qalqilya, Kabab, Zora, Safed, Zemah, PetahTiqwa, Eqron, Afula, Akko, Ein-Fara’, EinQinya, Ein-Musa, Rosh ha-‘Ayin, Be’er-Sheva,Jiftlik, Gimzoo, Gedera, Batir, Beit-Surik,Bet-She’an, Beit-Liqya, Bet-Lehem,Bet-haKerem, Beit-Jimal, Bet-Guvrin, Toov, Mt.,Bira, Jisr Magmi, a-Ram, Irbid, A-Salt,el-Hama, Abu Tlul, Nazereth, Jaffa, YarmoukFall, Jordan River, Abu-Dis, Abu-Ghosh,Beit-Jala, Zarka Maein, Amman-Jordan Road,Jerusalem-Jericho Road 2, Jerusalem-JerichoRoad, Jericho, Holly Mt., Armon ha-Naziv (Je-rusalem), Jerusalem, Yalo, Tulkarm, Tiberias,Tabgha, Jaljulya, Hebron, Jenin, ZikhronYaa’qov, Zarka, Wadi al-Shueib, Mt. Scopus,Olives, Mt., Deir A-Sheikh, Daharia,Bnot-Ya’akov Bridge, Allenby Bridge, Gesher,Jeresh, Michmach Village, Haifa

6.25 (AVN; AVN2); 6.2 (BM2);6.3 (MIG) = 6.25

6.25 Str M

Date year of occurrence and whenever possible—also month, day, and hour; Reported damaged localities localities damaged within theresearch area (Fig. 1) that we consider as of moderate (MR) or higher degree reliability (Table 1; localities that were affected by the listedearthquakes outside our study area are not mentioned); Estimated magnitude in previous studies list of studies that estimated the magnitudeof the given event. See Appendix 4 for abbreviation reference; Average magnitude averaged value of previous magnitude estimations; Sizedegree following categorization made by Ambraseys and Jackson (1998); Casualties estimated according to historical reports: F few (ten orless), M many (more than ten)

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surprising since each of the ruling regimes paid differentattention to the land of Palestine.

Prior to the second poorly documented period in themid-eighteenth century, the Byzantines and their suc-cessors, the Umayyads, had a lot of interest in Palestine.However, after the Abassid conquest (750 CE), thepolitical, cultural, and economic center moved eastwardto Bagdad (Iraq) and the focus on Palestine significantlydecreased (Elad 1978). Towards the end of the eleventhcentury, the Crusaders defeated the Abbasids and the

attention to Palestine rapidly increased again (Praver1984). The tendency of rising interests again alternatedduring the Mamluk and the first half of the Ottomanperiods. At that time, the land of Palestine was mostlyabandoned and thus fewer reports exist. From the mid-eighteenth century, European attention towards theLevant increased, in particular after the journey ofNapoleon in 1799 (Ben-Arieh 1970). Then and withgreater intensity from the nineteenth century onwardwith the expansion of media and modernization, the

Fig. 4 Average number ofreports of felt and damagingearthquakes normalized per100 years and classified intohistorical periods and regimes.Note the division into the totalnumber of reports, the reliable(Appendix 1) and the doubtful(Appendix 2) earthquakes

Fig. 5 Temporal distribution ofthe reliable damaging earthquakesalong with the average value ofthe magnitudes attributed to it inprevious studies (Table 3). Notethe three alleged cycles ofearthquakes in time and size(dashed line). The labels abovethe bars denote the year theearthquake occurred

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number and quality of the reports rise steeply (Fig. 6).Thus, it is reasonable to assume that when Palestineattracted less attention, the number of reports decreasedas well.

Indeed, the modern historical catalogues (Ambraseys2009; Ambraseys et al. 1994; Guidoboni and Comastri2005; Guidoboni et al. 1994) do contain reports ofconsiderable seismic activity during the three poorlydocumented periods. However, the reported damagewas not in Palestine but rather in its bordering neigh-boring countries at the time and thus is not considered inour analysis. During the first period for example,earthquakes occurred in c. 20 BCE in Egypt, 17–15 BCE and 76 CE in Cyprus, and 37 CE, c. 41–54 CE, and 115 CE in northern Syria. The secondperiod, between mid-eighth and mid-eleventh centu-ry, includes earthquakes that affected mainly south-ern Syria (e.g., 813–820 CE, 847 CE, 973 CE, and991 CE in Syria, 835 CE, 850 CE, and 860 CE inAntioch, and 956 CE in the eastern Mediterranean).The third period, during the Mamluk and the first halfof the Ottoman periods, includes earthquakes thatdamaged Tripoli (1339 CE and c. 1706 CE),Damascus (1399 CE, 1563 CE, 1565 CE, 1618 CE,1627 CE, and 1712 CE), Baa’lbek (1604 CE,1606 CE, and 1715 CE), Hama (Syria) in 1626, andYabrud (Lebanon) in 1705. Since several strong re-mote earthquakes such as in 1157 and 1170 CEcaused damage also in Israel, it is possible that at

least some of the earthquakes mentioned above didcause some damage in Palestine but was notdocumented.

Yet the hiatus or lack of reporting we attribute to thehistorical share may also, at the same time, support theassertion that there were no damaging earthquakes inIsrael during these periods and thus there was nothing towrite about. To cope further with this issue, we resort tophysical evidence coming from alternative disciplinesoutside the historical archive, namely, paleo- andarchaeo-seismology in our case.

5.2 Complementary sources of information: paleo-and archaeo-seismology

Concentrating on the physical evidence for strong earth-quakes that may have affected our research area duringthe historical period and in particular the Bsilent^ timewindows, we find a wealth of evidence. Ken-Tor et al.(2001) examined and correlated eight disturbed sedi-ment layers in the fan deposits of the Ze’elim terracealong the Dead Sea shorelines with historically docu-mented earthquakes (Fig. 1). Migowski et al. (2004)extended the research and inspected the disturbancesin the lacustrine sediments of the En-Gedi core andfound records of seismic activity, some dated to thepoorly documented historical periods. Agnon et al.(2006) followed their study and identified the 1202 CEevent. Kagan et al. (2011) compared the former studies

Fig. 6 Cumulative number of thereliable earthquakes that hit Israeland its close surroundings in thelast two millennia (foreshocksand aftershocks are excluded).Red squares and black circlesmark the damaging earthquakes(Table 3) and the cumulativenumber of damaging and feltearthquakes (Appendix 1)together, respectively. Destructiveearthquakes that initiate or endsequences of reporting arelabeled. The three cycles of lowand increased reporting aredemarcated by black and bluearrows, respectively, whereas thechanging regimes are noted bybrown labels and arrows

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with two additional sites in Ze’elim and Ein-Feshkhaand pointed towards a quiescent period between the endof the second century and the beginning of the fourthcentury CE, as well as a high rate of activity in betweenthe ninth and the eleventh centuries. Nonperiodic be-havior between the first and seventh centuries CE wasalso suggested by Wechsler et al. (2014), who trenchedthe Jordan gorge fault in northern Israel. Outside ofIsrael and along the northern segments of the DST,Gomez et al. (2001) elaborated on the 1705 CE event,whereas Akyuz et al. (2006) inspected the 859 CE and1408 CE earthquakes.

The archeoseismic studies of Russell (1985) conclud-ed damage to Avedat and Shivta in the Negev in c. 110–114 CE, whereas Bikai (2002) pointed to a mid-eighthcentury event and Hayens et al. (2006) concluded dam-age to Qasr Tilah, south of the Dead Sea, during theearthquake of 873 CE.

5.3 Filling the Bhistorical hiatus?^

Integrating the evidence coming from paleo- andarchaeo-seismology as well as historical reports ofPalestine does show significant seismic activity duringthe poorly documented periods in our research area(Table 4). The case of the B137–206^ and B165–236^paleoseismic earthquakes suggested by Wechsler et al.(2014) is a good example of the lack of historical reports

that could be matched to this physical evidence. Havingruptured the surface, these earthquakes could have beenof M6 at least and therefore comparable in size to otherhistorical earthquakes. Thus, these earthquakes do ex-emplify the incompleteness of the historical share inPalestine during the historically poorly documented pe-riods. We do not reject the possibility of seismic cyclesduring the last 2000 years, for there still appears to be aquiescent period between the second and fourth centu-ries and some implications of cycles afterwards. Thetarget of future historically based studies is to furtherelaborate on these Bholes^ of reporting, construct anintegrated, multi-sourced list of earthquakes, and figureout the form of seismic cycles in Israel during thehistorical period.

6 Summary and conclusions

This study presents a critical compilation of historicalaccounts with the aim of constructing a dependable andaccurate list of historical earthquakes that damaged orwere felt in Israel and its close vicinity. Much effort wasmade in the systematic collection and organization ofthe data as well as scrutinizing the authenticity andcredibility of each of the historical earthquakes.Overall, we were able to construct a list of 71 reliableearthquakes that caused damage or were felt in Israel

Table 4 Possible seismic activity in Palestine not documented during the Bhistorical hiatus^ periods, as well as seismic activity reportedoutside Israel during these periods

Hiatus duringhistorical periods

Paleoseismic/archaeoseismic evidence foractivity during the Bhistorical hiatus^

Historical documentation of earthquakes outside the studyarea during the Bhistorical hiatus^

31 BCE–303 CE KEN, 33 (5–50)MIG, 33; 76; 90; 112; 115; 175KAG, 33; 115WEC2, 33 (392 BCE–91 CE), 130?(137–206), undocumented (165–236)

RUS, c. 110–114 CE

AM; GC; GCC: 20 BCE (Egypt); 19 BCE (Syria); 17–15 BCE and 76 (Cyprus); 37, c. 41–54, 115 (northernSyria)

756 CE–1033 CE MIG, 859; 991; 1032 (?)KAG, 847; 859; 873; 956; 991HNA, 873AAK, 859BIK, mid-eighth century

AM; GC; GCC: 813–820, 847, 973, and 991 (Syria); 835and 850, 860 (Antioch); and 956 (eastern Mediterranean)

1293 CE–1759 CE

MIG, 1408 (?); 1656; 1712KAG, 1312GMD, 1705AAK, 1408

AM; GC; GCC: 1339 and c. 1706 (Tripoli); 1399, 1563,1565; 1618, 1627, and 1712 (Damascus); 1604, 1606, and1715 (Baa’lbek); 1626 (Hama); 1705 (Yabrud)

Abbreviations of the data presented in bold: KEN Ken-Tor et al. (2001), MIG Migowski et al. (2004), KAG Kagan et al. (2011), WEC2Wechsler et al. (2014), HNA Hayens et al. (2006), RUS Russell (1985), GMD Gomez et al. (2001), AAK Akyuz et al. (2006), BIK Bikai(2002), AM Ambraseys (2009), GCC Guidoboni et al. (1994), GC Guidoboni and Comastri (2005)

J Seismol

20

and its close surroundings (Appendix 1). Parallely, wecompiled lists of 41 doubtful earthquakes (Appendix 2)as well as 46 earthquakes that did occur elsewhere butwere erroneously associated with damage in Israel(Appendix 3). We are aware that these lists might beincomplete and should more original evidence be dis-covered or a new interpretation of existing sources beraised, earthquakes should be added, removed, orshifted between the lists accordingly.

Of the 71 reliable earthquakes, 31 are considered tohave caused damage to at least one locality in Israelbetween 31BCE and 1927CE, that is, a damaging eventevery ∼60 years on average, but not regular with time.An earthquake causing casualties is reported to occurevery ∼100 years, although not evenly in time.Examining only the last millennium, we count 21 dam-aging and 14 deadly earthquakes, i.e., one event per ∼45and ∼70 years, respectively.

Since the first century CE, we identify three periods ofincreased reporting: (1) between the fourth and the mid-eighth century; (2) from the beginning of the eleventh tothe end of the thirteenth century; and (3) from the end ofthe eighteenth century to the last entry in 1927, thoughthis period might be extended until today. We find thatthese peak and low sequences alternate, more or less, inaccordance with the changing regimes in Palestine at thetime. Nevertheless, paleo- and archaeo-seismologicalevidence of strong earthquakes, such as the paleoseismicfindings of the B137–206^ and B165–236^ earthquakesfor which there is no match during the periods of lowhistorical reporting (Bhistorical hiatus^), suggest the in-completeness of the historical share. Thus, we argue thatthe apparent cycles of historical reporting do not neces-sarily reflect the actual pattern of seismicity and furtherinvestigation is needed to establish the true nature of thecyclicity of strong earthquakes in this region.

Acknowledgments We highly appreciate the assistance of AlonMoshe and Eliyahu Shara’bi from the Geological Survey of Israelfor digitizing and archiving the data. Thanks are also due to Prof.Amikam Elad, Dr. Kate Raphael, and Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silvermanfrom the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Shmuel Marcofrom Tel Aviv University, Dr. Ezra Zilberman and Dr. Tzafrir Levifrom the Geological Survey of Israel, and Prof. Thomas Rockwellfrom the San Diego State University for their useful advice. Wealso thank Beverly Katz for editing the text. The research wasfunded by the Ministry of National Infrastructures (Grant no. 210-17-006, no. 29-17-043), the BAmiran^ grant of the Hebrew Uni-versity, the BRachel Yanait Ben-Zvi^ grant from Yad Ben-Zvi, andthe Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (Grant no. 10241).We wish to thank also the anonymous reviewers for their highlyinsightful comments.

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Chapter two

Earthquake damage and repair: New evidence from

Jerusalem on the 1927 Jericho earthquake

(Published)

Motti Zohar, Rehav Rubin and Amos Salamon

M. Zohar, R. Rubin, A. Salamon, Earthquake Damage and Repair: New Evidence from

Jerusalem on the 1927 Jericho Earthquake, Seismological Research Letters 85 (2014)

912-922, DOI: 10.1785/0220140009

Electronic supplement: http://www.seismosoc.org/Publications/SRL/SRL_85/srl_85-

4_zohar_et_al-esupp/

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○E

Earthquake Damage and Repair: NewEvidence from Jerusalem on the 1927Jericho Earthquake

by Motti Zohar, Rehav Rubin, and Amos Salamon

Online Material: Four additional photos.

INTRODUCTION

On 11 July 1927 at 15:04, an earthquake struck MandatoryPalestine and its close surroundings, resulting in considerablecasualties and damage (Avni, 1999). Recent studies estimatedthe epicenter at the north of the Dead Sea (Shapira et al., 1993;Zohar and Marco, 2012) and a magnitude of ML 6.25 (Avni,1999). Jerusalem, located nearly 30 km west of the epicenter,suffered greatly in the earthquake. Many of its structures weredamaged, leaving several people killed, many injured, and a fewhundreds homeless. The governing British Mandate commis-sioner responded quickly and almost immediately instructedthe Public Works Department to initiate field surveys andto recommend necessary repairs (Avni, 1999). One of the strat-egies implemented for repairs was the use of a metal apparatus,referred to as iron anchor, to stabilize damaged structures andwalls (Willis, 1927; Michaeli, 1928).

During a recent field survey initiated within the area closeto the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, we have iden-tified many iron anchors (Fig. 1). Varying in shape, size, andcolor, they appear mostly at higher sections of the outer walls ofpre-twentieth century structures. In general, a pair of anchors isinstalled at two opposite sides of the weak structure, which arescrewed into an iron rod to connect them together. This tech-nique effectively ties the building together and consequentlyprevents its further deterioration (Fig. 2). We map these an-chors and their geographic locations, characterize their hoststructures, and classify them into six types (Fig. 3).

At first glance, the linkage between the anchors and the1927 earthquake is clear. However, not all the anchors are as-sociated with the seismic event; some were installed before(Michaeli, 1928) or long after it merely for the purpose of pre-venting continuous deterioration of weak structures. Unfortu-nately, we can hardly use written historical sources becausemost of them neither mention the use of anchors nor theirexact placements of installation. Therefore, we must use other,unexploited sources to detect and to map the various anchors

and single out those that were in fact used for repairing thedamage due to the earthquake.

Although available for only a period of less than 200 years,old photographs constitute one of the most detailed sourcesavailable and have been used in numerous historical and geo-graphical studies (e.g., Ben-Arieh, 1997; Rose, 1997, 2000,2001; Borchert, 1981; Rubin, 1999; Karniel and Enzel, 2006;Levin et al., 2010; Shay, 2011). Like written sources, old photo-graphs must be investigated carefully for inaccuracies and in-completeness (Frosh, 2003). Fortunately, once they have beenverified, old photographs supply us with contemporaneous de-tailed views and expand our ability enormously to examine pastsites and scenes (Loitzus, 2000). Accordingly, we examined oldphotographs of Jerusalem taken a short time before and a shorttime after the earthquake to trace the possible earthquake–anchor linkage and identify those anchors that were installedonly after the event. Similar comparisons aimed at analyzingearthquake scenarios were previously carried out using draw-ings (e.g., Ambraseys and Karcz, 1992) and photographs (e.g.,Kelsey, 2007; Hinzen, 2013).

Being sacred to the three monotheistic religions and alsoconstituting the political and economic center of this part ofthe Middle East in the late nineteenth and beginning of thetwentieth centuries (Ben-Arieh, 1979; Biger, 1989), Jerusalemhas attracted much public attention. Almost every photogra-pher and visiting delegation devoted a substantial part of theirjourneys in the region to photographing the city (Perez, 1988).Many major festivals, religious events, demonstrations, andpolitical clashes have occurred in Jerusalem, and in most caseswere well documented (Schiller, 1980; Nassar, 1997). Duringand after World War I, views of the city were also taken fromthe air by German, British, and Australian aircraft (Gavish,1978, 1989). All these activities contributed a large numberof photographs that we could use for our purpose.

In this paper, we present 11 examples of views of Jerusa-lem around the time of the 1927 earthquake: 7 are shownwithin this paper (labeled J1–J7) and Ⓔ 4 are available inthe electronic supplement to this paper (labeled S1–S4). Eachexample includes before, after, and current photographs of theinspected locality. In cases when the relevant details of a givenphotograph are difficult to discern, arrows point to the relevantfeatures. These examples suggest a new methodology to portrayin high resolution the varieties of damage in Jerusalem after the1927 Jericho earthquake and consequently improve our abilityto analyze possible damage that might take place in future seis-mic events.

912 Seismological Research Letters Volume 85, Number 4 July/August 2014 doi: 10.1785/0220140009

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EXAMPLES FROM THE JAFFA GATE AREA

In the examples presented here, we detect the appearance ofanchors installed in structures from old photographs. Weverify which anchors were installed after the seismic eventand which anchors allow us to draw conclusions about damageto the host structure. Occasionally, the desired anchor is hardto detect in a photograph because the photograph was out offocus or because the photograph was taken at a large distancefrom the structure (e.g., air photos). In such cases, we use theadvanced imagery software ArcGIS Desktop to enhance theimage resolution in order to detect anchors in these cases.

Type 1: Massive Iron Rails (Fig. 3a)Facing south, the façade of the Petra Hotel (Fig. 1, locality J1)contains 12 massive iron rails located on the second and thirdfloors (Fig. 4). These rails are made of massive steel, pressedinward into the wall by a single hexagonal screw with bothsides of the rails covered by poor raw cement. Noticeable cracks

occur on the second floor of the building, in particular abovethe western window. This impressive building was constructedduring the 1840s by Joseph Amzalaq, a Jewish merchant fromGibraltar, but was sold later to the Greek Orthodox Patriarch(Kark and Glass, 1993). At the beginning of the twentieth cen-tury, it housed the Central Hotel, also known as the AmdurskyHotel (Zuta and Suckenic, 1920). After the earthquake, localnewspapers reported that the building was damaged during theseismic event (Anonymous, 1927b,e). A photograph of thestructure dated 11 December 1917 and documenting a proc-lamation by General Allenby contains neither installed railsnor observable cracks. On the other hand, in a photo datedbetween 1934 and 1939, rails above the balconies at the secondand third floors are seen in the exact positions they are in today.The crack above the western window on the second floor canalso be observed clearly in the 1934–1939 photos (Fig. 4).

About 100 m south of the Petra Hotel, the complex of theEnglish Christ Church stands with four buildings surroundingthe main Church. The Alexander building is one of the sur-rounding structures, named after Bishop Alexander. It wasbuilt at the beginning of the twentieth century and constituteda vestry and a hostel (Sapir, 1987). In 1927, the eastern walls ofthe hostel were badly damaged, as documented in the recordsof a missionary journal (Anonymous, 1927a). Looking at theeastern wall of the building that faces the backyard of ChristChurch, a pair of massive iron rails can be seen in a photo fromtheir journal (Ⓔ Fig. S1). These two massive iron rails can beclearly detected in photographs dated later than 1927. Their

▴ Figure 1. The research area and the locations of iron anchorswith the anchors classified into six types. Sites labeled J1–J7show the locations of the inspected buildings presented in thispaper, andⒺ S1–S4 show the locations of those in the electronicsupplement. Buildings denoted with diagonal hatching are re-ported to have been damaged in the existing historical sources.The epicenter of the 1927 Jericho earthquake (marked with blackstar) is depicted in the overview map at the upper-left corner.

▴ Figure 2. Iron anchor usage: (a) walls collapsing toward theouter side of the building; (b) wall strengthened after the installa-tion of supporting anchors (a and b are adapted from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/c/c5/Ogen_meticha.gif; lastaccessed April 2014); (c1) iron rail anchors on the front wall ofthe Petra Hotel (Photograph: R. Rubin, 2010). The outer apparatusis screwed on the wall to tighten the grasp of the anchor and thuspress the wall inward; (c2) the inner pairs of the rails shown in c1inside the hotel.

Seismological Research Letters Volume 85, Number 4 July/August 2014 91326

resemblance to those of the Petra Hotel implies that theymight have been installed at the same time, probably by thesame builders.

Two clusters of massive iron rails are found on buildingson the Patriarch Street, which begins at David Street, leadsnorth and thus borders on the west with the Hezekiah Pooland on the east with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thefirst cluster, near the corner of Patriarch and Avtimus Streets,contains two massive iron rails (Fig. 1, locality S2). In a pano-ramic photograph by Bruno Hentchel from 1898, no anchorscan be detected, whereas an air photo from 1931 clearly dis-plays these two apparatus (Ⓔ Fig. S2). This is also concludedfrom an image of this building from its western side, which facethe Hezekiah Pool. This view, photographed at an angle fromthe Petra Hotel roof, reveals the opposite tie of one of therails. Both photographs contain views of the dome of the

Catholicon, but only in one photo is the dome surroundedby scaffolding (Ⓔ Figs. S2, B2). The presence of these scaffoldsimplies that the photograph was taken after the earthquake;because the dome was badly damaged by the earthquakeshaking, engineers recommended its complete removal andreconstruction (Freeman, 1947). Thus, every photograph inwhich these scaffolds appear can be surely dated later thanthe earthquake. A similar identification of the timing of instal-lation is carried out for the cluster of three rusted massive railslocated in the upper part of a building at 74 Patriarch Street(Fig. 1, locality S3). In a photograph from 1898, the rails areabsent, whereas they are evident in an air photo from 1931 (ⒺFig. S3) and can still be seen today. Two photographs of thebuilding, taken from the west from the Matson collection clas-sified previously as prior to and after the earthquake, date thetime period of the rail installation to around the time of the

▴ Figure 3. Iron anchors and clamps observed in the research area: (a) massive iron rails, Petra Hotel; (b) short iron rails, Saint MarkStreet; (c) thin rod, Swedish Christian Study Center; (d) X anchor, Gobat building, Christ Church; (e) S anchor, Alexander building, ChristChurch; and (f) round clamp, Gobat building, Christ Church.

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earthquake. There are several reports of damage in the area ofthis building after the earthquake: the Church of the HolySepulchre was badly damaged (Braver, 1928; Willis, 1928;Freeman, 1947), and the newspapers Haaretz, Davar, and TheTimes also report few damaged buildings in Suq al-Batraq, thatis, the Patriarch’s Street (Anonymous, 1927d,e,f ). Thus, thebuilding also may have been damaged in the seismic event.

Type 2: Short Iron Rails (Fig. 3b)Over the southern wall of a building located at the corner ofSaint Mark and Jewish streets, a cluster of four short iron railssurrounds a replacement of the wall’s building stones (Fig. 1,

locality J2), implying that part of the wall had collapsed andnew stones were inserted to fill the gap. No record of damagein this area due to the earthquake was found in the writtensources. However, inspection of two old photographs, bothtaken from the vicinity of the Church of the Redeemer, showsthat the short rails appeared in this wall only in the later photo-graph dated between 1934 and 1939, whereas they are notfound in the first photo dated from 1898 (Fig. 5).

A cluster of four short iron rails is located on the westernwall of the third floor of the Swedish Hostel (Fig. 1, localityS4). Differences in shape, structure, and color of buildingstones at the second and third floors imply either that the third

▴ Figure 4. Petra (Amdursky) Hotel: (a) present-day façade: 12 white massive iron rails identified on the second and third floors. Anoticeable crack is seen above the window on the second floor (see arrows in magnified image). (b) December 1917, during the proc-lamation of General Allenby (reprinted from American Colony Photograph Department, Allenby’s proclamation being read, Jerusalem; G.Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 1917, LC-DIG-matpc-08011). The frontwall of the hotel does not exhibit any apparatus or cracks. (c) After 1934 (reprinted from American Colony Photograph Department, TheTowers of David & Hippicus, Jerusalem; G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & PhotographsDivision, 1934-1939b LC-DIG-matpc-00448). The iron rails are clearly observed.

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floor was built as a supplement after the initial construction orthat old stones in the original structure were replaced by newones, possibly after significant damage to the wall (Ⓔ Fig. S4).This latter possibility is supported by the existence of the fourshort rails. There are no written sources indicating damage tothis building. However, there is evidence implying damage tothe building on nearby David Street (Avni, 1999). A photo-graph dated to the beginning of the twentieth century revealsno anchors at the Swedish Hostel. However, in a photographfrom 1937 short rails do appear, and these apparently wereinstalled after the earthquake to stabilize damaged walls. Anattempt to identify these details from an air photo was unsuc-cessful due to the low resolution of the image.

Type 3: Thin Rods (Fig. 3c)Other than the eastern wall, thin rod anchors are installed ineach side of a nineteenth century structure (Fig. 1, locality J3)located next to the Petra Hotel. Unlike the Petra Hotel, theserods are flat pieces of iron, nearly two centimeters thick anddiffer from each other only in their length. At close range, onecan identify one, five, and two thin rods on the northern,western (front of the building, facing the David Citadel), andsouthern walls, respectively. In the past, the building housed theAmerican Consulate, which was established in 1844. Towardthe end of the nineteenth century, the consulate moved outsideof the Old City and the building was then occupied bythe Thomas Cook Agency (Ben-Arieh, 1977). After the

▴ Figure 5. The corner of Saint James and HaYehudim Streets: (a) current status (April 2011): both short rails and round clamps (seearrows) over the wall are visible. In addition, cracks are apparent in the same wall (marked by an arrow). (b) From the Church of theRedeemer, 1898, neither anchors nor cracks are visible (reprinted with permission from B. Hentschel, Panoramic view, Church of theRedeemer, Jerusalem, Leipzig: Yeri Rimon Collection, 1898 B. VIII). (c) Dated between 1934 and 1939 (reprinted from American ColonyPhotograph Department, Old City, Jerusalem, Jerusalem: G. Eric and Edith Matson photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints &Photographs Division, 1934–1939 LC-DIG-MATPC-17817). Note that the round clamps do not appear.

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earthquake, the building was reported to be partially damaged(Anonymous, 1927a). Available old photographs show only thesouthern wall clearly. No iron rods are seen in a 1917 photo,whereas they are clearly seen in a photograph taken in 1936.Therefore, they were installed between 1917 and 1936, prob-ably after 1927 (Fig. 6). Unfortunately, the angle at which twophotographs were taken does not enable close examination ofthe western and northern walls. Even so, there is a high prob-ability that the rods were installed in each of the three walls atthe same time.

Types 4 and 5: X-Shaped (Fig. 3d) and S-Shaped(Fig. 3e) AnchorsX- and S-shaped anchors are located on the Gobat andAlexander buildings of the Christ Church complex (Fig. 1,

localities J4 and J5), respectively. The Jewish Missionary Intel-ligence from September 1927 reports that the old parsonage(identified as the Gobat building) and the eastern walls of thehostel (the Alexander building) were damaged. Additionalnews published in the Davar newspaper claimed serious dam-age to the buildings in front of the David Citadel (Anonymous,1927a,c). Both buildings were built only after the establish-ment of the church. The Gobat building was completed in themiddle of the nineteenth century and constituted the first res-idence of the British consul James Finn, whereas the Alexanderbuilding was built at the beginning of the twentieth centuryand constituted a vestry and a hostel (Ben-Arieh, 1977). InFigure 7, dated to the beginning of the twentieth century, theX-shaped anchor does not appear on the Gobat building.However, a photograph of the arrival of the High Commis-

▴ Figure 6. Swedish Christian Study Center: (a) two thin rods on the southern wall (April 2011); (b) the entrance of General Allenby in 1917(reprinted from American Colony Photograph Department, arrival of Allenby to read a proclamation at the Tower of David, Jerusalem; G.Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library Of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 1917 LC-DIG-MATPC-08013), no rods onthe southern wall; (c) 1936 (reprinted with permission from Z. Oron, Jaffa Gate Area, Jerusalem, Jerusalem: Zionist Archive, 1936 PHO\1361014): two rods on the southern wall (marked by arrows).

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sioner at Christ Church taken in 1931 reveals a black X-shapedanchor. A similar phenomenon is observed on the Alexanderbuilding. The S-shaped anchors appear on the western wall inan air photo from 1931, whereas beforehand there were nosigns of them (Fig. 8).

Type 6: Round Clamps (Fig. 3f)These relatively well-decorated round clamps were detected intwo localities within our research area. Next to the short ironrails at Saint Mark Street, three round clamps are also seen(Fig. 1, locality J6). Theoretically, the fact that both anchortypes surround the same fissure might imply they were installedtogether, but scrutiny of the photographs rejects this and con-firms that the round clamps were installed a few decades afterthe event (Fig. 5). Another pair of round clamps is installed at

the top of the bell tower in the Christ Church complex (Fig. 1,locality J7). The eastern clamp facing the David Citadel is sit-uated higher than the church’s roof (Fig. 9), and thus it couldbe spotted from outside the Church complex. In a photographdated approximately to 1945, the top of the bell tower isexposed, but no clamps can be detected. Consequently, weconclude the clamps were not installed after the earthquake,but at a much later time. Indeed, such clamps are found inmany post-1967 renovated houses in the Jewish Quarter(Kroyanker, 1993).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The systematic comparison of old photographs taken prior andafter the earthquake confirms that the appearance of numerous

▴ Figure 7. X-shaped anchor on the Gobat building, Christ Church: (a) April 2011; (b) the building at the beginning of the twentieth century(reprinted with permission from Anonymous, Christ Church Jerusalem; Conrad Schick Library, early twentieth century); (c) 1931, thereception of the high commissioner (reprinted with permission from Anonymous, the arrival of his royal highness the high commissionerto Jerusalem, 1930; Conrad Schick library, Jerusalem, 1931). Note the X-shaped anchor (marked by an arrow).

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iron anchors is later than 1927 and is indeed associated withlocalities that were damaged during the Jericho earthquake.This methodology, tested in 11 localities, is found to be effec-tive at differentiating the time range of the installation of theanchors and, consequently, single out those that were not partof the repairs made after the 1927 earthquake. The task of dat-ing the installation of the anchors from photographs involvesuncertainty because some of the photographs were neithertaken shortly before nor close after the earthquake. Rather, theperiod between the date of photography and the actual earth-quake occurrence spans from a few to nearly 30 years. In caseswhere we are not able to unequivocally determine whether a

given photograph was taken before or after the event, we useinformation about other objects seen in the photograph to datethem, as was exemplified in the case of the Catholicon’s dome(Ⓔ Figs. S2, S3). Once we categorize the photographs as priorand after the event, their exact date is of less importance as(1) no other catastrophic event occurred during this periodand (2) the claim that the anchors could have been installedbefore the earthquake as resistance to continuing deteriorationin general of the building’s structure could be rejected becauseall of the observed anchors appear only after 1927.

The question whether we could also attribute damage toother localities that were not photographed but presently

▴ Figure 8. S-shaped anchors on the Alexander building, Christ Church: (a) April 2011, facing west toward the David Tower. (b) Jaffa Gatearea (reprinted from American Colony Photograph Department, moat around the Tower of David, Jerusalem; G. Eric and Edith MatsonPhotograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 1898–1946 LC-DIG-matpc-08547). The date of the photograph isvague. The wooden cabinet at the entrance to the David Tower that was removed before 1925 implies, however, that the photograph wastaken prior to the earthquake. (c) Air photo of the area from 1931 (reprinted from American Colony Photograph Department, Air views ofPalestine. Jerusalem from the air (Old City). Jaffa Gate and Citadel, looking east along David Street, Jerusalem; G. Eric and Edith MatsonPhotograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 1931 LC-DIG-matpc-22146). The two S-shaped anchors aremarked by arrows.

Seismological Research Letters Volume 85, Number 4 July/August 2014 91932

contain installed anchors is highly important, in particularwhen mapping the spatial distribution of the damage. Of thesix inspected anchor types, the most common anchors are themassive and short iron rails. In this group, seven localities wereexamined and in all of them the anchors were installed shortlyafter the earthquake. Thus, we conclude that other localitieswith such rails were probably damaged by the earthquake aswell. Representative examples are the well anchored ImperialHotel (Grand New Hotel) and Bikur Holim Hospital (Fig. 1).Similar association of the iron rods, X- and S-shaped anchors,however, is less decisive. Although we have examined three cases(one of each type) and successfully related the anchors to the1927 earthquake, this sampling is not sufficient to conclude alinkage. Further cases are required prior to making a general as-sociation of such anchors to damage due to the earthquake.

All anchors types but the round clamps are found to becontemporaneous, as shown in the old photographs. Beingcontemporaneous, they are simple metal apparatus that were

probably made by local smiths at the beginning of the twen-tieth century, prior establishment of the metal industry in Jeru-salem (Ashbee, 1921). Thus, the categorization of the anchorsby shape and size does not necessarily contribute informationto determine their date of manufacture. On the other hand, thewell-decorated shape of the round clamps implies a date ofmanufacture that was possible only a few decades after theearthquake, when iron casting became available. The absenceof these clamps in photographs taken long after 1927 and theirwidespread use in post-1967 renovated buildings implies thatthe round clamps were installed only after the 1967 war duringthe rebuilding of the Jewish Quarter. Thus, such anchors donot serve as indicators of 1927 earthquake damage.

The use of the methodology presented here enables a de-termination of the spatial distribution of damage in the 1927earthquake. In many cases, one can detect which part or wall ofa structure was damaged. Thus, this technique can contributeadditional damaged localities that are not mentioned in the

▴ Figure 9. Gobat building, Christ Church: (a) façade of the tower facing west with a round clamp installed (April 2011). (b) Bell tower,1945 (reprinted with permission from Anonymous, Bell tower, Christ Church Jerusalem, Jerusalem; Zionist Archive, approximately 1945):no round clamp installation. Such clamps are modern and were probably installed after 1967.

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existing written sources that inventory the damaged structuresin the 1927 earthquake (Avni, 1999). In fact, in light of manyother anchors located in the Old and New City of Jerusalem, itreveals that the actual spread of damage was much wider thanwas previously shown. This conclusion improves our ability todiscern the consequences of the 1927 earthquake in Jerusalem(Salamon et al., 2010) and to detect failures of weak structures.This is of great importance in particular in the Old City, whichcontains a wealth of historical and architectural structures thatshould be preserved.

Iron anchors are also found in other cities and sites in Is-rael such as Akko, Tiberias, Nazareth, PetahTiqva, Beit Jimal,Deir Hajleh, and Miqve Israel. Apparently, these localities werealso reported to have been damaged during the 1927 Jerichoearthquake (Avni, 1999, and references therein). The totalnumber of damaged structures and some of their geographiclocations, however, remains unknown. Therefore, the use ofiron anchors assisted by the analyses of old photographs canalso be utilized elsewhere to better delineate the damage dueto past earthquakes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thankYeri Rimon, Silvia Karpyoko (Israel Antiqui-ties Authority), Maureen Greemshaw and David Pileggi(Christ Church), Anat Banin and Reuven Milon (NationalZionist Archive), NadavMan (Bitmuna), and Jean Michel Tar-ragon (Ecole Biblique Library) for their highly appreciated as-sistance in collecting the data. We wish to thank Ron Avnifrom the Ben Gurion University, Lili Arad from the HebrewUniversity, Hayim Goren from Tel Hai College, ShmulikMarco and Gideon Biger from Tel Aviv University, Tom Rock-well from San Diego University,Yaakov Schaffer,Yoel Bar-Dor,and David Kroyanker for their consultation and advice. Wealso acknowledge Yosepha Amdursky, Shabtai Zecharia, KerenLevi, Chen Barnet, Ahishalom Almog, and Tamar Sofer fortheir support and assistance and Beverly Katz for editingthe text. Finally, we wish to thank the anonymous reviewerfor his constructive review and comments.

REFERENCES

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Anonymous (1927a). After the earthquake, Jewish Missionary Intelligence,9 September, Vol. 121.

Anonymous (1927b). The earthquake, Doar Hayom, 12 July, Vol. 1.Anonymous (1927c). The earthquake in Eretz Israel, Davar, 13 July,

Vols. 1/2.Anonymous (1927d). The earthquake in Eretz Israel, Davar, 12 July,

Vol. 1.Anonymous (1927e). The earthquake in Eretz Israel, Haaretz, 12 July,

Vols. 1/2.Anonymous (1927f ). The earthquake in Palestine, Times, 15 July, Vol. 2.Ashbee, C. R. (1921). Jerusalem 1918–1920. John Murray, London,

United Kingdom, 33 pp.Avni, R. (1999). The 1927 Jericho earthquake, comprehensive macroseis-

mic analysis based on contemporary sources. Ph.D. Thesis, BenGurion University, Beer-Sheva.

Ben-Arieh,Y. (1977).ACity Reflected in Its Times—Jerusalem in the Nine-teenth Century, Vol. 1, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications, Jerusalem.

Ben-Arieh, Y. (1979). A City Reflected in Its Times. New Jerusalem—theBeginnings, Vol. 2, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications, Jerusalem.

Ben-Arieh, Y. (1997). Painting the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century,Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications, Jerusalem.

Biger, G. (1989). Building and construction in Jerusalem under BritishRule 1917–1948, in Jerusalem in Zionist Vision and Realization, H.Lavsky (Editor), Zalman Shazar Center, Jerusalem, 183–216.

Borchert, J. (1981). Analysis of historical photographs, Stud. Vis. Comm.7, no. 4, 30–64.

Braver, A. I. (1928). Earthquakes in Eretz Israel from July 1927 till Au-gust 1928, in Jerusalem, L. Suckenic and I. Peres (Editors), Darompublishing, Jerusalem, 316–325.

Freeman, F. A. P. (1947). Church of the Holy Sepulchre, London, 46 pp.Frosh, P. (2003). The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and

the Visual Content Industry, Berg, London, New York, 91–115.Gavish, D. (1978). Air photographs by first World War pilots in Eretz-

Israel, Cathedra 7, 119–150.Gavish, D. (1989). Aerial perspective of past landscapes, in The Land

That Became Israel: Studies in Historical Geography, R. Kark(Editor), Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 208–319.

Hinzen, G. K. (2013). Support of macroseismic documentation by datafrom Google Street View, Seismol. Res. Lett. 84, 982–990.

Kark, R., and J. Glass (1993). Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Eretz Israel: theAmzalak Family, 1816–1918, Magnes Press, HebrewUniversity, Jerusalem.

Karniel, G., and Y. Enzel (2006). Dead Sea photographs from thenineteenth century, in New Frontiers in Dead Sea Paleoenvironmen-tal Research, Y. Enzel, A. Agnon, and M. Stein (Editors), GeologicalSociety of America, Boulder, Colorado, 231–240.

Kelsey, R. E. (2007). The USGS Investigation of the CharlestonEarthquake (1886), in Archive Style: Photographs and Illustrationsfor U.S. Surveys, 1850–1890,University of California Press, Oakland.

Kroyanker, D. (1993). Jerusalem Arhitecture—The Old City, KeterPublishing House, Jerusalem, 300–302 (Hebrew).

Levin, N., R. Kark, and E. Galilee (2010). Maps and the settlement ofsouthern Palestine, 1799–1948: an historical/GIS analysis, J. Hist.Geogr. 36, 1–18.

Loitzus, P. (2000). Video, films and photographs as research documents,in Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound, W. M.Bouer and G. Gaskell (Editors), SAGE Publication of London,Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore, London, 109–122.

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Motti Zohar1

Rehav RubinDepartment of Geography

The Hebrew University of JerusalemMount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel

mottiz@mscc.huji.ac.il

Amos SalamonGeological Survey of Israel

30 Malkhe Israel StreetJerusalem 95501, Israel

1 Also at Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel Street, Jerusalem95501, Israel.

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Chapter three

Why is the minaret so short? Evidence for earthquake

damage on Mt. Zion

(Published)

Motti Zohar, Rehav Rubin and Amos Salamon

M. Zohar, R. Rubin, A. Salamon, Why is the minaret so short? Evidence on earthquake

damage in Mt. Zion, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147 (2015) 230-246, DOI:

10.1179/1743130114Y.0000000016

36

WHY IS THE MINARET SO SHORT? EVIDENCE FOREARTHQUAKE DAMAGE ON MT ZION

M Z, R R A S

On top of King David’s Sepulchre at Mt Zion there is an Ottoman minaret known as al-Nabi Da’ud. Comparedwith other minarets in Jerusalem, al-Nabi Da’ud seems to be somewhat shorter, and has a squat-like appearance.To track why it is shorter than other minarets, we inspected written historical sources, a sequence of old drawingsdated between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries and analysed the minaret’s metric proportions. Indrawings dated to and before 1833, the minaret is portrayed much higher than in drawings and photographsdated to and after 1838. Furthermore, comparative height-diameter ratio of various parts of the minaret doesnot fit those of its counterpart, the al-Qal’a minaret. Thus, we suggest that the minaret was originally builthigher but damaged during the 1834 earthquake, and reconstructed to a lower height sometimes afterwards.

Keywords: 1834 earthquake, minaret, Jerusalem, Mt Zion, Ottoman buildings

.

The complex recognised as King David’s Sepulchre is an impressive structure located on MtZion, southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem (Fig. ), and on top of that complex stands thecylindrical minaret of al-Nabi Da’ud. Because of the distinct location of the complex on thehigh summit of Mt Zion the minaret can be spotted from a far distance, even several kilometresaway. It is reasonable to assume that this was the intention of the minaret’s constructors; tobuild a monument that would be high enough above Jerusalem’s landscape to serve as a pro-minent symbol of Islamic sovereignty.1 However, the present height of the minaret hardlyseems to suit this purpose. Instead of a tall erect shaft, the minaret has a squat-like appearanceand is relatively short relative to other minarets in Jerusalem (Alud and Hillenbrand , ).This raises the question whether the al-Nabi Da’ud’s minaret was originally built much higher,but might have been damaged sometimes later, renovated and shortened. Early photographsof Jerusalem dated after the mid-nineteenth century show the proportions of the minaret verymuch similar to those we see today (Fig. ). That is, if the minaret had indeed been damaged oreven collapsed, it must have occurred sometimes before the mid-nineteenth century, and astrong earthquake might be a plausible reason for that.

Indeed, two destructive earthquakes struck Palestine during the first half of the nineteenthcentury. The second event was the more destructive of the two and occurred on January .It caused damage mostly in regions in the Galilee and southern Lebanon but only limiteddamage in Jerusalem (Ambraseys ; Nemer and Meghraoui ). The first event inMay ,2 however, caused considerable concern and damage in central Palestine (Fig. ). Jer-usalem suffered badly: part of the wall near the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Ascension,the Church of the St Prodromos and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were reported to havebeen damaged (Ambraseys , and references therein). Neophitus, the Greek monkfrom Mar-Saba, reported that during the earthquake: ‘A minaret fell in Jerusalem,and another one on the Mount of Olives’ (Spyridon , ). The latter minaret is probably

Address correspondence to: Motti Zohar, Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.Email: motti.zohar@mail.huji.ac.il

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, , (), –

© Palestine Exploration Fund : ./Y.

37

the one located at the site of the Ascension complex on the Mount of Olives, and we suggesthere that the former is the minaret of ’al-Nabi Da’ud.3 This claim is analysed and discussedthoroughly in this paper using old drawings, photographs, textual sources and is complemen-ted by field surveys.

. - ’

The complex of King David Sepulchre is located only a few minutes’ walk south of the ZionGate. On the west it is surrounded by the massive Dormition Abbey and Greek-Orthodoxcemetery. A second cemetery, of the Protestants, surrounds the complex on the south.North of it, close to the Zion Gate, the Armenian Church of the House of Caiphas is

Fig. . The Old City of Jerusalem and the King David Sepulchre complex (outlined in orange and alsoin the inset). Major structures and minarets within the area include: () Dormition Church; () the KingDavid Sepulchre complex; () al-Nabi Da’ud minaret; () Greek-Orthodox cemetery; () Protestantcemetery; () Armenian church of the House of Caifas; () Zion Gate; () David Citadel with theal-Qal’a minaret; () Jaffa Gate; () ‘Hurva’ synagogue () al-Omari minaret; () Church of theHoly Sepulchre; () al-Jami Omar mosque and minaret; () al-Hanaqah mosque and minaret; ()al-Fakhriyya minaret; () Bab al-Silsila minaret; () al-Aqsa mosque; () al-Ghawanima minaret; ()Bab al-Asbat minaret; () al-Hamra mosque and minaret; () al-Maulawiyya mosque and minaret;() Damascus Gate; () Church of the Ascension; () Church of the St Prodromos. Note theclassification of minarets into three types: Mamluk, Ottoman, and Mamluk minarets that wereprobably renovated by the Ottomans (for further discussion see Alud and Hillenbrand , ).

38

located (Fig. ). The complex has two stories, three entrances (north, south, and east), halls, agarden, and courtyards. In its lower level is the traditional ‘Tomb of David’ and above it is theCrusaders’ ‘Hall of the Last Supper’, namely the Coenaculum. The complex also containsthree mosques and a zawiya (Alud and Hillenbrand , –; Vincent and Abel ,–). Recent archaeological excavation indicates activity in the complex during the Byzan-tine, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods (Re‘em ). The complex was repeatedlydestroyed and reconstructed several times in the past, mostly because of changing governor-ships (Cohen ; Jacoby ; Praver –).

The al-Nabi Da’ud minaret is built on top of the mosque at the northern section of thecomplex, a few meters west of the Coenaculum’s ribbed dome (Fig. ). It is built of masonrystones forming a cylindrical shape borne by a massive plinth. The plinth, decorated by fourconvex curves at its upper corners, includes also a short eastern entrance that leads to asingle spiral staircase leading up to the gallery. Two moulding rings decorate the shaft of

Fig. . Photographs showing the height of the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret in various periods aftermid-nineteenth century: (A) c. – Mt Zion in a photograph of Jerusalem from the east, probablytaken from the Mt of Olives (Source: Bonfils ). Note the low shaft of al-Nabi Da’ud is very similarto its height today; (B) between and (source: American Colony Photograph Department–. Jerusalem (El-Kouds). David’s tomb, exterior, Library of Congress Prints and PhotographsDivision Washington, DC USA: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Prints &Photographs Division, LC-DIG-matpc-), presenting the northern façade of the complex; and (C)April , taken from the southern promenade of the Old City’s walls. Apparently no dramaticchanges were made in the minaret’s structure after mid-nineteenth century (photograph C: M.Z.).

, , ,

39

Fig. . Damage distribution and its severity, ranging between ‘Moderate’ and ‘Severe’ (adapted fromZohar et al. ), of the May and January earthquakes, according to historical reports. Notethat the damage that resulted from the event is more severe in northern than in central Palestine anddid not spread south of the Nablus region.

40

the minaret: the first appears at the base close to the plinth while the second is below the cor-belled gallery base. Cracks and signs of possible reconstructions appear over the shaft betweenthe two moulding rings and also inside the minaret, on the walls of the inner staircase. Situatedon top of a wide base is a single-stage gallery surrounded by a metal barrier (Fig. ). Theminaret is completed by an ashlar cone . m high whose perimeter close to the plinth is. m (Table ).

The part of the complex where the Coenaculum’s dome and the minaret are locatedseems to have been seriously damaged in the past. Prominent reconstruction is detected atthe eastern wall that faces the Muslim cemetery (Fig. ). Noticeable are two sections ofrepairs demarked by cracks and delineated by a non-uniform serrated border that distinguishesbetween large (about × cm) and small (about × cm) limestone building blocks.Most likely the wall was originally built using the larger stones and only after, when it wasseverely damaged, renovation was carried out and smaller building blocks replaced thelarger ones. A few decades ago this wall and other parts of the complex were reinforced bya series of iron anchors which were inserted into the inner sides of the walls and additional ret-rofitting was made to prevent their further deterioration (Modena et al. ).4

Fig. . Views of King David’s sepulchre and visible damage (noted by red arrows): (A) the shaft of theminaret; (B) Damaged wall beside the eastern entrance facing the Muslim cemetery; (C) inner spiral stairsof the minaret. Note the damage to the inner stones; (D) Supporting iron anchors on the southeast cornerof the complex (black arrows); (E) Ribbed dome on the roof above the Coenaculum (photographs: M.Z.).

, , ,

41

.

Sacred for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Mt Zion was visited by many pilgrims and westerntravellers (Röhricht ; Ish-Shalom ). Its first association with religious traditions wasprobably made by the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela (c. –) in the twelfthcentury claiming that the complex hosts the graves of several Jewish kings (Asher ).5 Inthe thirteenth century, after the Mamluks conquered Jerusalem, religious disputes concerningthe ownership of the complex emerged (Praver –) and lasted, although not continuously,for nearly years. Fabri reported that towards the end of their rule over Palestine, theMamluks decided to ruin the existing Christian Church and convert the lower vault of

Fig. . (A) Structure and main parts of the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret (adapted from Alud and Hillenbrand, ). Vertical denoted arrows represent height measurements of the various parts: Eh – entrance;Bah – base-arc; LRh – lower molding ring; URh – upper molding ring; Gh –Gallery; Th – total . See alsoTable ; (B) Eastern view of the minaret; (C) Northern view of al-Qal’a minaret (no. in Fig. ); Plinth ofal-Nabi Da’ud (D) and al-Qal’a (E) minarets. Note the similarity between the two bases (photographs Band C: M.Z.).

T : The height (in metres) of the elements in the al-Nabi Da’ud and the al-Qal’a minarets. Partstaller than m were estimated according to the width of a single cut-stone block times the number of the

building rows

Minaret BAh Eh LRh URh Gh Th D P NB TH/D ratio

al-Nabi Da’ud (C. CE) . . . . . . . . .

al-Qal’a (C. CE) . . . . . . . . .

Dimension ratio . . . . . . . .

Measurements include: Bah – base to arc height; Eh – entrance height; LRh – lower molding ring height; URh – upper molding ring height;Gh –Gallery height; Th – total height; D – diameter close to the plinth; P – perimeter close to the plinth; NB – number of molding rings (seeFig. A for a visual representation of the various elements). The dimension ratio represents the ratio between similar parts of the twominarets whereas the rightmost TH/D column represents the ratio between the total height and the diameter of each of the minarets intheir current status.

42

the complex into a mosque (Fabri –, –). The Ottomans, who defeated theMamluks in and took over Palestine, continued the Islamic construction in the complexand in converted also the upper hall into a second mosque. The exact constructiondate of the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret, however, is not explicitly mentioned in the sources butby virtue of its design it looks typical of Ottoman architecture (Alud and Hillenbrand ,).

In order to prevent Christians from visiting the complex, in the sixteenth century theOttoman sultan put the care and treatment of the whole complex in the hands of theDajani family, one of the families in Jerusalem closely associated to him (Layish ). Theytook over complete responsibility of the complex but did not reside within it; they used anexternal building close to the southern wall of the Old City for their needs (Ben-Arieh). Under their surveillance, only Muslims were allowed to enter. The western travellersRichard Pocoke in and Frederick Hasselquist in described the sepulchre as includinga mosque and also a minaret (Hasselquist , ; Pococke , ). Turner, who visitedJerusalem in , briefly described the complex, but probably from the outside without enter-ing it (Turner , ) while Bartlett managed to sneak into it in order to visit the sepulchre(Bartlett ). None of these or other reports mentions damage to the minaret or repairs thatwere carried out between and . An interesting description is provided by Seetzen,who visited the site in . He noted that despite being partly ruined, the mosque ofal-Nabi Da’ud is the most prominent mosque outside the walls of Jerusalem (Seetzen –). This report is unique, being the only written source from the middle of the nineteenthcentury implying that perhaps the prominence of the mosque was because of high minaret.

.

.. Drawings dated to and before

Mt Zion was also the focus of many artists (Ben-Arieh ; Ben-Arieh , , , Vilnay). Most of the drawings dated prior to the seventeenth century are somewhat stylised andthus their utilisation for obtaining the realistic dimensions of depicted features is hard. In theseventeenth century, however, drawings of Jerusalem gradually appear to be more reliable androughly reflect the contemporaneous landscape of Jerusalem (e.g., the drawings of Quaresmius; Bruyn ; Tirion ). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, detailed tangibledrawings were published. Fig. presents mid-eighteenth and several early nineteenth centurydrawings of Jerusalem. All are drawn from the east, probably some point on the Mt of Olivesridge. The earliest drawing, dated to mid-eighteenth century, is by Carsten Niebuhr. It is anabstracted drawing and lacks a few important features (Niebuhr ).6 Yet, Niebuhr drew theal-Nabi Da’ud as an erect minaret, high above its surroundings. The following drawings, datedto the beginning of the nineteenth century, are more reliable in their proportions. The drawingof Luigi Mayer from presents a tall minaret with a high gallery above its base (Mayer). This is also the case of the drawing of Auguste Forbin from to (Forbin).7 The last drawing in Fig. is by Frederik Henniker dated to . It is much moredetailed than the former noted drawings and presents an accurate image of the complex aswell as the minaret (Henniker ). In the drawing, one can also detect an external building,probably the one used to host the Dejani family. Notable is the resemblance of heights betweenthe al-Nabi Da’ud and al-Qal’a (the Citadel, David’s Tower) minarets in three of the fourdrawings (Fig. ). When we measure the heights of both minarets as the artist sketchedthem, the ratio between the two minarets is ., ., and . in the drawings of Niebuhr,de Forbin, and Henniker, respectively (Table ). That is, the artists at the beginning of the nine-teenth century have attributed almost a similar height to both the minarets.

, , ,

43

Fig. . Pre- Drawings and maps of Jerusalem. Note the high shaft of al-Nabi Da’ud minaret(magnified and also marked in black arrows) in three of the drawings, and its similarity to the al-Qal’aminaret (red arrows): (A) Carsten Niebuhr, (Niebuhr ); (B) Luigi Mayer, (Mayer );(C) Auguste Forbin, – (Forbin ); (D) Frederik Henniker, (Henniker ). The bluearrow denotes an external structure that probably hosted the Dejani family.

44

Two interesting and highly detailed drawings of Mt Zion were sketched after a visit toPalestine by Frederick Catherwood and Francis Arudale in (Fig. ).8 The Arundaledrawing is sketched from the south of Mt Zion and includes both the minarets of al-NabiDa’ud and al-Qal’a (Arundale ). The gallery of al-Nabi Da’ud is drawn much tallerthan it appears today and the height of the two minarets seems to be equal (Fig. ; Table ).The second drawing is not by Catherwood but rather by the British artist George Balmar(Balmar ). As far as we know, Balmar never visited Palestine but used a sketch Catherwoodhad made during his visit (Ben-Arieh , ; ).9 The drawing seems to be precise andaccurate; most of the proportions of the main features are very much similar to those weobserve in the photographs of the late nineteenth century and today (Figs. and ).However, the shaft of the minaret as drawn by Balmar is much higher than it is today(Fig. ); its total height is roughly four times the height of the ribbed Coenaculum domewhereas today it is only about . times.

.. Drawings dated to and after

Arundale and Balmar are the last artists to draw Mt Zion in its pre- condition. After that,there is a period of nearly years without visual evidence on the height of the al-Nabi Da’udminaret. The earliest drawing afterwards is that of WilliamHenry Bartlett from accordingto a sketch made by Thomas Allom (Fig. ).10 Bartlett drew an isolated complex on Mt Zionwith a very short minaret, almost as high as the Coenaculum dome (Bartlett ). A year laterthe recognised artist David Roberts also visited Jerusalem and like many preceding artists, hedrew the Old City from the east (Roberts –).11 The drawing seems to be quite accurateand includes many of Jerusalem’s features. Compared with Bartlett, the minaret that Robertssketched is even shorter and appears to be ruined: a square cube is shown at the place wherethe minaret is supposed to be drawn. Later, in , Bartlett makes his second visit to Jerusalembut this time drew King David’s Sepulchre from close range (Bartlett , ). The details ofthe complex look realistic and proportional whereas the minaret is drawn squat with a shortgallery. A decade afterwards, only a few years before the first photographs of Mt Zion weremade, the Italian Ermete Pierotti also sketched the complex (Pierotti ).12 His sketch cor-responds accurately to the current dimensions of the complex and the minaret is depicted verysimilarly to the structure we see today.

.

In general, historical minarets are tall slender structures made of cut-stone blocks and can beeither a separate or an integral part of a mosque’s structure. Studies of present and historicalearthquakes in Turkey demonstrate that the structure of the minaret is vulnerable to strongseismic motion (Motosaka and Somer ; Sezen et al. ). Dogangum et al. () concludethat the structural behaviour of the minaret is dependent on its height and the spectral charac-teristics of the seismic motion. Turkish minarets range in height between and m (Oliveiraet al. ) and are prone to be damaged mainly in their lower parts, close to the transitionbetween the base (plinth) and the minaret’s shaft (Sezen et al. ; Sezen and Dogangum). Although the Turkish minarets seem to be taller, Mamluk and Ottoman minarets inPalestine were also severely damaged during past earthquakes. For instance, the minaretattached to the al-Zidani mosque in Tiberias collapsed during the earthquake (Ambraseys). Another example is the breakage at the upper part of the minaret at the Church of theAscension in Jerusalem during the earthquake (Avni , in the appendix).

Dating of the destruction and construction of minarets in Palestine is made based onshape and form. In general, Mamluk minarets are square whereas Ottoman minarets have

, , ,

45

a cylindrical shape (Bloom ). Hence, the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret seems almost certainly tobe an Ottoman construction, probably built during the early sixteenth century (Alud and Hil-lenbrand , ). This was not the sole contribution of the Ottomans; in the Old City ofJerusalem they built three additional minarets (al-Mawlawiyya, al-Qal’a and al-Hamra) andrenovated two other Mamluk minarets (al-Faqriyya and the Bab al-Asbat minaret). Althoughvarying in shape and size, all five are built much higher than the al-Nabi Da’ud of today (Aludand Hillenbrand , ). Roughly, Ottoman and Mamluk minarets can be classified by

T : Artists that have depicted the minaret of al-Nabi Da’ud

Artist Date ofdrawing

Measured units ofheight

Ratio Notes

al-NabiDa’ud

al-Qal’a

Carsten Niebuhr (–)

. . . Published in but in factwas drawn much earlier in

Luigi Mayer (–)

– – – The al-Qal’a minaret is notdepicted in this drawing andthus comparison between thetwo minarets is not possible

Louis Nicolas PhilippeAuguste de Forbin(–)

– . . .

Frederick Henniker(–)

. . .

Francis Arundale(–)

. Was portrayed from the southand thus, due to theperspective, the al-Nabi Da’udminaret appears closer andhigher than that of al-Qal’a

George Balmar (–)

– – – Following a sketch of FrederickCatherwood (–). Theal-Qal’a minaret is notdepicted in the drawing

William Henry Bartlett(–)

. . . Following a sketch of ThomasAllom (–)

David Roberts (–)

. . . The al-Nabi Da’ud minaretseems ruined

William Henry Bartlett – – – The al-Qal’a minaret is notdepicted in this drawing

Ermete Pierotti (c.mid-nineteenthcentury)

– – – The al-Qal’a minaret is notdepicted in this drawing

The red line marks the transition in time between the tall and the short form of the minaret. The height of the minaret is measured in thevarious drawings as it appears in the digital screening, but the dimensionless ratio between the various elements of the al-Nabi Da’ud andthe al-Qal’a minarets is what matters. Note the sharp change in that ratio after , especially the low ratio in Roberts’ drawing, whichmay represent the shape of the minaret before reconstruction.

46

their function: () minarets located within a mostly populated area whose height was probablydesignated to enable the muezzin’s call to prayer to be clearly heard in the mosque’s surround-ings; and () minarets aimed to serve as an Islamic symbol of sovereignty. The first classincludes the Ottoman minarets of al-Maulawiyya (built –) and al-Hamra’ (built c.), the renovated minarets of al-Faqriyya and Bab al-Asbat, and the Mamluk minarets sur-rounding the Haram (Burgoyne , ). On the other hand, the Ottoman minarets ofal-Nabi Da’ud and al-Qal’a (Fig. ) along with the Mamluk al-Omari minaret seem to berelated to the latter class (Alud and Hillenbrand , ).

Being located less than m away from each other and built at the beginning of thesixteenth century by the Ottomans, both the al-Nabi Da’ud and al-Qal’a minarets sharesimilar structure, decoration, and function. Table presents the dimensions of several of themajor elements of the two minarets. Accordingly, the al-Qal’a is taller and wider than its

Fig. . al-Nabi Da’ud minaret in drawings from and similar views for comparison frommid-nineteenth century and : (A) the complex of the David Sepulchre, by George Balmar after asketch made by Frederick Catherwood in (Balmar ). The minaret appears high above thechapels, much more than it is today; (B) Mt Zion in , by Francis Arundale (Arundale ). Theheight of the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret (black arrow) seems similar to that of the al-Qal’a minaret (redarrow); (C) a photograph taken by Felix Bonfils in c. (Bonfils ), approximately at the samespot where Catherwood had made his sketch. This time the minaret is much lower than that sketchedby Balmar in section A. Unfortunately, a photograph from a similar spot and angle cannot be takentoday due to the establishment of the massive Dormition Church (Fig. ); (D) Current photograph ofMt Zion taken from the south (photograph: M.Z.). Note the low shaft of al-Nabi Da’ud minaret(black arrow) compared with the al-Qal’a’s minaret (red arrow).

, , ,

47

Fig. . The complex in drawings painted in and after : (A) David Roberts, (Roberts –).The al-Nabi Da’ud minaret seems to be ruined; (B) William Henry Bartlett, (Bartlett ). Note thevery low shaft in comparison with the al-Qal’a minaret; (C) Bartlett, , during his second visit toPalestine (Bartlett ); (D) Pierotti, (Pierotti ). In the drawings of Roberts and Bartlett(images A and B), black and red arrows denote the al-Nabi Da’ud and al-Qal’a minarets, respectively.

48

counterpart. When comparing their perimeters close to the plinth, the resulting ratio is .and ., respectively. Similar or higher ratios are achieved also when comparing adjacentheights of parts that are located below the top of the plinth. However, when comparing theheight of the parts that are situated today above the plinth, the ratio decreases significantlyand ranges only between . and .. Furthermore, the ratio of the total height to diameterof al-Qal’a is . while that of al-Nabi Da’ud is only .. Assuming that the construction ofboth the minarets was subjected to similar Ottoman architectural design and was implementedunder Ottoman supervision, the height of al-Nabi Da’ud nowadays seems to be somewhatshorter,13 also in comparison to Ottoman minarets elsewhere in the old city.

. ?

In the absence of written sources, we used a sequence of old drawings to trace what might haveoccurred to the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret. This technique is not new and is widely used inresearch on historical geography (e.g., Rose , , Rubin ) and also for trackingpast earthquake damage (e.g., Ambraseys and Karcz ; Hinzen ; Karniel and Enzel; Zohar et al. ). The inspected sequence of drawings from the mid-eighteenth to themid-nineteenth centuries reveals that the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret is sketched much taller indrawings dated up to than in those dated after (Table ). Obviously, this is a quali-tative approach that merely reflects the artist’s realisation of the landscape as well as ourinterpretation nearly years after. Yet, even though one of the drawings might be inaccur-ate, the cumulative impression cannot be ignored. Furthermore, drawings and panoramicviews of the nineteenth century were considered an important tool for portraying the landscape(Ben-Arieh , –), and many were sketched by skilled artists and architects. Conse-quently, they provide a proportional and precise picture of the contemporaneous landscape.This is the case of the two drawings by Francis Arundale and George Balmar, depicting MtZion in . Arundale was an architectural draftsman and Balmar based his picture uponthe sketch of Frederik Catherwood, a British artist and architect (Ben-Arieh , , ).Catherwood, is also one of the first artists to use the ‘Camera Lucida’ tool for projectingurban outlines over a canvas for drawing scenery sketches. During his journey he mappedthe entire city of Jerusalem and sketched many localities using this tool (Ben-Arieh ). Itis reasonable to assume that he also used the same technique for accurately sketching theDavid Sepulchre complex (Nir , ).

The first two drawings after are by Bartlett and Roberts from and , respect-ively, and initiate a sequence of drawings that depict the minaret as short and squat. Bothartists were considered very skilled and highly praised by their counterparts. Furthermore,Bartlett’s work was even considered in his time as scientific material (Ben-Arieh , ).Roberts was not an architect but in general his drawings attempt to track reality. His sketchfrom of the al-Nabi Da’ud’s minaret is exceptional; it is the only drawing in which theminaret appears to be ruined. Roberts, probably standing on the Mt of Olives, drew all theother minarets in the Old City as tall edifices. Surely he must also have detected the contem-poraneous condition of the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret. The fact that he chose to portray a ruinedminaret indicates that it had indeed collapsed or at least was in bad condition.

What emerges from the graphic evidence of time series of the drawings is that the al-NabiDa’ud minaret was damaged sometimes between and . The height-diameter ratio ofits various parts as well as the comparison with those of al-Qal’a (Table ) attests to this con-clusion. If we take the logic of ratio further, we can suggest that theoretically the original heightof the minaret of Nabi Da’ud had to be about .–. that of the al Qal’a minaret, i.e., about.–. m. This results in a height-diameter ratio (THD in Table ) between . and .,which matches the ratio of the al-Qal’a minaret. Unfortunately, we cannot determine at

, , ,

49

this point where and how severe the damage was. Seismic motion models conducted in Turkey(Sezen et al. ; Sezen and Dogangum ) after the Izmir earthquake suggest that damageconcentrates at the lower parts of the minaret.

Between the years and , the time frame suggested here for the damage andrepair of the al-Nabi-Da’ud minaret, two destructive earthquakes hit the Holy Land, in and . Both of the events affected localities across Palestine but the possibility thatthe al-Nabi Da’ud minaret was brought down by the event can be ruled out. Inspectionof the spatial damage that resulted from the earthquake (Ambraseys ; Zohar et al.) demonstrates that the majority of the damage was concentrated in southern Lebanonand northern Galilee (Fig. ). Severe damage did not extend to localities south of theNablus region.14 According to contemporary sources the earthquake in Jerusalem was onlyfelt (Shklov ) and caused limited damaged (Calman ; Nee’man ). Thus, we mayassume that the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret was left untouched during this event. On the otherhand, the earthquake did affect central Palestine (Fig. ) and also badly damaged struc-tures in Jerusalem (Ambraseys , and references therein). Therefore we suggest identi-fying the damaged minaret that was reported by Neophytus (Spyridon , ) with theal-Nabi Da’ud. This event is probably the only known earthquake between and that was destructive enough to partly demolish the minaret.

Knowing that the minaret was prone to earthquake damage, one may wonder whether itwas damaged also prior to the earthquake. Since its establishment at the beginning of thesixteenth century, four destructive events struck Palestine prior to . The two events of (Ambraseys and Barazangi ) and the earthquake (Ambraseys , ) affectedlocalities in northern and southern Palestine, respectively, but were not reported to havecaused any damage in Jerusalem. The earthquake, however, did affect Jerusalem, butaccording to Ambraseys and Karcz (), only damaged the bell tower of the Church ofthe Holy Sepulchre.

We cannot conclude why the al-Nabi Da’ud minaret was not reconstructed to its originalheight. Whether this was for fear of subjecting it to repeated failure in future events, because oflow financial support, or merely because of technical difficulties is not known. In one way oranother, the partial reconstruction has proved to be effective; during the Jericho earth-quake that affected the entire Jerusalem area (Avni ), the minaret stood firm and sufferedno damage.

We would like to thank Prof. Rachel Milstein and Dr Katia Cytrin-Silverman from the Hebrew Univer-sity of Jerusalem, Amit Ree’m and Architect Avi Mashiah from the Israel Antiquities Authority, EngineerYaakov Schaffer, Nir Ortal, and Dr Amnon Ramon from Yad Ben-Zvi institution, Hana Bendcowskyfrom the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and Galia Richler-Grabler from the NationalLibrary of Israel for their assistance and constructive comments. We also would like to thank Beverly Katsfor useful editing of the manuscript. The research was funded by the Ministry of National Infrastructures(grants #––, #––), the Amiran Prize of the Hebrew University and Yanai’t Ben-Zvischolarship of Yad Ben-Zvi institution.

1 The function of the minaret as an Islamic symbol

evolved in two stages: During the Abbasid andUmayyad periods, the minaret was strictly a towerattached, in most cases, to an existing mosque andprovided the Muezzin with a distinctive location to callfor the prayer. By the beginning of the thirteenthcentury; however, minarets were built apart from the

mosques and gradually became to be merely anIslamic symbol. As such, their height and location aretwo important characteristics (Bloom , –).2 The exact date of the earthquake is somewhat

uncertain because the historical sources report differentdates. The contemporary Neophitus dated the event toSunday, May th at six o’clock in the morning

50

(Spyridon , ). Since Neophitus was aGreek-Orthodox monk from the Mar-Saba monestary,we assume he used the Julian calendar thatcorresponds to May . Menahem Mendel ofKamieniec (–) dates the event to the th countof the Jewish ‘Omer’. That is, the Hebrew date ofIyyar, th which corresponds to the Gregorian date ofFriday, rd of May (Mendel ). He also notes thatthere were two tremors: one at noon and the second atnight (Mendel ). Ambraseys (, andreferences therein) dates the event to May th at :which corresponds to the siege of Jerusalem by theFellahin (Hoffman , ).3 Burgoyne (, ) follows Neophitus’ testimony

and concludes damage to one of the Mamluk minaretsin the Old City. However, he does not indicate whichminaret he refers to.4 The technique of supporting old buildings in

Jerusalem by pairs of iron anchors was widely used,mainly in pre-th structures (Michaeli ). Theseanchors were also used to strengthen damagedbuildings after the Jericho earthquake (Willis ;Zohar et al. ).5 The itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela took place

sometime between c.– and included Europe, theMiddle East and northern Africa.6 Niebuhr’s drawing was published in but was

drawn already in .7 Comte Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin

(–) had visited Palestine in – duringwhich he had drawn Jerusalem’s view from the east(Ben-Arieh , ).

8 Catherwood (–) and Arundale (–)travelled in together with Yosef Bonomi. Theirtrip was long and included Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine(Ben-Arieh , ).9 The drawing is included within the third of three

volumes of drawings of Palestine that were publishedby the Finden brothers in . For further details seeBen-Arieh (, –; Ben-Arieh , –).10 Bartlett had visited Palestine only four years later in and also in (Vilnay , ). For thisdrawing he used a sketch made by Thomas Allum whoin turn, visited Jerusalem during the summer of (Ben-Arieh , ).11 In his single travel to Palestine, Roberts arrived toJerusalem on March th . He left on April thof that year and headed back to London viaAlexandria, Egypt (Ben-Arieh , ).12 Pierotti was an Italian military engineer and artistwho resided in Palestine between and . Hissketches and drawings are counted as accurate andhighly reliable (Ben-Arieh , ).13 Alud and Hillenbrand (, ) suggest that theshort shaft of the minaret is due to the fact thatJerusalem was and still is prone to destructiveearthquakes.14 Besides Jerusalem, the following localities that arelocated south of the Nablus region were mentioned inthe sources: Jaffa and Ramla where the earthquakewas only felt; in the Moab region it caused onlysporadic damage to old sites in Dhiban; and in Hebronand Gaza the shock was weak and caused only slightdamage (Ambraseys ).

Alud, S., and Hillenbrand, R., . Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City, –. London: Altajir World of Islam Trust.Ambraseys, N. N., . ‘The earthquake of January in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel’, Annals of

Geophysics , –.Ambraseys, N. N., . Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to ,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Ambraseys, N. N., and Barazangi, M., . ‘The earthquake in the Bekaa Valley - implications for earthquake

hazard assessment in the Eastern Mediterranean Region’, Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth and Planets .B, –.

Ambraseys, N. N., and Karcz, I., . ‘The earthquake of in the Holy Land’, Terra Nova , –.Arundale, F., . Illustrations of Jerusalem and Mount Sinai including the most interesting sites between Grand Cairo and Beirout,

London: H. Colburn.Asher, A. (ed.), . The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. New York: A. Asher Co.Avni, R., . The Jericho Earthquake: Comprehensive Macroseismic Analysis based on Contemporary Sources (unpublished

PhD Thesis), Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva.Balmar, J., . ‘Mount Zion from a sketch on the spot by F. Catherwood, ’, in T. H. Horne (ed.), The

Biblical Keepsake, or, Landscape Illustrations of the Most Remarkable Places Mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, Vol. ,London: John Murray.

Bartlett, W. H., . ‘Jerusalem fromOlive Mt (after sketch by Thomas Allom)’, in W. H. Bartlett, W. Purser, & Co.,Syria, the Holy Land, Syria Illustrated with Description of the Plates by John Carne, London: Fisher, Son, & Co.

Bartlett, W. H., . Walks about the City and Environs of Jerusalem, London: A. Hall, Virtue & Co.Bartlett, W. H., . Jerusalem Revisited, London: A. Hall, Virtue & Co.Ben-Arieh, Y., . The Discovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem: Carta Jerusalem & the Israel

Exploration Society (Hebrew).Ben-Arieh, Y., . ‘The first maps of Jerusalem in the th century’, Eretz Israel , – (Hebrew).Ben-Arieh, Y., . ‘The Catherwood map of Jerusalem’, The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress , –.Ben-Arieh, Y., . A City Reflected in Its Times - Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi

Publications (Hebrew).Ben-Arieh, Y., . A City Reflected in Its Times. New Jerusalem - the Beginnings, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications

(Hebrew).

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Ben-Arieh, Y., . ‘The Western Travelers Books to Eretz Israel in the th Century’, Cathedra , –(Hebrew).

Ben-Arieh, Y., . Painting the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Publications.Ben-Arieh, Y., . The View of Eretz Israel as Reflected in Biblical Painting of the th Century, in R. Aharonson

and H. Lavsky (eds.), A Land Reflected in Its Past, Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magness Press and YadIzhak Ben-Zvi Press, – (Hebrew).

Benjamin, of Tudela, c.–. The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, B. Bar-Yona (ed.), London and Berlin: A. AsherCo.

Bloom, J. M., . The Minaret: Symbol of Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Bonfils, F., . Souvenirs d’Orient: Album pittoresque des sites, villes et ruins les plus remarquables de la Terra-Saints, Alès: Chez

l’auteur.de Bruyn, C., . Ierusalem. door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus,

Metelino, Stanchio, &c. mitsgaders de voornaamste steden van Ægypten, Syrien en Palestina, Delft: Henrikvan Krooneveld.

Burgoyne, M. H., . Mamluk Jerusalem, Jerusalem: World of Islam Festival Trust.Calman, S. E., . Description of Part of the Scene of the Late Earthquake in Syria, London: James Darling.Cohen, A., . ‘The explusion of the franciscans from Mount Zion in the early Ottoman period - a reassesment’,

Cathedra , – (Hebrew).Dogangum, A., et al., . ‘Investigation of dynamic response of masonry minaret structures’, Bulletin of Earthquake

Engineering , –.Fabri, F., –. The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri, A. Stewart (ed.), London: Palestine Pilgrims’

Text Society.de Forbin, L. N. P. A., . Voyage dans le Levant en et / par M. le C.te de Forbin, Paris: Delaunay.Hasselquist, F., . Voyages and Travels in the Levant in the Years , , , . London: L. Davis and C. Reymers.Henniker, F., . ‘Jerusalem from the Cave of the Apostles on the Mount of Olives ()’ in Notes during a visit to

Egypt, Nubia, the oasis Boeris, Mount Sinai and Jerusalem. London: J. Murray.Hinzen, G. K., . ‘Support of Macroseismic Documentation by Data from Google Street View’, Seismological

Research Letters , –.Hoffman, I., . Muhamd Ali in Syria (unpublished PhD thesis), Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem

(Hebrew).Ish-Shalom, M., . Christian Travels in the Holy Land: Description and Sources on the History of the Jews in Palestine, Tel Aviv:

Am Oved Publishers (Hebrew).Jacoby, D., . ‘The Franciscans, the Jews and the issue of Mount Zion in the fifthteen century–a reconsideration’,

Cathedra , – (Hebrew).Karniel, G. and Enzel, Y., . ‘Dead Sea Photographs from the Nineteenth Century’, in Y. Enzel, A. Agnon, and

M. Stein (eds.), New Frontiers in Dead Sea Paleoenvironmental Research, Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America,–.

Layish, A., . ‘Waqf and sufi settlements in Eretz Israel at the early ottoman Period’, Cathedra , – (Hebrew).Mayer, L., . ‘Jerusalem’ in Views in Palestine, from the Original Drawings of Luigi Mayer, with an Historical and

Descriptive Account of the Country, and its Remarkable Places. London: R. Bowyer.Mendel, M., . The Book ’Korot Ha‘etim li-Yeshurun’ in Eretz Israel, Jerusalem: Yad Yitshaq Ben Zvi (Hebrew).Michaeli, C. E., . ‘Notes on the Earthquake’, Construction and Industry –, –.Modena, C., Lorenzoni, F., and Schaffer, Y., . Seismic Assesment of the Monumental Historical Complex on Mount Zion

(‘Tomb of David’ and ‘Cenaculum’), Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority.Motosaka, M., and Somer, A., . ‘Ground motion directionality inferred from a survey of minaret damage during

the Kocaeli and Duzce Turkey earthquakes’, Journal of Seismology , –.Nee’man, A., . ‘Arieh Nee’man’s Letter from Safed to Amsterdam about the Earthquake in Safed’, in A. Ya’ari

(ed.), Letters of Eretz Israel, Tel-Aviv: Gazit, – (Hebrew).Nemer, T., and Meghraoui, M., . ‘Evidence of Coseismic Ruptures along the Roum fault (Lebanon): A Possible

Source for the AD Earthquake’, Journal of Structural Geology , –.Niebuhr, C., . ‘Prospect der Stadt Jerusalem vom Oelberge’, in Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und den umliegenden

Ländern, Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes.Nir, Y., . ‘The beginings of photography in the Holy Land’, Cathedra , – (Hebrew).Oliveira, C. S., et al. . ‘Minaret behavior under earthquake loading: the case of historical istanbul’, Earthquake

Engineering and Structual Dynamics , –.Pierotti, E., . ‘Mount Zion’, transl.T. G. Bonney , Jerusalem Explored: being a description of the ancient and modern city,

with numerous illustrations consisting of views, ground plans and sections, London: Bell and Daldy.Pococke, R., . A Description of the East and Some Other Countries, London: Bowyer, W.Praver, Y., –. ‘The friars of Mount Zion and the Jews of Jerusalem in the XVth century’, Yedi‘ot ha-Hevrah

la-Hakirat Erets-Yisra’el ve-‘Atikoteha , – (Hebrew).Quaresmius, F., . Novae Ierosolymae et locorum circumiacentium accurata imago. Quaresmius, Franciscus. Historica, theo-

logica et moralis Terrae Sanctae elucidation, Vol. , Antwerp: Balthasar Moreti.Re‘em, A., . ‘Jerusalem, Mount Ziyyon’, Hadashot Arkheologiyot , –.Roberts, D., –. The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. Drawings made on the spot by David Roberts, R.A.

With historical descriptions by the Rev. George Croly, L.L.D. Lithographed by Louis Haghe, Vol. , London: F. G. Moon.

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Röhricht, R., . Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae : chronologisches Verzeichnis der von bis verfassten Literatur über dasHeilige Land, London: John Trotter Publishers.

Rose, G., . ‘Practicing photography: an archive, a study, some photographs and researcher’, Journal of HistoricalGeography , –.

Rose, G., . Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Interpretive Visual Materials, London: Sage.Rubin, R., . ‘One city, different views: a comparative study of three pilgrimage maps of Jerusalem’, Journal of

Historical Geography , –.Seetzen, U. J., –. Ulrich Jasper Seetzen’s Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder,

Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten. Berlin: G. Reimer.Sezen, H., et al. . ‘Dynamic analysis and seismic performance of reinfored concrete minartes’, Engineering Structures

, –.Sezen, H., and Dogangum, A., . ‘Seismic Performance of Historical and Monumental Structures’, in H. Sezen

(ed.), Earthquake Engineering, –, DOI: ./.Shklov, I., . ‘Israel of Shklov’s Letter from Jerusalem to Amsterdam about the Earthquake in Safed’, in A. Ya’ari

(ed.), Letters of Eretz Israel, Tel-Aviv: Gazit, – (Hebrew).Spyridon, S. N., . ‘Annals of Palestine: –’, Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society , –.Tirion, I., . Jerusalem, zoo als het tegenwoordig is. Salmon, Th. and M. van Goch, Hedendaegsche historie of … alle

Volkere. Amsterdam: Isaak Tirion.Turner, W., . Journal of a Tour in the Levant, Vol. , London: John Murray.Vilnay, Z., . The Holy Land in Old Prints and Maps, Jerusalem: Rubin Mass.Vincent, H. and Abel, F. M., . Jerusalem Recherches de Topographie, D’archeeolgie et D’histoire. Paris: Librairie Victor

Lecoffre.Willis, B., . To the Acting High Commissioner Lt-Col. G.S Symes, –, British National Archives: CO //.Zohar, M., Rubin, R., and Salamon, A., . ‘Earthquake Damage and Repair: New Evidence from Jerusalem on

the Jericho Earthquake’, Seismological Research Letter , –.Zohar, M., Salamon, A., and Rubin, R., . Damage Patterns of Past Earthquakes in Israel – Preliminary Evaluation of

Historical Sources, Jerusalem: Geological Survey of Israel.

, , ,

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Chapter four

A city hit by an earthquake: An HGIS approach to

reconstructing the damage in Tiberias (Israel) in 1837

(Published)

Motti Zohar

Zohar, M., A city hit by an earthquake: An HGIS approach to reconstructing the damage

in Tiberias (Israel) in 1837, International Journal of Information Systems (2016), DOI:

10.1080/13658816.2016.1188933

54

A city hit by an earthquake: an HGIS approach toreconstructing the damage in Tiberias (Israel) in 1837Motti Zohar

Department of Geography, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Geological Survey of Israel,Jerusalem, Israel

ABSTRACTOn 1 January 1837 a devastating earthquake struck northernOttoman Palestine, Lebanon and southern Syria, causing consider-able damage in many localities. Tiberias, located on the westernshores of the Sea of Galilee, suffered badly and many of itsinhabitants were injured or perished. Yet, although the earthquakeand the resulting damage were described in many contemporarysources, evaluation of the damage and its spatial distribution wasnever made before. In this study textual and visual sources werecollected and compiled to evaluate the damage that resulted. AnHGIS (historical GIS) approach was implemented to examine thesesources, geo-code the damage and digitally reconstruct Tiberias atthe time. The results were a contemporaneous map of Tiberias atthe beginning of the nineteenth century and three-dimensionalmodels of the city prior to and after the earthquake. The modelsenabled a 360º examination of the damage distribution in highresolution and evaluation of the overall impact of the earthquake.This study demonstrates the use of HGIS in the reconstruction ofpast urban cityscapes and the investigation of earthquakedamage. It also suggests extending this methodology to otherhistorical–geographical studies of past landscapes and to theexamination of any kind of gradual or dramatic change.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 16 February 2016Accepted 8 May 2016

KEYWORDSHGIS; old drawings;historical earthquakes; 1837;Tiberias; Ottoman Palestine

1. Introduction

On 1 January 1837, a destructive earthquake hit northern Ottoman Palestine, Lebanonand southern Syria. The earthquake was felt from Antakya (southern Turkey) in the northto the Nile Delta (Egypt) in the south (Figure 1(a)). Considerable repercussions were alsofelt in Cyprus and in several Jordanian localities. The cities of Saida, Tyre, Bint-Jbail,Nabatiah (in southern Lebanon), and Akko (Acre), Safed and Tiberias were severely hit(Ambraseys 1997, 2009). Although many of the historical sources reported the damagein detail, its accurate spread was not evaluated so far in any of these cities. The latter iscrucial for understanding the impact of that earthquake and for preparing better forfuture events.

CONTACT Motti Zohar motti.zohar@mail.huji.ac.il Department of Geography, the Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SCIENCE, 2016http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2016.1188933

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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In the absence of photography at the time of the earthquake (Nir 1985), the task ofmapping the resulting damage in high resolution is rather complex. Yet alternativevisual sources available can be used for this purpose and can be cross-validated asaccurately as possible with recent field surveys. Tiberias (Figure 1(b)) seems to be asuitable candidate for such a task: (1) many eighteenth and nineteenth century travellersreported on its state; (2) two aid delegations from Jerusalem and Beirut visited the cityand reported on the damage extent (Calman 1837, Nee’man 1837, Thomson 1837); (3)remains of the damage are still visible today (Figure 2); and (4) Tiberias was described bymany visual sources and was depicted in a few dozen drawings dated prior to and afterthe earthquake.

Using visual sources to reconstruct past landscapes is fundamental and the phrase ‘apicture is worth a thousand words’ is more than relevant in such cases. Like the writtenaccounts, visual sources might contain inaccuracies, exaggerations and distortions butonce these are sifted out, they provide us with invaluable information of the geographiclandscape at the time (e.g., Rose 2001, Karniel and Enzel 2006, Rubin 2006, Levin et al.2010). Nevertheless, as of today only a few scenarios have been evaluated for the studyof historical earthquakes (e.g., Ambraseys and Karcz 1992, Hinzen 2013, Zohar et al. 2014,2015). Recently, the rapid development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) intro-duced a new approach, referred to as historical GIS (HGIS), providing us with powerfuland accurate spatial tools that significantly improve our abilities to resolve past scenar-ios (Knowles 2005, 2008, Gregory and Ell 2007).

Figure 1. (A) Damage distribution in Ottoman Palestine and its close surroundings caused by the1837 earthquake (Ambraseys 1997, 2009) and classified by the degree of severity (Zohar et al. 2013);(B) general overview of the old city of Tiberias.

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Figure 2. Sites in the old city of Tiberias, in some of which (B and F) the 1837 earthquake damage isstill apparent: (A) al-Zaydani Mosque; (B) the Citadel; (C) al-Bahri Mosque; (D) remains of the massivevaults in southern Tiberias (noted by red arrow); (E) Etz-Hay’im Synagogue; (F) one of the southerndamaged turrets in Tiberias’s walls (Photographs: Motti Zohar, 2015).

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In this study the damage in Tiberias after the 1837 earthquake was reconstructedusing HGIS. Accordingly, visual and textual sources were compiled together in a GIS-based framework to build 3D models of Tiberias prior to and after the earthquake.The comparison of these two models enables the quantification of the damage thatresulted and the inspection of its spatial distribution. It is also expected to assist inevaluations of preparedness towards the future for earthquakes in the region ofTiberias are inevitable.

2. Short history of Tiberias

Tiberias was established in 19 CE by Herod Antipas who named it after the Romanemperor Tiberius. Like the rest of Palestine, during the next 1500 years it underwentRoman, Byzantine, Muslim, Crusader and Mamluk regimes (Avi-Yonah 1951, 1980, Gil1983). In 1517 the Ottomans conquered Palestine and were mostly interested in sub-jecting Tiberias to the general governance of Damascus. Their interest was smartlymanipulated by Dona Gracia, a wealthy Portuguese Jewess from Istanbul (Turkey) whoused her influence and connections at the Sultan’s court to increase the Jewish popula-tion in the Galilee and to establish Tiberias as a Jewish centre. Ottoman Firmans (writtenpermission) report that between June 1560 and December 1565 Dona Gracia had leasedthe collection of taxes in Tiberias and a few other villages in the region. The Firmans alsoimply that she was probably responsible for reconstruction of the surrounding walls ofTiberias in order to increase the security of the inhabitants (Roger 1646, De Aveiro 1927,Heyd 1966).

The prosperity of the Jewish community did not last long and sometime at thebeginning of the seventeenth century the Jews were forced to leave due to Ottomantyranny (Roger 1646, De Thévenot 1971). The turning point for Tiberias was the rule ofDahir al-Umar of the Bedouin Zaydan family. Close to the mid-eighteenth century hegained control of Tiberias and other Galilean regions and gradually accumulated massivepower. His dominancy did not escape the eyes of Suleiman, the Pasha of Damascus, whodecided to overthrow Dahir’s rule by besieging Tiberias three times: in 1738, 1742 and1743. The first two sieges were failures and during the last attempt Suleiman died of anintestine illness (Bnayahu 1946, Heyd 1969, Nachshon 1980). The son of Dahir, Chulaybi,had fewer confrontations but, like his father, kept strengthening Tiberias and in 1750 alsobuilt a citadel on a hill at the northwest corner of the city (Hasselquist 1766). In Octoberand November 1759, the walls and the Citadel were severely hit by two consecutiveearthquakes (Ambraseys and Barazangi 1989, Ambraseys 2009), but were graduallyrestored towards the end of the nineteenth century (Mariti 1791).

In October 1831 the Egyptian Ibrahim Pasha invaded Palestine on his way northand in May 1833 he completed the conquest of Syria and Palestine. In 1834 anotherdamaging earthquake struck Palestine but no damage to Tiberias or northernPalestine was reported (Ambraseys 2009). In the same year a Fellahin rebellionerupted in the mountainous areas of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nablus, Transjordanand northern Galilee. The rebels took over Tiberias for a short period but theEgyptians, with reinforcements from the south, eventually managed to gain backcontrol of the city (Ben-Zvi 1954). From that year until the 1837 earthquake the cityremained under Egyptian rule.

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3. Materials and methods

Textual and visual sources relevant to the history of Tiberias from the mid-eighteenth tothe beginning of the twentieth century were examined.

First, the relevant sources were verified, chronologically ordered and classified asprior to and after the 1837 earthquake. The visual sources (see Appendix 1,Supplemental material) required special attention: apart from determining their authen-ticity, one had to look also for spatial exaggerations, erroneous features and verifywhether the artist actually witnessed the view he had depicted for several of the artistsnever visited Palestine or even copied their work from previous drawings (Ben-Arieh1997, 2001). Maps and sketches were geo-referenced to a recent orthophoto of Tiberiaswhile drawings, photographs and air photos were spatially attributed by the spot fromwhich they were depicted or photographed, their relative height above Tiberias and theazimuth of drawing or photographing (Figure 3). Determining the spot from which adrawing was depicted or a photograph was taken included field surveys to trace theexact location and perspective the artist at the time had chosen. For air photos however,I have used the height of the flight as well as the azimuth between prominent features

Figure 3. Visual sources used for reconstructing the landscape. On the right: location and azimuth(angle towards Tiberias from the given point) of the visual sources, i.e., air photos, drawings andphotographs (Appendix 1). The map also presents topographic contours. On the left: Id – sequentialnumeration in chronological order (compatible with the numbering in Appendix 1); Item – referenceof the source; Azimuth – azimuth of drawing/photographing towards Tiberias; Type of the source;Height – height above sea level; Relative height – height above the city of Tiberias (−210 below sealevel).

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(e.g., turrets of the wall, the al-Zaydani and al-Bachri mosques, St. Peter’s Church) andthe airplane photographing (see examples in the Supplemental material, items 48 and49). Obviously, such geo-tagging of the visual sources is not as accurate as modern GPSgeo-referencing. Yet, when inspecting an area of only a few square kilometres, cross-correlation of several sources from each view can reduce possible errors. The detailedexamination of the sources included also the identification and notation of the promi-nent structures of Tiberias. For this purpose, recent photographs were used as some ofthe damaged structures (Figure 2) still exist today.

Next, a GIS-based platform using ‘ArcGIS Desktop™’ (ESRI) software was implementedand the noted geographic features were digitized. This was done at two levels ofaccuracy: (1) ±5 m for features appearing in at least two reliable sources (textual orvisual) and completely or partially existing today (e.g., the Citadel, the walls, St. Peter’sChurch and al-Zaydani Mosque) and; (2) approximately ±50 m for features with only aconjecture of location (e.g., houses of the Kadi and Imam). Since the first cadastral mapof the city appeared only after 1918, the features were digitized to accord with theBritish map of Palestine (1938) (Supplemental material, item 50). Obviously, the mor-phology of the city has changed during the passing century and thus several assump-tions were made: (1) although the city was more populated in the twentieth century, thebasic ownership of assets remained as it was in the nineteenth century; (2) the dwellingdistribution in the Muslim and Christian quarters was less condensed than in the Jewishquarter; (3) the dwelling shapes and street formations within the old city more or lessretained the same morphology as prior to the earthquake. The digitations resulted inthematic GIS layers of quarters, structures and streets, forming together a reconstructed2D map (Figure 6) of pre-1837 Tiberias.

Following, the layers were superimposed on a 5 × 5 m DEM (Digital Elevation Model)surface (Hall and Cleave 1998) and the structural height was extruded to form a 3Dshape. In cases where a structure does not exist today or its height was not assessed inany of the historical sources, the height was estimated as it appears in the drawings andin comparison with the height of other known structures. This process was iterated twice(Figure 4) to produce two models of Tiberias prior to and after the 1837 earthquake. Themodels were rotated and examined from several directions in order to fit perspectivesand views in the visual sources (see example in Figure 5). In cases whereby a featureseemed not to fit according to at least two sources, corrections were made on the spot.

Finally, the damage degree was determined according to the difference in height ofthe given structures within the prior to and after the event models as follows: (i) 0–0.5 m:no/slight damage; (ii) 0.51–3 m: partial damage; and (iii) above 3 m: total collapse. Theintermediate value of 3 m was selected as most of structures and dwellings in Tiberiaswere of a single floor.

4. Results

4.1. Pre-1837 Tiberias

Compilation results of the sources underlying pre- and post-1837 Tiberias are describedin this and the following sections in detail. Much of the sources divide their descriptionsof the city by the existing ethnic groups at the time, i.e., Jews, Muslims and Christians.

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Along almost the entire nineteenth century each of these groups resided in a differentand separated area within the city. Consequently, the reconstruction of the Tiberiascityscape and the following damage analyses was carried out in light of this sub-divisionof the city. A summary of the prominent structures, the reconstructed 2D map and the3D models appear in Table 1, Figures 6 and 7, respectively.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Tiberias was a desolated city situatedon the western shores of the Sea of Galilee (Figure 6) (Volney 1788, Richardson 1822,Irby and Mangles 1823). Roughly, the city was divided into three quarters: (1) theMuslims resided mainly at the northwestern area; (2) the Jews occupied an isolated

Figure 4. Transforming the historical data into 3D models of Tiberias prior to and after the 1837earthquake.

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quarter at the eastern side close to the shore; and (3) several dozen Christians lived inthe southern end of the city (Avissar 1973, Schur 1987, Ben-Yaakov 2001). The totalarea of the city did not exceed a quarter of a square kilometre and contained only afew hundred dwellings (Pococke 1745, Mariti 1791, Wilson 1823, Mendel 1839). A

Figure 5. Detecting Tiberias features in visual sources (example, northern view): (A) 1828 (item 8,Appendix 1); (B) 3D model of the city prior to the earthquake; (C) 1837 (item 18, Appendix 1); and(D) 3D model of the city after the earthquake. Note the simultaneous detection of the depictedfeatures in Figure C and in the model (Figure D).

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significant part of the city, in particular in the north, was apparently vacant ofbuildings and apart from in the Jewish quarter, houses were located far from eachother (Richardson 1822, Stephens 1839) . The exact number of houses is not clear butaccording to the contemporary sources, the number of Jewish, Christians andMuslims buildings ranged between 185–230, 40–80 and 150–250, respectively, andall together between 375–560 houses (Turner 1820, Wilson 1823, Jowett 1826, Horne1836, Schur 1988). Most of the buildings were built of stone and had 1–2 stories, i.e.,roughly were between 3 and 6 m high. Many of the houses had little porches usedfor sleeping outdoors during the hot summer nights (Turner 1820, Pueckler-Muskau1844).

Table 1. Localities in Tiberias reported to be damaged during the 1837 earthquake. Symbol:identification of the structure (as mapped in Figure 6); Damage: a rough estimation of the scope ofthe damage: N (no damage), S (slight damage), P (partial damage) and T (total destruction).Symbol Locality Damage

– Houses P–TW1-21 Walls PT1-20 Turrets PT21 Leaning turret SG1 Main gate TG2 Southern gate PP1 Citadel PP2 Aga house PP3 Harmon PP4 Seraiah PP5 Army commander’s house (?) PP6 Imam’s house (?) PP7 Bazaar P–TP8 Vaulted arcs PP9 Ottoman building PP10 Ottoman building PP11 Ottoman building PP12 Kadi’s house (?) PM1 al-Zaydani Mosque and minaret PM2 al-Bahri Mosque and minaret PMB1, MB3 (?) Tabri houses? PMB2 Palastina school? PC1 St. Peter’s Church NC2 House of Catholic priest PJW1-2 Walls of the Jewish quarter TJG1 Gate of the Jewish quarter TS1 Etz-Ha’yim (‘Sephardim’) Synagogue TS2 ‘Hasidim’ Synagogue TS3 Menahem Mendel of Witabsk Synagogue PS4 Reysin Synagogue? PS5 Shla domes? SS6 Reysin Kollell? PH1-5 Weisman hotel and apartments to let TUnresolved Arabic hotel UnknownJB1 Hayim Abulafya house PJB2 Library (the cliff cave?) PJB3 Zee’v Woolf house PUnresolved Schools UnknownUnresolved ‘Prushim’ Synagogue/Kollel UnknownOutside the city Tombs (Rambam, ‘Shla’, Yochanan ben-Zakai,

Kahana close to Yeshimon Mt., Meir Ba’alHaNess (close to the thermal baths)

N

Thermal baths N

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The city was surrounded by the mid-eighteenth century walls repaired by Dahir al-Umar and his son Chulaybi. Their thickness ranged between 80 and 120 cm and Birav(Bnayahu 1946) reported that they were so high that ladders were needed to climb overthem. Other western travellers estimated their height between 6 and 8 m (Pococke 1745,Hasselquist 1766, Spilsbury 1823, Robinson and Smith 1856). The walls were flanked by21 circular turrets standing at unequal distances between each other (Irby and Mangles

Figure 6. Tiberias and its major features prior to the 1837 earthquake (for notations see Table 1).The city interior was compiled using pre-1837 drawings (Appendix 1), maps of Palestine (1938), PEF(1918), Burckhardt (1822) and historical accounts (Mariti 1791, Clarke 1810–1823, Light 1818, Turner1820, Buckingham 1822, Richardson 1822, Scholz 1822, Wilson 1823, Carne 1826, Jowett 1826,Maden 1829, Madox 1834, Horne 1836, Stephens 1839, Kinglake 1848).

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1823, Jowett 1826). According to Jacotin’s map and Burckhardt’s sketch, there were onlytwo gates to the city: a western main gate and a small southern gate (Jacotin 1799,Burckhardt 1822). Like other Ottoman cities, the citadel on the northern hill of Tiberiasprotected the town from outer invasions (Pococke 1745, Hasselquist 1766, Clarke 1810–1823).

There were two mosques in the city: the largest was the al-Zaydani (al-Umari), namedafter Dahir’s family name, while the other was al-Bahri (the sea mosque), and locatedsouth of the Jewish quarter. The Church of St. Peter was situated north of the Jewishquarter but the house of the Catholic priest, however, was at the southern end of thecity.

Figure 7. 3D view of Tiberias. (A) Before the earthquake, superimposed on a topographic (DEM)surface; and (B) after the earthquake overlain on a geological surface layer: Al: Alluvium, colluvium,soil; Nbg: Bira and Gesher formations; and Pβc: cover basalt. Prominent features (Table 1) are labelledin black. Note that the majority of Tiberias is located on basalt rocks and note the extensive damagealong the fault that crosses the western walls.

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Additional Ottoman buildings, located in the Muslim quarter close to the westerngate, were the houses of the Aga (governor house or Seraiah), the Kadi, the Imam andthe army commander (Schur 1987, Abbasi 2006) . A small bazaar decorated by massivevaults was located in the centre of the city. Other vaulted arches were located at thesouthern shoreline facing the sea (Burckhardt 1822).

The Jewish quarter occupied a portion of the city close to the shore. It was sur-rounded by a high wall with a western entrance gate, which was regularly shut atsunset. Apparently, there were at least two synagogues and a ‘Kolell’ (a Jewish school)within the quarter and probably another one at the southern end of the city: Stephensreported on two synagogues and two schools and Jowett reported on two schools andthree synagogues. I assume that the ‘Kollell’ reported in 1833 in the letter of RabbiYaa’kov Menlis, is the ‘Reysin’ Kollell, located close to Menahem Mendel’s house(Stephens 1839, Jowett 1826, Robinson and Smith 1856, David Debith Hillel in Ya’ari1976, pp. 512–514, Scholz 1822, de Gramb 1840, Schur 2002). Although Christians livedmainly in southern Tiberias, there were also a few dwellings of Jews there: von Puckler-Muskau reported that a wealthy Jew (Hayim Weisman?) had 21 houses to let. He doesnot mention their exact location but since there are no reports of hotels in the Jewishquarter, I assume they were located in the southern part of the city (Pueckler-Muskau1844). Located about half a kilometre south of the city were the Jewish and Muslimcemeteries and about one kilometre further south the thermal baths for local andtouristic use (Seetzen 1810, Robinson and Smith 1841). North of the city there wereseveral sacred tombs (Mendel 1839, Robinson and Smith 1856, Guerin 1880) and west ofit a small agricultural area. One major road led to the city from the south and two othersfrom the west (Jacotin 1799, Buckingham 1822, Olin 1844).

4.2. Post-1837 Tiberias

Apparently, most of the Tiberias dwellings were completely destroyed while publicbuildings escaped the damage. The drawings of Lehoux, Roberts, Bernatz and Munk(Supplemental material, items 16, 18, 19–22 and 25, respectively) demonstrate that theChristian and Muslim quarters were almost completely destroyed and shortly after theearthquake were left with only a few standing dwellings. The citadel, the surroundingpublic structures, walls and turrets were damaged but parts of them still remained(drawing 16, 25, 26, 28, 30 and 35 and photograph 44, Supplemental material). Thewalls were damaged unequally: little damage was observed in the northern part of thewalls; the southern part was considerably damaged but parts of it still remained; thewestern part collapsed almost entirely along with its flanked turrets. Roberts sketchedbreaches within the walls and a diagonal lean of the southwestern turret1 (items 19–22,Supplemental material). These damaged structures were never reconstructed and someof them still remain in ruins today (Figure 2).

Inside the city, the al-Zaydani Mosque was damaged and its dome collapsed. Itsminaret, however, still remained. On the other hand, the minaret of al-Bahri Mosque didnot escape the damage (Robinson and Smith 1841, Olin 1844). The drawings of Lehoux,Bernatz, Roberts, Munk, Bartlett, Lynch, Spencer and van de Velde (Supplementalmaterial, items 16, 18, 19–22, 25, 31, 32, 33 and 35, respectively) depict the minaret ofal-Zaydani still standing but no dome and no minaret at al-Bahri mosque. This is also

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apparent in a late nineteenth century photograph of Bonfils (Supplemental material,item 39). At the beginning of the twentieth century a new dome and minaret appearedat the al-Zaydani and al-Bahri mosques, respectively (Supplemental material, items44–46). The vaulted bazaar was damaged but there are no other specific details (Israelof Shklov 1837). I assume, however, that it was completely or badly destroyed for it isnot apparent in the drawings of Lehoux and Roberts (Supplemental material, items 16and 19–22). The vaulted arcs in the south of the city were probably damaged as well;Roberts depicted them as damaged and this is also apparent in a twentieth centuryphotograph (Supplemental material, items 20 and 45, respectively). There are no reportsof damage to the Church of St. Peter.

The Jewish quarter, as reflected in various post-1837 drawings, seems to be lessdamaged than the Christian and Muslim quarters; Lehoux, Lintch and Roberts(Supplemental material, items 16, 20, 21, 22 and 32) depicted the Jewish quarter withmore standing dwellings than in the other quarters. Further search through the visualsources to locate the remains of the walls surrounding the Jewish quarter produced noresults; they may have been completely destroyed beyond repair.

The total number of casualties during the earthquake is not clear: while the officialreport of Suleiman Pasha numbers 922 victims, other estimations range between 700and 2000. The eyewitness Calman reported that the number of Jewish victims wassignificantly greater than that of the Muslims and Christians. This report conforms tothe report of Robinson from 1838 that numbers less Jewish families than Muslimfamilies, although before the earthquake Jews were considered to be the majority inTiberias (de Gramb 1840, Horne 1836, Debith-Hillel in Ya’ari 1976).

5. Discussion

Rotating the models enabled a 360° examination of damage from almost any direction,even from spots that were not covered by the nineteenth century artists, such as aneastern spot in the Sea of Galilee or aerial views. The two models of before and after theearthquakes were compared (Figure 7) in order to identify the structural damage andexamine its spread (Figure 8). It seems that although the Tiberias area was relativelysmall, the spread of the damage as well as its severity was not uniform. This is clearlyobserved particularly along the walls and between the residential quarters of the city. Ingeneral, such variability in damage within a small area may imply different local siteattributes, whereas the distance from the epicentre and the directivity effect are almostidentical in any spot within that area. Among the most influencing site attributes, onecan count the construction quality, surface geology and topography (Zaslavsky et al.2000). The latter two can hardly explain the differences whereas almost the whole ofTiberias is situated on basalt rocks (Pβc) and apart from the moderate northern slopes,the city lies on a flat plain (Figures. 7(a,b)). The construction quality, however, varies andmanifests several structural styles for residential dwellings, religious structures andgovernment buildings (Figure 2). Unfortunately, at this stage there is no reasonableunderstanding of the vulnerability and resistance of these structures to earthquakeshaking. Yet, it is still possible to classify Tiberias’s structures into two groups.

The first, which was probably more resistant to earthquake shaking, includes theCitadel, walls, turrets and government buildings such as the Seraiah and Kadi houses.

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Most of them, although badly damaged, remained partially standing, even in caseswhere they were located on a hill in the north of the city. This is, of course, no surprisefor these structures were built in advance to withstand outer attacks and thus wereprobably quite stable. Yet, there is a prominent exception that deserves attention: Thewestern part of the walls (between turrets T-12 and T-16), although built of the samematerials and quality as the rest of the walls, collapsed completely, while the northernpart, built on a slope, was only slightly damaged. Figure 8 portrays the spread of thedamage in relation to the surface geology and suspected active faults. Accordingly, themajority of Tiberias is located on a single geologic foundation of basalt rocks but close

Figure 8. The spread of the earthquake damage that resulted in Tiberias by comparing the two HGISmodels of before and after the earthquake (Figure 7).

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to the western walls, there is a fault. This fault, suspected to be active (Sagy et al. 2013),crosses the southern walls between T16–T17 and runs parallel to the western walls forabout 200 m within the proximity of only 50 m. In addition, the fault runs in betweenthe basalt and alluvium lithologies and perhaps this transition zone contributed to theincrease of the damage. However, further site-specific investigation, which is beyond thescope of this study, is needed to verify the mechanical role of this fault and thelithological contrast in the stability of the western walls and the nearby structures.

The second group includes dwellings and residential houses, most of which werecompletely damaged beyond repair. The damage in this category varies. The Jewishquarter seems to be slightly less damaged than the other quarters (Table 2) although thenumber of Jewish victims was greater (Robinson and Smith 1841). The explanation for thiscontradiction is not clear at this stage. Located along the shores of the lake, the Jewishquarter was more populated and clustered than the others and thus the dwellings in itwere most likely of different architectural styles. In addition, a large part of the Muslimquarter in the north end of the city was located on a sloped hill whereas the Jewish andChristian quarters were located on a plain surface (Figure 7(a)). Thus, these factors also mayhave influenced the resistance to damage, but until the Ottoman construction styles arefully characterized, resolving this damage differentiation is rather complex.

The gates of the city did not withstand the earthquake and collapsed. Since the wallswere never repaired, over the years some of the breaches were enlarged, probably byhuman activity, resulting in new entrances to the city (Guerin 1880). In late nineteenthcentury maps (Supplemental material, items 36, 40, 41 and 42), the southern entrance tothe city is located between T-17 and T-18, some 50 m west of the original southern gate(Figure 6). At the north of the city, a new entrance and a trail leading to it appearedbetween T-2 and T-3. These two entrances and roads still exist today and constitute twoof the major transportation entries to the city. The roads to Tiberias are an example ofhow a catastrophe such as an earthquake may divert and influence the morphology of acity for many years after.

6. Summary

It is clear that during the 1837 earthquake Tiberias was severely damaged. The massivedestruction and the number of casualties portray an enormous human catastrophe.

Table 2. The number of damaged dwellings and structures in the Tiberias quarters classified by anestimated damage degree. Note that the maximal degree of damage in the Jewish quarter is lessthan that of the Muslim and Christian quarters. See also Figure 8.Quarter Damage degree Dwellings Percentage (rounded)

Christian No/slight 2 3.6Partial 32 57.1Total collapse 22 39.2

Jewish No/slight 21 7.4Partial 186 65.9Total collapse 75 26.5

Muslim No/slight 13 5.3Partial 147 60.7Total collapse 82 33.8

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Unfortunately, this may not be the last catastrophe Tiberias experiences since earth-quakes in this region are inevitable. The fact that nowadays large parts of Tiberias arebuilt on steep slopes and located close to potentially active faults have already moti-vated planners and decision-makers to assess the potential hazard to Tiberias (Zaslavskyet al. 2009, Hsi-Hsien et al. 2015). The study and the 3D GIS models presented hereprovide them with an important tool for comparing two phases and consequently, toinspect the spread of the damage (Figure 8) and evaluate more accurately the potentialconsequences to the city from a future event.

The reconstructed map of the pre-1837 Tiberias (Figure 6) is a new contribution tothe study of Tiberias and its landscape. It resolves the question of the exact locationsand contemporaneous state of public and religious structures, some of which still existtoday. The map and the constructed 3D models may provide an initial basis for furtherstudies such as tracking the rehabilitation of the city after the catastrophe it underwent,or changes it underwent during the following years. It is now also possible to betterevaluate the morphological developments of the city, in particular when it expandedbeyond the ancient walls at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The most important contribution of this study, in my opinion, is the applicability ofHGIS for damage inspection and evaluation of pre-instrumentally recorded earthquakes.This research is part of a set of published studies conducted in the last few years thatmark the transition to a modelled and computational-based era (e.g., Bender et al. 2005,Davie and Frumin 2007). These studies as well as the present article extensively usehistorical visual sources to reconstruct past landscapes using GIS. This approach facil-itates the spatial examination of these sources, enables rectifying them within a geo-graphic framework and enables quantifying their characteristics. These were complextasks to achieve prior the development of GIS. In fact, the implementation of 2D and 3Dgeographic models can completely replace the ‘traditional’ technique of examiningseveral visual sources simultaneously in order to trace a feature from different perspec-tives (e.g., Zohar et al. 2015). The case of Tiberias demonstrates that the HGIS approachto resolve earthquake damage can be applied also to other localities with availabletextual and visual sources. Furthermore it can be applied to other dramatic events, suchas fires, floods and wars, which are no less destructive than earthquakes.

Note

1. Engineers inspecting the turret stated that such a lean could have occurred only by asudden turbulence and not by gradual subsidence because of the water (Shohat and Levi,personal communication, 2014).

Acknowledgements

I thank Yossi Stefanski from the Israel Antiquity Authority, Avshalom Zemer and Oren Cohenfrom the Haifa Maritime Museum, Dr. Katia Cytrin-Silverman from the Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Dr. Mitia Frumin from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Prof. Michael Conzenfrom Chicago University, Prof. Thomas Levi from UC San-Diego University, Dr. Ester Yankelevichand Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi from Haifa University, Micha Cohen from the Israel Antiquity Authorityand Prof. Haim Goren and Dr. Mustafa Abassi from Tel-Hai College for each’s relevant assis-tance. This research was funded by the Ministry of National Infrastructures [grant #210-17-006],

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[grant #29-17-043], the ‘Amiran’ grant of the Hebrew University, the ‘Rachel Yanait’ grant of YadBen-Zvi Institute and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space [grant #10241].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space [#10241]; RachelYanait grant of Yad Ben-Zvi Institute; Amiran grant of the Hebrew University; Israel Ministry ofNational Infrastructures [#210-17-006, #29-17-043].

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Chapter five

Spatial and temporal patterns of earthquake damage in

Israel and its close surroundings: Lessons from

historical accounts

(Unpublished)

Motti Zohar, Amos Salamon and Rehav Rubin

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Spatial and temporal patterns of earthquake

damage in Israel and its close surroundings

Motti Zohar,1,2*Amos Salamon1 and Rehav Rubin2

1 Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel Street, Jerusalem 95501, Israel

2 Department of Geography, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905,

Israel

* Corresponding author: E-mail: motti.zohar@mail.huji.ac.il; Phone: +972-2-5883017/8; Fax:

+972-72-2449606

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ABSTRACT

Israel was hit by destructive earthquakes many times in the course of history. To properly

understand the hazard and support effective preparedness towards future events, the spatial and

temporal distribution of their damage was examined. We describe in detail our systematic approach

to searching the available literature and collecting the data, and screening the authenticity of that

information. We use GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to map and evaluate the distribution of

the damage and to search for recurring patterns. Overall, 186 localities were hit, 54 of them at least

twice. We find that Israel was affected by 4, 17, 8 and 2 damaging earthquakes that originated,

respectively, from the southern, central, central-northern and northern parts of the Dead Sea

Transform (DST). The temporal appearance of the northern events is clustered; the central events

are more regular in time, whereas no damage from the north-central and the central quakes, with the

exception of the year 363 event, seems to have occurred south of the Dead Sea region.

Analyzing the distribution of the damage, we realize that the number of the damage reports reflects

only half of the incidents that actually happened, attesting to incompleteness of the historical

catalogue. Jerusalem appears as the most reported city with 14 entries. Following it are the cities of

Akko (Acre), Tiberias, Nablus and Tyre with 8, 7, 7 and 6 reports, respectively. In general,

localities in the Galilee and north of it suffered more severely than localities in central Israel with

the exception of Nablus and the localities along the coastal plain of Israel, most probably due to

local site effects. For the sake of hazard management, these observations should be taken into

consideration for future planning and mitigation.

Keywords: Historical earthquakes; damage patterns; Severity; Dead Sea Transform; Israel

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INTRODUCTION

Instrumental earthquake records for Israel have been available since the beginning of the 20th

century, during which this area was affected by the destructive M = 6.2, 1927 Jericho earthquake

(e.g., Avni, 1999; Ben-Menahem et al., 1976; Vered & Striem, 1977) and the nearby M=7.1,1995

Nuweiba event (Wust, 1997). Yet, the chronicles show that Israel has undergone a long history of

destructive shaking and these two monitored events are neither sufficient to characterize the long-

term impact of strong earthquakes nor to define typical spatial and temporal patterns of damage, if

there are any. These patterns are of great importance for hazard assessment and preparedness

towards future events. The historical accounts that span the last millennia may assist greatly in

filling that gap.

Written in various languages from many places, earthquake damage reports include accounts,

chronicles, drawings, manuscripts and, from the second half of the 19th century, also photographs

(Zohar et al., 2014). Most of the reports were already collected, translated and organized within

various catalogues (e.g., Ambraseys, 2009; Guidoboni & Comastri, 2005; Guidoboni et al., 1994;

Sbeinati et al., 2005), reappraisals (Agnon, 2014; Ambraseys, 2004; Ambraseys & Finkel, 1995;

Ambraseys & White, 1997; Karcz, 1987; Marco & Klinger, 2014; Salamon, 2009; Salamon et al.,

2011; Salamon et al., 2007) and focused investigations (e.g., Ambraseys, 1997; Ambraseys &

Barazangi, 1989; Ambraseys & Karcz, 1992 ; Ambraseys & Melville, 1988). Although some of

these records contain inaccuracies and exaggerations (Karcz & Lom, 1987), they are still the richest

sources available for resolving the earthquake source parameters such as size and location,

comparing earthquakes from different places and times and relating the past to modern events (e.g.,

Bakun, 2006; Bakun et al., 2002; Bakunet al., 2003; Gasperini et al., 2010; Hough & Avni, 2010;

Sirovich & Pattenati, 2003, 2009; Sirovich & Pettenati, 2001; Zohar & Marco, 2012).

Given the wealth of the existing data and the essential need of Israel to establish a reliable and up-

to-date database of earthquake-related damage, we first reappraised the list of historical earthquakes

that affected Israel and its close surroundings (Zohar et al., 2016). This task is now complemented

with the construction of a focused, dedicated archive of the damage caused by these events,

targeting first on compiling the inventory of reliable reports of damage and then analyzing the

spatial and temporal spread of the damage in order to identify typical patterns if exist.

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THE AREA OF INTEREST

As our aim was to evaluate the impact of a destructive earthquake the state of Israel may have to

cope with, we focused on the area of Israel and its close surroundings (Fig. 1). Although this area

does not fully accord with the local frame of seismotectonics, it still enables delineating the typical

scope of damage that may hit Israel, regardless of its tectonic origin. This of course does not

exclude the need to further examine the spread of damage in terms of tectonic regimes.

Figure 1: Map of the study area and the localities that were hit during the last 2,000 years. The main tectonic element in that area is the Dead Sea Transform (DST) system. It is divided herein to three geographic parts (inset map): South (S), Center (C) and North (N), and the transition zone Center-North (C-N). The associated DST elements, from south to north, are: GE - the pull-apart structures in the Gulf of Elat and Aqaba (Garfunkel & Ben-Avraham, 1996); AF – Arava fault (Amit et al., 1999; Porat et al., & Enzel, 2009; Zilberman et al., 2005); DSF – Dead Sea fault (Garfunkel et al., 1981); CF – Carmel fault; HF – Hula fault; RF – Roum splay (Khair, 2001; Nemer & Meghraoui, 2006); YF – Yammouneh fault (Daëron et al., 2007); RAF – Rachaya splay (Nemeret al., 2008); SF – Sergaya splay (Nemer et al., 2008).

78

The main seismogenic unit in our area of interest is the Dead Sea Transform (DST) system (Fig. 1),

that appears to trigger most if not all of the strong and damaging events in Israel (Agnon et al.,

2010; Begin, 2005; Ben-Menahem, 1991; Hamiel et al., 2009). It is a left lateral fault system

extending from the Red Sea in the south to southeastern Turkey in the north, and bordering the

tectonic plate of Arabia on its eastern side and the Sinai sub-plate on its west. The overall sinistral

displacement along the DST since its origin in the Miocene is estimated to be around 105 km (e.g.,

Freund et al., 1968; Garfunkel et al., 1981; Quennel, 1959),that is, an average slip rate of ~5 mm per

year, although this seems to have varied throughout the Miocene and the Plio-Pleistocene (e.g.,

Garfunkel, 2010).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Following our inventory of reliable events (Zohar et al., 2016) and in light of the shortcomings of

the historical information (e.g., Guidoboni & Ebel, 2009; Karcz, 2004; Karcz & Lom, 1987), we

based our evaluation of the damage primarily on critical reviews of the sources. We also consulted

several archaeo-seismic (e.g., Ambraseys, 1971; Ambraseys, 2005, 2006; Ellenblum et al., 2015;

Marco, 2008; Russell, 1980, 1985; Stiros & Jones, 1996; Tsafrir & Foester, 1992) and paleo-seismic

studies(e.g., M. Daëron et al., 2005; Hayens et al., 2006; Kagan et al., 2005; Kagan et al., 2011;

Ken-Tor et al., 2001; Ken-Tor et al., 2002; Klinger et al., 2000; Marco et al., 1996; Migowski et al.,

2004; Wechsler et al., 2014; Zilberman et al., 2005) relevant to our work, but refrained from

circular reasoning if the dating of these studies relied on the historical record (Rucker & Niemi,

2010).

For each of the dependable earthquakes (Table 1) we further authenticated the related damage

reports. We used the methodology suggested by Elad (1982, 2002) which relies on the

contemporaneousness and context of the given historical document. This method was already

described in detail and used by Zohar et al.,(2016), and now utilized to consistently grade the

reliability of the damage reports (see definitions in Table 2). Once the reliability of the damage

reports was well established, we were able to compile the list of the affected localities and the

extent of the damage (Table 1).

In modern days, compiled damage reports are better inspected when converted into a qualitative

scale of macroseismic intensity, which basically grades the earthquake effects from not felt to total

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destruction. Among the popular scales are the Modified Mercali (MMI, Richter, 1958; Wood &

Neumann, 1931), the MSK (Medvedev, Sponheuer, & Karnik, 1965), and the recently developed

European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98, Grünthal, 1998). Unfortunately, the conversion of the

described damage into a degree of intensity is not straightforward as the type of construction,

materials and their quality (e.g., Ferrari & Guidoboni, 2000) along the various historical periods

have not yet been fully defined and characterized. Thus, the most we could at this stage do was to

characterize the descriptions of the damage typical to our research area and construct an ad-hoc

severity scale that grades the scope of the damage (Table 4). Obviously, further calibration and

correlation of our severity scale with the common intensity scales are required. Finally, we stored

the compiled records within a geographic relational database built using the Microsoft ACCESS™

platform and the ESRI ArcGIS™ software. The database design (Fig. 2), which follows the

concepts of the Entity Relational Diagrams (ERD) suggested by Howe (1983), enables flexible

queries and analyses of the data.

Figure 2: The database schema constructed to store and manipulate the compiled damage reports. The major entities are the alpha-numeric tables of the events, damage and environmental effects, as well as the geographic layers of the SITES and the REGIONS

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Date Reported damaged localities Estimated magnitude in previous studies

Avg. mag.

Size Deg.

N-S damage

extent (km) Casu.

c.760-750 BCE Jerusalem (?), Judea (?) 7.8-8.2 (AUS); 8.2 (BM5); 7.3 (BM) - - - -

31 early spring BCE Judea 6-6.5 (KA2); 6.7 (MIG); 6.7

(BM); 7 (BM5); 7 (TUAR) 6.7 Str ? M

303 Apr 2* Tyre 7.1 (BM); 7.1 (MIG after BM) 7.1 Maj 153 M

363 May 18-19 (night)

Antipatris, Caesarea, Gophna, Hada (Unknown location), Areopolis, Ashdod, Zippori, A-Salt, Haifa, Jaffa, Banyas, Tiberias, Bet-Govrin, Petra, Sebastia, Samaria, Zoar, Bet-She'an, Jerusalem, Nicopolis [Israel], Ashqelon, Lod

6.7 (BM); 6.4 (BM5); 7 (TUAR); 6.7 (MIG after BM)

6.7 Str 453 M

418 Palestine 6.2 (TUAR); 6.9 (MIG) 6.5 Str ? - 502 Aug 22

night* Acre (Akko), Tyre 7 (TUAR); 7 (MIG after BM); 7 (BM) 7.0 Maj 113 -

551 Jul 9* Sarafand [Lebanon], Tyre 7.8 (TUAR); Ms 7.2 (DAR); 7.5 (MIG); 7.5 (BM) 7.5 Maj 284 M

634 Sep Jerusalem, Palestine 5.5 (Light damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

5.5 Mod 47 -

659 Jun 7 Jericho, St. John, Palestine 6.6 and 6.6 (BM; BM5) 6.6 Str 154 M

749/Early 750 Jordan River, Palestine, Tabor Mt., Tiberias, Bet-She'an, Khirbet al Karak

M> 7 (MAR); 7-7.5 (MIG); 7.3 (BM); 7.3, 7.3 (BM5, BM3); less than 7 (KA2, BEG)

7.2 Maj 160 M

756 Mar 9 Jerusalem, Palestine 6 (Moderate damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

6.0 Str 70 -

1033 Dec 05 (night)

Jericho, Ramla, Banyas [Israel], Ashqelon, Jerusalem, Akko, Gaza, Nablus, Hebron, el-Badan

7.1 (MIG); 6.7 (BM); 6.7 (BM5); Me = 6 (GC) 6.6 Str 190 M

1063 Aug* Acre (Akko), Tyre 6.5-7 (MIG); Me = 5.6 (GC) 6.1 Str 357 F

1068 Mar 18* Palestine, Elat 6.9 (MIG); 6.6 - 7 (ZIL); 7.0 ≤ MS ≤ 7.8 (AMJA); 7 (BM); Me = 8.1 (GC)

7.3 Maj 780 M

1068 May 29 Ramla Me =6 (GC) 6.0 Str ? M

1117 Jun 26 Jerusalem 5.5 (Light damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

5.5 Mod ? -

1157 Aug 12 (night)* Jerusalem 7-7.5 (MIG); M > 7

(AMBR); 7.3 (BM) 7.2 Maj 515 M

1170 Jun 29 (0345)* Banyas [Israel]

7 (MIG); M > 7 (AMBR); 6.6 (HOAV); 7.9 (TUAR); 7.0 ≤ MS ≥ 7.8 (AMJA); 7.5 (BM); Me = 7.7 (GC)

7.3 Maj 497 M

1202 May 20 (0240)

Akko, Samaria, Tebnine, Vadum-Jakub, Banyas [Israel], Hunin Castle, Nablus, Tyre, Jerusalem

7.5 (MIG); 7.5 (AMME); 7.6 (HOAV); 6.8 (BM); 6.8 (BM4); M > 7 (EMARB); 7.0 ≤ MS ≥ 7.8 (AMJA); Me=7.6 (GC)

7.3 Maj 380 M

1212 May 01 Karak, Elat, St. Catherine, el-Shaubak 6.7 (MIG); Me=5.8 (GC) 6.2 Str 330 F 1293 Jan 11–

Feb 08 Lod, Ramla, Gaza,Qaqun,Tafilah, Karak 6.6 (MIG); Me = 5.8 (GC) 6.2 Str 185 -

1458 Nov 16 Ramla, Lod, Hebron, Jerusalem, Karak 6.5 (MIG); Me = 5.6 (GC) 6.1 Str 70 M

1546 Jan 14 (Afternoon)

Hebron, Maa'yan Elisha, Jericho, St. John, Bethany, Jerusalem, Jordan River, Nablus, Beit-Jala, Bet-Lehem, Batir

M ~ 6 (KA2); 7 (TUAR); 6.1 (MIG); 7 (BM,BM5, BM3); 6.5 Str 140 M

1588 Jan 04 (13:00)* Elat, St. Catherine 6.7 (MIG) 6.7 Str 600 -

1643 Mar 23 Jerusalem 5.5 (Light damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

5.5 Mod ? -

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Date Reported damaged localities Estimated magnitude in previous studies

Avg. mag.

Size Deg.

N-S damage

extent (km) Casu.

1759 Oct 30 ( 03:45)*

Akko, Quneitra, Benot-Ya'aqov Bridge, Sasa, Nazareth, Safed, Tiberias, Nablus

Ms ~ 6.6 (AMBR); 6.5 (BM) 6.5 Str 350 M

1759 Nov 25 ( 19:23)*

Hula, Deir Hanna, Safed, Nabatiya, Nablus, Sassa, Mt.Hermon, Akko, Beit-Jann, Hasbaya, Deir Hanna, Quneitra, Caesarea, Marjuyun, Tiberias, Haifa, el-Rama

7.4 (MIG); MS ~ 7.4 (AMBR, 1989); Ms = 7.4 (AMJA; WECO); 7 ≤ M ≤ 7.2 (GOM); 7.4 (BM)

7.3 Maj 580 M

1817 Mar Jerusalem 5.5 (Light damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

5.5 Mod 25 -

1834 May 26 (13:00)

Dead Sea Southwest, Caesarea, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Umm al-Rassas, Deir Mar-Saba, Bet-Lehem, Medaba

6.4 (MIG); 6.3 (BM) 6.3 Str 170 -

1837 Jan 01 (16:35)*

Nabatiya, Qana, el-Fara, el-Salha, Jish, Marun Al-Ras, Bint-Jbeil, Malkiyya, Qadas, Ya'tar, Tebnine, Hunin Castle, Banyas [Israel], Metulla, Zeqqieh, Deir Mimas, el-Khiam, el-Tahta, Deir Mar-Elias, Qaddita, Jibshit, Gaza, Arraba, Attil, Qaqun, Tubas, Ajloon, Nablus, Zeita, Harithiya, Jerusalem, KefarBir'im, Sea of Galilee, Hasbaya, KafrAqab, Jeresh., Areopolis, Hula, Tarshiha, Dallata, Jaffa, Mrar, Ein-Zeitun, Tyre, Atlit, Meron, Eilabun, Akko, Migdal, Irbid, Reina, Safed, Tiberias, Hadatha, Haifa, Zemah, KafrKanna, Kafr, Sabt, Lubiya, Nazareth

7.4 (MIG); M > 7 (AM3); MS = 7.4 (WECO); Ms 7.1 (NEM after AM3); 6.7 (BM)

7.1 Maj 635 M

1839 St. Catherine 5.5 (Light damage, personal judgment, Zohar et al., 2016)

5.5 Mod 25 -

1927 Jul 11 (15:04)

Salfit, Soreq River, Nabi-Musa, Abadia, Ajloon, Gaza, Atara,, Meslovia, Lod, Ein-el-Kelt, Ein-Dok, Azraa', Deir, Mar-Saba, Merhavya, Massada, Mrar, Maa'yan Elisha, Moza, Medaba, Migdal, Karak, Kafaringi, En-Harod, Ramat Yishai, MigdalYava, QiryatAnavim, Tel Aviv, Nablus, Shunam, Refidie, Ramat, Rachel, Dara'a, Ramla, Shiloach Village, Rehovot, Amman, Reina, Ramallah, En-Karem, Qalqilya, Kabab, Zora, Safed, Zemah, Petah Tiqwa, Eqron, Afula, Akko, Ein-Fara', EinQinya, Ein-Musa, Rosh Ha-ha’Ayin, Be'er-Sheva, Jiftlik, Gimzoo, Gedera, Batir, Beit-Sorik, Bet-She'an, Beit-Liqya, Bet-Lehem, Bet-haKerem, Beit-Jimal, Bet-Govrin, Toov, Mt., Bira, JisrMagmi, a-Ram, Irbid, A-Salt, el-Hama, Abu-Tlul, Nazareth, Jaffa, Yarmouk Fall, Jordan River, Abu-Dis, Abu-Ghosh, Beit-Jala, ZarkaMa’in, Jericho, Holly Mt., Armon Ha-Naziv, Jerusalem, Yalo, Tulkarm, Tiberias, Tabgha, Jaljulya, Hebron, Jenin, ZikhronYaa'qov,Zarka,Wadi al-Shueib, Mt.Scopus, Olives, Mt., Deir A-Shech, Daharia, Benot-Ya'akov Bridge, Allenby Bridge, Gesher, Jeresh, Michmash village, Haifa

6.25 (AVN; AVN2); 6.2 (BM2); 6.3 (MIG) = 6.25 6.25 Str 220 M

Table 1: List of reliable historical events (Zohar et al., 2016), that occurred between c.760 BCE and 1927 CE and damaged at least one locality in Israel and its close surroundings (see Fig. 1). Date – time of occurrence in year and whenever possible - also the month, day and hour; Reported damaged localities – localities reported to have been damaged within the research area (Fig. 1) that we consider of moderate (MR) or higher degree of reliability (Table 2). Asterisk denotes events that caused damage also beyond our area of interest; estimated magnitude in previous studies – list of studies and the magnitudes they estimated for that event. Abbreviations: AMARB – Ellenblumet al.(1998); AMBR - Ambraseys and Barazangi (1989); AMJA -

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Ambraseys and Jackson (1998); AM3 - Ambraseys (1997); AMME - Ambraseys and Melville (1988); AUS - Austin et al. (2000); AVN - Avni (1999); AVN2 – Avni et al. (2002); BEG - Begin (2005); BM - Ben-Menahem (1991); BM2 - Ben-Menahem et al. (1976); BM3 - Ben-Menahem and Aboodi (1981); BM4 - Ben-Menahem (1981); BM5 - Ben-Menahem (1979); DAR – Darawcheh et al. (2000); GC - Guidoboni and Comastri (2005); GOM - Gomez et al. (2003); HOAV - Hough and Avni (2010); KA2 - Karcz (2004); MAR - Marco et al. (2003); MIG - Migowski et al. (2004); NEM - Nemer and Meghraoui (2006); TUAR - Turcotte and Arieh (1988); WECO - Wells and Coppersmith (1994); ZIL - Zilberman et al. (2005); Avg. mag. – the average value of the estimated magnitudes (see Zohar et al., 2016); Size deg. – In terms suggested by Ambraseys and Jackson (1998). See explanation in Table 3; N-S extent (km) – the distance between the northernmost and southernmost damaged localities, in km; and Casu. – estimated scope of casualties according to the historical reports: '-' – no casualties or not mentioned or not known, F - Few (10 or less), M - Many (more than 10).

Symbol Reliability Transmitters

VR Very high Based upon at least 2 contemporary or near contemporary independent sources with no confusion or contradiction regarding the date, location and details of the event.

HR High Based on one contemporary or near contemporary source

MR Moderate Based on at least one secondary source that draws from at least one reliable contemporary or near contemporary source that is not available to us today

PR Poor Based on secondary sources that rely upon other secondary or unknown sources

DR Doubtful False, duplicated or misinterpreted sources

Table 2: Degrees of reliability that characterize a report of a damage (Zohar et al., 2016)

Size Symbol Description Estimated magnitude

Light Lht Felt only 4 ≤ M < 4.9 Moderate Mod Slight damage to buildings and other structures 5 ≤ M < 5.9

Strong Str May cause a lot of damage in very populated areas 6 ≤ M < 6.9

Major Maj Major earthquake. Serious damage 7 ≤ M < 7.9

Great Grt Great earthquake. Can totally destroy communities near the epicenter M ≥ 8

Table 3: The size of events classified by degrees, starting from light (Lht) to great (Grt). Each degree represents a possible range of magnitudes adapted from Ambraseys and Jackson (1998)

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Symbol Severity Typical description of the reported effects Possible correlationwith degrees of the EMS-98

Scale FD Felt Felt without damage II – III/V LD Light Cracks, plaster failure V-VI MD Moderate Collapse of a few walls or weak houses VI-VII HD Heavy Collapse of many houses and buildings VII-VIII SD Severe Nearly total destruction VIII- IX

Table 4: The severity of damage in typical terms used in the historical reports, from the lowest (Felt-FD) to the highest (Severe-SD). Suggested correlation with the EMS-98 Scale (Grünthal, 1998) appears in the rightmost column. In our opinion, up to the 20th century construction quality was poor and there were almost no such structures to withstand the high range (X-XII) of EMS-98 intensity degrees. Thus, our ad-hoc severity scale tops at about intensity IX.

RESULTS – SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL FRAME OF THE EVENTS

For the first event dated to c.760 BCE there are no reliable damage reports beyond the mention of

its mere occurrence. The second event in 31 BCE is nearly 700 years later, and although it is

reasonable to assume that earthquakes did occur during this time gap, the absence of documentation

from that period does not enable further evaluation. Thus, we concentrated on the damage reported

only from the mid-1st century BCE to the first instrumentally recorded damaging event of 1927 CE.

The following damaging events in the region, on March 1956 (Salamon et al., 1996) and November

1995 (Wust, 1997), affected mainly Lebanon and Egypt, respectively. This leaves us with 31

reliable events over a period of nearly 2,000 years (Table 1). In general, the reports are not spread in

time evenly, and as it get closer to our time, the number of the reports as well as their reliability

increases significantly (Zohar et al., 2016).

Overall, we counted 420 damage reports that refer to 186 localities (Fig. 1); 54 of these localities

are reported to have been hit at least twice. The areal spread of the damage reports around the most

probable seismogenic source - the DST, is not homogenous. The Mediterranean Sea in the west, the

poor populated Arabian Desert and Transjordan in the east and the Negev Desert in the south, limit

the potential area for these records. Accordingly, most of the damage is concentrated within the

regions populated in historical times, mainly in northern and central Israel. We therefore modified

our spatial perspective and examined the extent of damage in the north-south (N-S) direction only

(Fig. 3). Considering that the most likely mechanism of strong earthquakes along the DST is a

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sinistral strike slip (Garfunkel et al., 1981) and that its geographic orientation along our study area

is N-S, this, in our opinion, is a reasonable approximation.

Figure 3: Distribution of historical records on earthquake damage along the DST since the 1st century BCE: (a) Location map; (b) Time history of the spread of damage per each of the events. The square dots denote the damaged localities and the vertical lines represent the total N-S extent of the damage caused by the noted earthquake (arrows denote damage extended beyond the limits of the present map): round points line - Southern region; solid line - Central; short dashes line - Central-Northern; and long dashes line - Northern (see the geographic division of the DST in Fig. 1). The regions of Judea and Palestine that were reported to have been damaged in 31 BCE and 418 CE with no mention of specific locations are represented by question marks. The horizontal wavy dashed lines delineate the extent of damage caused by the Central events.

The events were classified according to where along the DST they caused the damage (Fig. 3).

Overall we identified 4, 17, 8 and 2 damaging events along the southern (S in Fig. 1), central (C),

central-northern (C-N) and northern (N) parts of the DST, respectively. Obviously the damage

zones do not necessarily reflect the actual tectonic origin of these earthquakes but still, in our

opinion it is reasonable to assume that they correspond with the nearby segment of the DST. Apart

from the geographic origin, the damage may also reflect the magnitudes of the events. Accordingly,

we measured the N-S damage extent of each earthquake and projected the outcomes on a

comparative chart (Fig. 4). It appears that the March 1068, 1837, 1588 and Nov 1759 events show

the greatest extent of damage - more than 500 km, while the 634 and 1458 quakes are the smallest

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ones - less than 100 km. The group of earthquakes of intermediate extent of damage, between 300

and 400 km, contains the 363, 551, 1063, 1157, 1170, 1202, 1212 and Oct 1759 events.

Interestingly, the damage extent of the instrumentally recorded earthquake of 1927 was

approximately 200 km. It means that at least 12 historical earthquakes that share greater extents of

damage were most probably stronger in magnitude. Last notable are the events of 31 BCE, 418,

May 1068, 1117, 1643, 1817 and 1839 with only a single reported locality, seemingly implying a

minimal extent of damage, but this also might be the result of an incomplete record of the history.

Figure 4: Temporal history of the events that affected the area of interest (Fig. 1) in relation to their N-S damage extent (in km, based on Table 1). The events are classified by their assumed origin along the DST, whether along the Southern, Central, Central-Northern or Northern region (see the geographic division of the DST in Fig. 1). The 31 BCE, 418, May 1068, 1117 and 1643 events were reported to affect a single damaged locality or area only, but were question-marked for a potential incomplete record.

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DISCUSSION

Damage extent and size of the historical events

From previous studies we learn that there is a strong correlation between the size of a given

historical event and the affected area (e.g., Ambraseys & Jackson, 1998; Bakun & Wentworth,

1997; Topozada, 1975), and also between the magnitude and the length of the surface rupture

(Wells & Coppersmith, 1994). Since the extent of reporting west of the DST is limited by the

Mediterranean Sea and eastwards by the Arabian Desert (Trans-Jordan), the N-S extent is left as the

only indicator for the stretch of the damage. Thus, we examined the relation between the local N-S

damage extents of the historical events that occurred in our area of interest with the average of the

magnitudes assigned to these events in previous studies (Fig. 5, solid line).

Figure 5: The correlation between the N-S damage extents of the last millennium events that occurred in our area of interest with the average of the magnitudes assigned to these events in previous studies (noted by solid line). For comparison, we present a global empirical correlation between the length of surface rupture (either left or right lateral slip) and the magnitude (dashed line, after Wells and Coppersmith 1994, Table 1).

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Until an independent, reliable method of determining source parameters of historical earthquakes in

our study area is developed, we regard the previous studies that have already appeared in the

scientific literature as the best expert judgment available to us. To better cope with incompleteness

of the data we have examined only the events occurred during the last Millennium. Then we

compared this relation with the global ‘magnitude-length of surface rupture’ empirical correlation

(Fig. 5, dashed line, adapted from Wells & Coppersmith, 1994, Table 1). Although our local

‘magnitude-damage extent’ correlation is weaker (R2 = 0.72) than the global 'magnitude-surface

rupture' one (R2 = 0.81), the N-S damage extent still appears to be a reasonable indicator for the size

of the events.

Seismic moment and slip rate

Further on we examined whether the average magnitude of the damaging events (Table 1) may

serve as a proxy of the seismic moment and slip rate of each of these events. Accordingly, we used

the standard relations representing the magnitude of a given event, the contributed slip and the

seismic moment (Hanks and Kanamori, 1979; Wells and Coppersmith, 1994) as follows:

[1] M0 = 𝜇𝜇DA

[2] Mw = 2/3 * log M0 - 10.7

Where M0 is the seismic moment, 𝜇𝜇 is the shear modulus, D is the average slip across the fault

surface, A is the area of the fault surface that ruptured (depth*length of the rupture plane) and Mw

is the moment magnitude. Developing equations [1] and [2] leads to the following relation aimed

for extracting the slip (offset) for a given event:

[3] D = 103(M w +10.7)

2

𝜇𝜇A

Dividing the slip by the return period will yield the average slip rate for that time window.

Of great interest to Israel is the damage zones that have been generated by the events concentrated

between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee (Fig. 3), i.e. along part C of the DST (Fig. 1), about

~160 km long. Thus, we examine the slip rate and seismic moment contributed by the 17 central

events. The values used in relation [3] are the average magnitude (Table 1); 3.1 × 1011 dyne/cm2 for

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µ that accords with crustal faults (Wells and Coppersmith, 1994); an average seismogenic depth of

15 km (Braeuer et al., 2014); and the rupture length (see Fig. 5, following Wells and Coppersmith,

1994). The results appear in Table 5.

The total slip rate contributed by the 17 central (C) events is 193 cm i.e., an annual average slip rate

of 0.09 cm/y. For the first (7 events) and second millennium (10 events) CE, the rate is 0.15 cm/y

and 0.03 cm/y, respectively. These rates do not accord with the annual slip rate that ranges between

0.3-0.7 cm/y as was estimated in previous studies (e.g., Freund et al., 1968; Garfunkel et al., 1981;

Quennel, 1959). A plausible explanation for such a gap may be the probable incompleteness of the

data (Zohar et al., 2016) in which additional, undocumented events contributed the missing amount

of slip. We assume that most the events that were graded as major or great (M > 7, Table 3) were

probably documented; their enormous damage spread and resulted casualties most likely would

have not escape reporting (Ambraseys, 2009; Guidoboni & Ebel, 2009). We also assume that many

of the strong events (M > 6) where documented as well (Begin 2005).That is, the majority of the

missing events were of light and moderate degree (M < 6) and they contributed only minor slip.

Therefore, incompleteness cannot explain entirely the missing amount of slip and there ought to be

other explanation.

The second possible explanation might stem from the inaccurate estimation of the magnitudes. The

low annual slip rate of 0.09 cm/y implies that perhaps the magnitudes we used might be

underestimated and consequently resulted in insufficient slip. To test this hypothesis, we added half

a degree to each of these magnitudes (Table 5). This time the resulted total slip reached 1,066 cm

which reflects an annual slip rate of 0.54 cm/y. That is, increasing the magnitude by half a degree

appears to be consistent with the calculated annual slip rate of 0.3-0.7 cm/y. For the first (7 events)

and second millennium (10 events) the annual slip rate was 0.85 and 0.21 cm/y, respectively.

Although the former value seems to be 'too' high while the second one is ‘too’ low, it can still be

concluded that in general the average magnitudes we used, based on previous studies (Table 1), tend

to be underestimated.

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Average magnitude Average magnitude – 0.5 Average magnitude + 0.5

Event M R.L. M0 D DR M R.L M0 D DR M R.L M0 D DR

31 early spring BCE 6.7 29 1.258E+26 97 17 6.2 12 2.238E+25 41 3 7.2 69 7.079E+26 228 98 363 May 18-19 6.7 29 1.258E+26 97 17 6.2 12 2.238E+25 41 3 7.2 69 7.079E+26 228 98 418 6.5 20 6.309E+25 68 9 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 7.0 49 3.548E+26 162 49 634 Sep 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 5.0 2 3.548E+23 5 0 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 659 Jun 7 6.6 24 8.912E+25 81 12 6.1 10 1.584E+25 34 2 7.1 58 5.011E+26 192 70 749/Early 750 7.2 69 7.079E+26 228 98 6.7 29 1.258E+26 97 17 7.7 164 3.981E+27 538 553 756 Mar 9 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 6.5 20 6.309E+25 68 9 1033 Dec 05 6.6 24 8.912E+25 81 12 6.1 10 1.584E+25 34 2 7.1 58 5.011E+26 192 70 1068 May 29 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 6.5 20 6.309E+25 68 9 1117 Jun 26 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 5.0 2 3.548E+23 5 0 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 1293 Jan 11–Feb 08 6.2 12 2.238E+25 41 3 5.7 5 3.981E+24 17 1 6.7 29 1.258E+26 97 17 1458 Nov 16 6.1 10 1.584E+25 34 2 5.6 4 2.818E+24 15 0 6.6 24 8.912E+25 81 12 1546 Jan 14 6.5 20 6.309E+25 68 9 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 7.0 49 3.548E+26 162 49 1643 Mar 23 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 5.0 2 3.548E+23 5 0 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 1817 Mar 5.5 4 1.995E+24 12 0 5.0 2 3.548E+23 5 0 6.0 9 1.122E+25 29 2 1834 May 26 6.3 14 3.162E+25 49 4 5.8 6 5.623E+24 21 1 6.8 34 1.778E+26 115 25 1927 Jul 11 6.2 13 2.660E+25 45 4 5.7 6 4.731E+24 19 1 6.7 32 1.496E+26 105 21

Total 1.391E+27 193 2.473E+26 34 7.672E+27 1066 Average (cm/y) 0.09 0.01 0.54 Average (1st Mill.) (cm/y) 0.15 0.02 0.85

Average (2nd Mill.) (cm/y) 0.03 0.007 0.21

Table 5: Seismic moments and slip rates of damaging events along the central part (C, Fig. 1) of the DST: Event – the date of the earthquake; M – average magnitude (Table 1); R.L. – Rupture length (Fig. 5, after Wells and Coppersmith 1994,); M0 –seismic moment in dyne/cm2; D – slip rate (cm/y) corresponding to the length of central part (~160 km) and DR–slip rate corresponding to the length of the rupture (R.L. / 160 * 100). For sensitivity tests, similar calculations were carried out for the average magnitude (M) minus and plus half (0.5) a magnitude degree.

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This is also apparent when inspecting the total seismic moment (M0). Using relation [1] with an

average slip rate of 0.5 cm/y yields an expected total seismic moment of 7.02E+27 dyne/cm2 for the

last two Millennia. However, the total accumulated seismic moment of the 17 central events is only

1.39106E+27 dyne/cm2 (Table 5). Similar increase of the magnitude by half degree results in a total

seismic moment of 7.67288E+27 dyne/cm2, which almost equals the expected value. This means

that an increase of ~0.5 degree magnitude to each of the historical events may potentially explain

the observed deficit of seismic moment. Whether the magnitudes of the historical events are indeed

underestimated is yet to be investigated, together with the incorporating of other factors that

dominate the tectonic slip such as possible creep and post-earthquakes deformation and slip (Hamiel

et al., 2016; Baer et al., 2008). This way or the other, determining the magnitude of the historical

events is of crucial importance.

Repeating damage patterns

The damage zones of the historical events (Fig. 3) seem to cluster in distinct groups that hint at

typical patterns recurring throughout history. The most prominent is the central pattern, which is

discussed first, and then the northern one. Characterization of the southern pattern, however, is

much more complex as relevant information is scarce.

The central pattern: The damages from the central (C) events such as the 659, 749,1033, 1293,

1458, 1546 and 1834, do not extend north of the Hula basin (latitude of ~33.2°) or south of the

Dead Sea (latitude of ~31°) (Fig. 3). In general their extent (749, 1033, 1293 and 1834 earthquakes)

equals or is slightly less (659, 1458 and 1546 earthquakes) than that of the M=6.2 1927 event (Figs.

4, 5). The similarity of the extents, however, does not enable us to determine magnitude values for

those events. Instead, we cautiously suggest that their sizes may have been roughly similar or less

than that of the 1927 event. This claim regarding the 1546 earthquake is in accordance also with

Ambraseys and Karcz (1992). On the other hand, we might be underestimating the size of the 749

event, for the details of this event are not clear and there is disagreement among the scholars (Karcz,

2004).

The central event of 363 CE deserves further attention. Cyril, the Bishop of Jerusalem, reported that

two consecutive earthquakes occurred on the night between the 18th and 19th of May 363 CE. In his

letter, he listed 22 affected localities with various degrees of destruction. Noted among the damaged

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localities was also ‘RQM,’ which was identified by Brock as Petra (Brock, 1977). Apart from Cyril,

who in our opinion is reliable, no other contemporary or near contemporary source mentions

damage to Petra. The others, potentially relevant reports, were determined as questionable and

suspected of having theological biases (Russell, 1980).

Resolving the question of damage to Petra is of great importance: Petra is located 80 km south of

any other reported locality; with Petra included, the noted spread of the damage is extended

enormously, which means that the 363 event should be considered as of a much higher magnitude

(Ambraseys & Jackson, 1998). Seemingly, the unclear identification of Petra, the problematic

sources and the geographically extreme distance of Petra from the other affected sites casts doubt on

the actual damage to Petra specifically from the 363 event. However, inscriptions found lately in the

excavation of ancient Zoar, southeast of the Dead Sea(Meimaris & Kritikakou, 2005), strengthen

the claim of damage to Petra. They document the death of four people during the 363 earthquake

and consequently imply that the damage had indeed extended southwards, at least to the south of the

Dead Sea area. This means the damage extent was similar to that of the 1927 Jericho earthquake in

case we exclude Petra, or greater than that of 1927 in case Petra is included. Still, the size

estimation of the 363event cannot be fully concluded for there are several possible interpretations of

the events Cyril reports on. One is that of the occurrence of two separate events, whereas the second

interprets a sequence of a main event followed by an aftershock or a pre-shock that precedes the

main event. Either way the data so far available to us does not enable resolving this issue unless we

assume that all the damage described by Cyril refers to the main event only.

The 363 event presents further complications since, in general, the damages from the C events and

also from several of the C-N and N events, do not extend south of the Dead Sea area (Fig. 3,

geographic latitude 31.5°). This raises the question as to whether the apparent diminished damage

reports southwards result from a true change in the tectonic style of activity south of the Dead Sea,

or rather from the lack of reporting due to the sparse population in these arid regions. We thus

suggest delineating a border (Fig. 3, southern dashed line) south of which the damage seems to

weaken. Whether this is an artifact of poor reporting or true tectonic behavior of the DST south of

the Dead Sea basin remains for future investigations. The 363 case also demonstrates an interesting

‘what-if’ scenario: had the detailed letter of Cyril not been discovered, the spread of the damage and

the magnitude assessments would have been considered much less than we reckon today. This

might also be the case of other earthquakes whereby events reported by fewer reports attract less

92

attention and thus might be underestimated while those having impressive descriptions might end

up as stronger than they actually were. More on missing data is discussed in the next section.

The northern pattern: The damage extent of the N and C-N events is much greater than that of the

C events (Fig. 4). Apart from the 303 and 502 events, the N and C-N events share damage extents

of more than 300 km, in particular the well-documented events of November 1759 and 1837 with

damage extents of nearly 600 km. Moreover, the temporal distribution of C-N and N events is

significantly different than that of the C events. While the central damaging events form a

recurrence pattern more regular in time, the northern ones are stronger and clustered in three major

sequences separated by a few hundred years of weak activity: between 303-551, 1063-1202 and

1759-1837. Although reports of damage in Syria and Lebanon during the mid-13thand mid-18th

centuries do exist(Ambraseys, 2009), no damage is reported in our area of interest. Had a large

earthquake occurred, the resulting damage would probably have been documented, particularly

from the 16th century onwards when information from western travelers in Palestine gradually

became known (Ish-Shalom, 1965; Röhricht, 1890). Thus, we assume that the clustering of the C-N

and N events do reflect the actual seismic activity.

The intervals of low and high activity in the northern DST may reflect accumulation of stresses

along several hundred years followed by a sudden release within a short period of 100-200 years.

Earthquakes in the central DST, however, occur more often and regularly: The 10 events in the

second millennia occur about every 100-150 years. This may explain the higher magnitudes of the

C-N and N events compared to the C ones. Interestingly, the DST system along the N and N-C

geographic parts splays into several branches and undergoes transpression while the C part is a

simple transtensional leaky transform (Garfunkel, 2010; Garfunkel et al., 1981). It seems that the

style of release of the stress accumulated along the DST (Garfunkel, 2010) changes along its

various segments. Certainly, these findings require further analysis of the mechanism.

The southern pattern: Reports of damage from the southern (S) events are much fewer than

elsewhere (Fig. 3). Only four events, in March 1068, 1212, 1588 and 1839 caused damage in the

southern part of the DST. Evidence of additional possible events appears in Niemi (2011), resolving

seismic activity along the Arava Valley and Gulf of Aqaba in the 4th, 7th - 8th, 11th -13th and 15th-16th

centuries, and thus suggests a three to five century recurrence rate of intense faulting.

Unfortunately, these few reports and information limit our ability to identify or conclude temporal

patterns.

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Severity of the damage

During historical times, many localities were reported to have been hit repeatedly (Table 6), with

Jerusalem leading the list (14 times). This is probably not only due to its proximity to the DST but

also to its being a continuous political and cultural center throughout time. The cities following are

Akko (Acre), Tiberias, Nablus and Tyre with 8, 7, 7 and 6 reports, respectively. However, these

figures represent only the reported damage and we suspect that other instances of damage,

particularly in remote or peripheral sites, may have occurred but were not documented. Close

examination of the N-S extent of damage of the various events (Fig. 3) may support this claim

because there are localities within the damage zones that were not reported to be hit. In our opinion,

it is reasonable to assume that localities in between two damaged sites might have been hit as well,

or at least might have experienced severe shaking (e.g.,Guidoboni & Ebel, 2009). Accordingly, it is

possible to list not only the sites that were explicitly reported to have been damaged, but also the

localities that might have been hit as well but not reported (Table 6).

It appears that the total number of the actual reports almost equals the number of the ‘missed’

accounts (Table 6) i.e., the incompleteness of the damage catalogue up to the 18th century is roughly

close to50%. Using this technique we also achieved some balance between several pairs of

neighboring cities that should have undergone, more or less, a similar history of severe shaking. For

example: Lod and Ramla; Akko (Acre) and Tyre; Tiberias and Bet-She’an; and Caesarea and Haifa.

Yet, in several cases such as Jerusalem and Jericho or Jerusalem and Bet-Lehem, such a balance is

not apparent. We assume that it is not necessarily because Jerusalem is more susceptible to damage

but rather due to the preferred attention it has attracted throughout history in comparison with the

other two cities. Altogether, this technique enables us to compensate for at least some of the missing

information and thus better estimate the actual number of times a given locality was affected, as

well as the average recurrence interval. For the sake of hazard assessment, it is important to realize

that such localities had undergone destructive shaking, whether populated or not and thus to be

aware of the actual hazard there.

Damage in ancient cities

Figure 6 presents histograms of the cumulative damage (reported and unreported) along with

severity estimations (Table 4) for the major ancient cities in our study area. Accordingly, Tyre,

Akko (Acre), Safed and Tiberias were reported to be heavily or severely hit at least four times.

South of the Galilee, most of the cities suffered much less; the only exceptions are Nablus and Bet

94

She’an with six and five hits of heavy damage, respectively. Thus, although the northern cities were

affected by fewer damaging earthquakes (mainly the C-N and N events), the historical experience

shows they suffered more severely than the central or southern cities. This conforms to our previous

understanding of the N and N-C events that tend to be more destructive (stronger) than the C events.

It should be stressed, however, that other reasons may affect the damage severity as well, such as

the proximity of a given site to the epicenter, construction quality and local site-effects (e.g.,

Zaslavsky et al., 2003). Nevertheless, in terms of preparedness towards and mitigation of future

events, these severity observations ought to be taken into consideration.

Cities closer to the Jordan valley are less reported than expected. This is not surprising as during the

last two millennia, the Jordan valley and Transjordan were much less populated than the coastal

plain and inland Israel. However, their proximity to the DST, the most probable seismogenic

source, suggests they might have experienced additional damage from that reported. Indeed, Bet

She’an, Jeresh, A-Salt, Jericho, Karak and Tafilah seem to have been damaged more than twice the

times known to us from the number of reports (Table 6). We back up this claim using the damage

distribution of the M=6.2 1927 Jericho earthquake (Avni, 1999), that originated at the northern

Dead Sea (Shapira et al., 1993; Zohar & Marco, 2012). The event damaged not only central Israel

but also A-Salt, Jeresh, Karak and Tafilah in Jordan. Its N-S damage spread is similar to that of

several type C events, e.g., the 363, 1033, 1293, 1458 and 1834 earthquakes (Fig. 3). Therefore, we

assume that these historical events, just like the 1927 event, damaged cities in or close to the Jordan

Valley as well. For instance, the 1546 event (Ambraseys & Karcz, 1992) caused damage in Karak

and Jeresh but we assume it affected also Jericho and A-Salt.

Most of the damage reports ascribed to Jerusalem are of a moderate degree and it was heavily

damaged only three times. However, although well documented and less than 30 km from the DST,

there is not a single report of severe damage. Nablus on the other hand, with similar proximity to

the DST, suffered much more, probably due to the influence of local site-effects (Katz & Crouvi,

2007). Comparison once again to the 1927 Jericho earthquake, Nablus was severely damaged with

dozens of casualties while Jerusalem suffered less with only a single death(Avni, 1999).

95

Locality X Y Max Severity

Number of times reported to be hit

Possible hits that were not

reported

Assumed damaging

shaking

Recurrence Interval (years)

Jerusalem 35.23 31.78 Heavy 14 2 16 121

Akko 35.07 32.93 Severe 8 1 9 217

Tiberias 35.54 32.79 Severe 7 4 11 177

Nablus 35.25 32.21 Heavy 7 6 13 150

Tyre 35.22 33.27 Severe 6 4 10 195

Ramla 34.87 31.92 Heavy 5 4 9 217

Banyas [IL] 35.62 33.24 Heavy 5 4-5 9-10 195-217

Haifa 35.00 32.82 Heavy 4 3-4 7-8 244-279

Jaffa 34.75 32.05 Severe 4 4 8 244

Hebron 35.10 31.53 Heavy 4 5 9 217

Gaza 34.46 31.50 Heavy 3 6 9 217

Safed 35.49 32.96 Severe 4 7 12 162

Jericho 35.45 31.86 Heavy 4 6 10 195

Lod 34.89 31.95 Heavy 4 8-9 12-13 150-163

Karak 35.69 31.18 Heavy 4 5 9 217

Bet-She'an 35.50 32.49 Heavy 3 7 10 195

Caesarea 34.89 32.50 Heavy 3 2 5 390 St. Catherine 33.98 28.56 Moderate 3 1 4 488 Elat 34.97 29.55 Severe 3 - 3 650

Bet-Lehem 35.20 31.70 Heavy 3 8-9 11-12 163-177

Nazareth 35.30 32.70 Heavy 3 5-6 8-9 217-244

Hasbaya 35.68 33.38 Severe 3 6 9 217

Total 104 98-103 202-207

Table 6: Localities reported to have been damaged at least three times between 31 BCE and 1927 CE in the study area, arranged in decreasing number of times. Ascribed to each locality are also its geographic X-Y coordinates; the maximal degree of severity (see also Figs. 4, 5); number of reports that mention damage at the given site; number of times a strong-damaging shaking may have affected that site but no reports are known from it (see text for explanation); the total number of times this site may have had a damaging shaking; and a rough estimate of the recurrence interval of damage according to the total assumed hits.

Along the coastal plain of Israel, Caesarea and Gaza were reported to be heavily damaged only once

while Jaffa, located in between, had severe maximal damage. The region of Jaffa, part of the coastal

and inner plain of Israel, which also contains the cities of Antipatris, Nicopolis (Emmaus), Lod and

Ramla, was affected more severely than one would expect. This was also apparent during the 1927

earthquake when Lod and Ramla were damaged much more than cities closer to the epicenter

96

(Shapira et al., 1993) such as Jerusalem and Jericho; like in Nablus, the dominancy of local site-

effect amplification might be the reason (Gvirtzman & Zaslavsky, 2009).

Figure 6: Recurrence of damage in major localities in Israel and its close surroundings (based on Table 6). Insets represent the number of times the given locality was hit, classified into severity of damage: L – Light, M – Moderate, H – Heavy and S – Severe (see definitions in Table 4). The gray bars denote the number of reports of damage in that locality while the hollow bars represent the assumed number of ‘missing’ reports, i.e., cases where strong shaking most likely affected that site but there were no reports from there.

97

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents a comprehensive examination of damage from historical earthquakes that

affected Israel and its close vicinity. It is the first time in Israel that such data was systematically

collected, screened, authenticated and stored within a relational database. We examined the data

within a GIS-based platform and characterized spatial and temporal patterns of the damage. Overall,

in 31 damaging events we counted 420 damage reports in186 localities, 54 of them reported to be

hit at least twice. The most reported site is Jerusalem with 14 hits, probably due to its close

proximity to the DST and to its being a continuous political and cultural center throughout history.

Following are Akko (Acre), Tiberias, Nablus and Tyre with 8, 7, 7 and 6 reports, respectively. We

also found that the total number of damage reports almost equals the number of estimated missing

reports, which supports the claim that the historical share covers only part of what had really

happened.

We classified the events by their north-south (N-S) damage extent and associated each with a

geographic part of the DST. Altogether we detected 4, 17, 8 and 2 events that struck the southern

(S), central (C), central-northern (C-N) and northern (N) parts of the DST, respectively. We found

that although the previous assessed magnitudes might have been underestimated, the extent of the

N-S damage serves as a good indicator of the size of the events. Accordingly, we graded the events

for which the information was sufficient. The damage extent and the size of the northern events

seem to be greater than that of the central events. In addition, apart from the southern events, the

damage seems (with the exception of the 363 event) not to extend south of the Dead Sea region

(geographic latitude of 31.5°). This may imply a possible change in the style of tectonic activity in

the southern (S) part of the DST, but could also be explained by the lack of reports from the desert

regions in southern Israel and Jordan, which are sparsely populated. The temporal distribution of the

northern (C-N and N) events is clustered in short periods of 100-200 years with low activity

intervals of several hundred years in between, while the central (C) events occur more regularly,

about every 100-150 years.

Evident is that localities in the Galilee and north of it suffered maximal damage more than localities

in central and southern Israel with a few exceptions: Nablus and its close surroundings and also the

coastal plain delineated roughly by Jaffa, Antipatris and Nicopolis (Emmaus). For the sake of

hazard management, these severity observations ought to be taken into consideration for future

planning and mitigation of earthquakes. We characterized the damage only by rough severity

98

degrees since we could not determine seismic intensity values from the historical reports. To do so,

further characterization of the construction styles and the quality of materials along the various

historical periods is required and, accordingly, developing an intensity scale suitable for our region.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We highly appreciate and thank Alon Moshe and Eliyahu Shara’bi from the Geological Survey of

Israel for their assistance in collecting and digitizing the data. Thanks are also due to Dr. Milka

Levy-Rubin from the National Library of Israel, Prof. Amikam Elad, Dr. Kate Raphael and Dr.

Katia Cytryn-Silverman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Shmuel Marco and Prof.

Gideon Biger from Tel Aviv University, Dr. Ezra Zilberman and Dr. Tsafrir Levi from the

Geological Survey of Israel and Prof. Thomas Rockwell from the San Diego State University for

their useful advice. We also thank Beverly Katz for editing the text. The research was funded by the

Ministry of National Infrastructures (Grants #210-17-006, #29-17-043), the Ministry of Science,

Technology and Space (Grant #10241), and the Amiran and Rachel Yanai’t Ben-Tzvi fellowships.

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SUMMARY

This study is focused mainly on the damage caused by historical earthquakes in and

around Israel and its close vicinity. In the absence of quantitative data such as the

magnitudes and epicenters of the historical events, the resulted damage becomes the most

valuable information one can utilize instead. Although previous studies have already

examined specific events,1 a comprehensive evaluation of past damage has not been done

before and was much needed, especially in Israel where damaging earthquakes are

inevitable. Thus, in this study the wealth of the existing damage descriptions was

collected, organized and interpreted; new cases of past damage were discovered; and

spatial and temporal patterns of damage during the last two millennia were characterized.

To begin with, the reports of the historical earthquakes were collected, the reliability of

each event was verified and a reliable inventory of events that hit or were felt in Israel

and its close surroundings was data-based and established (chapter 1). Although the

majority of the reports this inventory is based on already exists, it was essential to

classify, categorize and determine the reliability of the historical records of each and

every event. The inventory constructed enabled the examination of the temporal

distribution of the events as well as the incompleteness of the reports. Not surprisingly, it

was found that our knowledge of past earthquakes is only partial and the number of the

reports was primarily a result of the alternating attention Palestine received during the

various historical periods. In several periods, when the attention was focused on

Palestine, the number of the existing reports was relatively large whereas in other periods

Palestine was only a remote province and was poorly reported. Thus, few reports do not

necessarily reflect a reduction in seismic activity at that time. Apart from the scientific

interest, the updated inventory of the historical events has also practical contributions.

1 E.g., N. N. Ambraseys and C. P. Melville, An analysis of the Eastern Mediterranean earthquake of 20 May 1202, in: W. K. H. Lee, Meyers, H., and Shimazaki, K. (eds.), Historical Seismograms and Earthquakes of the World, Vol. 1, San Diego, California, 1988, 181-200; N. N. Ambraseys and M. Barazangi, The 1759 Earthquake in the Bekaa Valley - Implications for earthquake hazard assessment in the eastern Mediterranean region, Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth and Planets 94 (1989) 4007-4013; N. N. Ambraseys, The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in Southern Lebanon and Northern Israel, Annals of Geophysics 11 (1997) 923-935.

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For example, the anti-seismic building code (IC 413) of Israel is based, among other

factors, on the recurrence rate of historical events, and thus a reliable, up-to-date

catalogue will assist greatly in re-gauging the code.

Incompleteness of the historical record motivated attempts to uncover additional evidence

of past damage. While written sources were extensively explored and interpreted in the

various historical catalogues and literature,2 the visual sources seemed to be insufficiently

exploited. Thus, photographs, drawings, maps and sketches that contain a wealth of

information became invaluable sources. Unlike the written sources in which the language

and culture may be an obstacle for proper interpretation, the visual sources are less biased

and can be exploited more easily for identifying past damage. Moreover, recent

technological development provides powerful tools, available only in the last two

decades, enriching the analysis capabilities of these sources. Naturally, the most accurate

graphic evidence would be contemporaneous photographs and these have been available

from Palestine since 1839.3 In chapter 2, sequences of photographs prior and after the

1927 Jericho earthquake4 were examined in order to identify installations of iron anchors

on deteriorating walls in the Old City of Jerusalem. Consequently, it enabled portraying

in high resolution the spread of the damage that was not known before. Less accurate but

also invaluable are drawings, in particular those sketched prior to 1839. These were used

extensively in chapters 3 and 4 to detect the collapse of the al-Nabi Dau’d minaret during

2 E.g., N. N. Ambraseys, Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East. A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900, New York, 2009; E. Guidoboni, A. Comastri, G. Traina, Catalogue of Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century, Bologna, 1994; E. Guidoboni and A. Comastri, Catalogue of Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Mediterranean Area from the 11th to the 15th Century, Bologna, 2005.

3 The first photograph from Palestine was taken in 1839. See Y. Ben-Arieh, The western travelers books to Eretz Israel in the 19th century, Cathedra 40 (1986) 159-188 (Hebrew); Y. Ben-Arieh, Painting the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century, Jerusalem, 1997, 35-259; Y. Nir, The beginings of photography in the Holy Land, Cathedra 38 (1985) 67-80 (Hebrew); Y. Nir, The Bible and the Image: The History of Photography in the Holy Land, 1839-1899, Philadelphia, 1985, 31-35.

4 For more details on the 1927 earthquake see R. Avni, The 1927 Jericho earthquake, comprehensive macroseismic analysis based on contemporary sources, Ph.D., Department of Geography, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, 1999, 63 (Hebrew with English abstract).

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the 1834 earthquake5 and to reconstruct the destruction of Tiberias during the 1837

event,6 respectively. As far as I’m aware of, the latter is the earliest available

reconstruction of Tiberias at the time. The results presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 were

obtained using imagery and GIS software. The use of GIS in historical-geography

studies, referred to as HGIS (Historical GIS), won popularity worldwide7 and used in this

study for the first time in Israel in order to reveal new evidence of past damage. The use

of GIS was proved invaluable in some cases e.g., the construction of the 3D model of

damaged Tiberias after the 1837 earthquake (chapter 4), for it was not possible to

accomplish the investigation without it. Rotation of the models enabled views of the

spread of the damage from almost any angle or aspect, such as from the air, high above

the ground, views which were obviously not available at the time of the earthquake, and

allowed a better evaluation of the scope of the damage.

Once the damage reports and the newly discovered evidence were collected, classified

and their authenticity verified, temporal and spatial patterns of their distribution were

examined. The underlying hypothesis suggested that the cumulative spread of the damage

may reflect the seismic behavior of the DST.8 Thus, the DST was divided into three

geographical sub-regions according to the geological setting of the transform segments.

This way it was possible to categorize the historical earthquakes according to geographic

damage zones into southern, central and northern events, and to define repeating patterns

of the damage (chapter 5). In addition, the extents of earthquake damage in each of these

groups were calculated and compared with the damage caused by the well-documented

1927 earthquake. Since there should be a strong correlation between the affected area and 5 On the 1834 earthquake see N. N. Ambraseys, Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East. A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900, 642-643.

6 On the 1837 earthquake see N. N. Ambraseys, The earthquake of 1 January 1837 in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

7 I. N. Gregory and P. S. Ell, Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies, and Scholarship, Cambridge, 2007, 8-10; G. Rose, Visual Methodologies: an Introduction to Interpretive Visual Materials, London, 2001, 5-53.

8 On seismic activity behavior see for example N. N. Ambraseys, The 12th century seismic paroxysm in the Middle East: a historical perspective, Annals of Geophysics 47 (2004) 733-758.

109

size of the earthquake causing the damage,9 the events were classified into groups

representing events that were probably stronger, equal or weaker than the 1927

earthquake (with the reservation that there are no significant differences in the

vulnerability of the building stock). The question arising is whether these damage zones

might also indicate the origin, i.e., location (ruptured segment) and magnitude of the

earthquake. Nevertheless, the construction quality in the various historical periods in the

study area is not fully known, and thus it is not yet possible to evaluate the seismic

intensities that are required for assessing these source parameters. Yet, the findings in

chapter 5 indicate clearly the seismic hazard and the long term impact of the damage in

the populated localities.

The systematic and comprehensive damage-driven analysis presented in this study is an

original and up-to-date review of the historical earthquakes affecting Israel and the

damage they caused. This thesis is three-fold innovative: (1) it pioneers the study of

earthquake damage in Israel as a proxy for past seismicity; (2) it demonstrates the

effectiveness of an inter-disciplinary damage-focused investigation and the importance of

historical-geography as a base platform; and (3) it develops and introduces new

methodologies, supported by strong GIS capabilities, to track and analyze earthquake

damage. The study has also important practical aspects; it arrives at an original

understanding and characterization of the temporal and spatial patterns of the damage

caused by earthquakes and thus enables the Israeli decision makers and responsible

authorities to better evaluate the potential impact of future destructive earthquakes.

The research of earthquake damage in Israel has not as yet been exhausted and there is

still a long way to go. The database prepared herein together with the findings and the

conclusions establish a reliable and sound starting point for further investigations. There

is a need to focus on the damage scenario and impact of specific historical events as well

as to extend the investigation to other regions and geological settings along the DST.

9 E.g., O. W. Nuttli and J. E. Zollweg, The relation between felt area and magnitude for central United States earthquakes , Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 64 (1974) 73-85; G. A. Bollinger, M. C. Chapman, M. S. Sibol, A comparison of earthquake damage areas as a function of magnitude across the United States, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 83 (1993) 1064-1080.

110

Altogether, what was learnt through this research regarding the impact of past

earthquakes is now available for the benefit of our society today.

111

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Karcz, I., & Kafri, U. (1978). Evaluation of supposed archaeoseismic damage in Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science, 5(3), 237-253.

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אפיון דגמי נזק מרעידות אדמה בישראל וסביבתה בזמן ובמרחב. 5

מכלול נמצא כי. הראשון דגמי נזק מרחביים של רעידות האדמה שאובחנו בפרקבפרק זה אופיינו

4(דרומיות רעידות : מתאפיין בארבעה מופעים ייחודיים גרמו לנזק לאורך העתק ים המלחהרעידות ש

עוד . )רעשים 8(ן צפו-מרכזאזור המעבר רעידות בו ;)2(רעידות צפוניות , )17(ות מרכזירעידות , )אירועים

שכם , טבריה, עכוולאחריה , )דיווחים 14(הרב ביותר הואירושלים מספר הדיווחים על נזק בעולה כי

.)דיווחים בהתאמה 6-ו 7, 7, 8(וצידון

הצגתי, בישראל גרמו לנזקשההיסטוריות רעידות האדמה רשימת לשהערכה מחודשת עתי במחקר זה ביצ

בכל .דגמי נזק חוזריםאפיינתי מוכר עד כה למדע ו היהלא שנזק של ניתוח לכלים מתודולוגיים לאיתור ו

םהמחקר מציג גם כלים יישומיי, יתירה מכך. משמעותית לחקר רעידות האדמה בישראליש תרומה אלה

הערכת הנזק המצטבר או ) C-413(כגון רשימת אירועים עדכנית לכיול התקן הישראלי משמעותיים

צפויים לסייע בידי מקבלי ההחלטות והרשויות המוסמכות להעריך כלים אלו . בערים מרכזיות בישראל

.בעתיד אדמהרעידות של נכונה את פוטנציאל ההשפעה והנזק

1 Zohar, M., Rubin, R., &Salamon, A. (2014). Earthquake damage and repair: New evidence from Jerusalem on the 1927 Jericho earthquake. Seismological Research Letters, 85 (4), 912-922. doi: 10.1785/0220140009

2 Zohar, M., Rubin, R., &Salamon, A. (2015). Why is the minaret so short? Evidence on earthquake damage in Mt. Zion. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 147 (3), 230-246. doi: 10.1179/1743130114Y.0000000016

תקציר

הכוללות גם ,רעידות אדמה בלבנט רבות לקיומן שלעדויות השנים האחרונות הצטברו 3,000במהלך

רעידות האדמה לא פסחו על . שפיעת מעיינות והתנזלות, גלישות קרקעכגון נזקים ותופעות סביבתיות

הבנת הנזק שנגרם על כן קיימת חשיבות רבה ל. תנמנע-בלתיהיא באזורינו העתידיתהתרחשותן ו, ישראל

מטרת . עתידב דומיםלהתמודד עם אירועים ה של מדינת ישראליכולתאת לשפר כדי, מרעידות אלו

לבחון ולנתח את דיווחי הנזק הקיימים ולפתח שיטות לאיתור נזק שלא היה מוכר הנהי ה הנוכחיתעבודה

בישראל כמדד לסיסמיות נזק מרעידות אדמה הבמחקר בתחומה וחדשנית חלוצית העבודה. עד כה

:כוללת חמישה פרקיםהיא . אזורית בעבר

רשימה עדכנית של רעידות האדמה ההיסטוריות בישראל וסביבתה. 1

סריקה על בסיס, בישראל וסביבתה רשימה עדכנית ואמינה של רעידות אדמה היסטוריות נבנתהפרק זה ב

דגש מיוחד הושם על ניפוי הרשימה מאירועים . אלולרעידות םשל המקורות ההיסטורייוסינון מקיפה

.מסופקים וכפולים שנטמעו בה במהלך השנים ואשר היטו את הערכת הסיכון הסיסמי לחומרה, שגויים

, השנים האחרונות 2,000פעמים במהלך 32מניתוח הרשימה עולה כי ישראל וסביבתה הקרובה נפגעו

רשימה של רעידות אדמה הפרק כולל , על כך נוסף .לא מחזוריבאופן , שנים לערך 60 -אחת לכלומר

.פגעו בישראל שאכן התרחשו אךלגביהן נכתב שבטעותשנויות במחלוקת ורשימת רעידות אדמה

19271-ת מירושלים על רעידת האדמה בעדויות חדשו: נזקי רעידת אדמה ותיקונים. 2

למנוע התדרדרות כדי , עוגני מתיחהעל מבנים שניזוקו בירושלים הותקנו 1927-רעידת האדמה בלאחר

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