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| The fountain in Jaffa where the inscription was found [Credit: Nicky Davidov/Israel Antiquities Authority] |
Prof. Moshe Sharon from Hebrew University translated the engraving, which describes an exquisite mosque built during the rule of Mamluk sovereign al-Malik a-Din Barquq.
The slab has two parallel inscriptions. Much of the text sits inside the wall of the fountain, and only the section protruding from the wall has been read.
Barquq, a former slave of Circassian extraction, ruled from 1382-1389, and again from 1390-1399.
Archaeologists determined that since the slab was inserted facing upwards, far above passersby, it was not originally located in the fountain. Rather, it was carried to Jaffa from another city.
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| The inscription in the fountain [Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority] |
Dr. Yoav Arbel of the Israel Antiquities Authority said that since Jaffa was destroyed in the 1300s, and sat unpopulated during Barquq’s reign, the mosque could not have been in Jaffa itself.
Most marble and stone used in the restoration of Jaffa after Napoleon’s retreat in 1799 came from the ruins of Caesaria and Ashkelon, but “these cities were razed by the Mamluks more than a hundred years before the rule of Barquq,” said Arbel. “The possibility that an extravagant mosque was in one of them is not realistic.”
The fountain, called “Sabil Suleiman,” was built in 1810 by Jaffa’s ruler Muhammad Agha, or “Abu Nabut.”
The restoration work on the fountain is being carried out by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality, the Tourism Ministry and IAA as part of a multi-year NIS 100 million plan to develop tourism in Jaffa.
Author: Lazar Berman | Source: The Times of Israel [June 25, 2013]
