Pharan

Pharan

Early Christian bishop's see, fortified city with several Christian churches

Location

City complex of Pharan

Pharan (or Firan), is located in the southern Sinai Peninsula, approx. 40 km from the coast and about 50 km from al-Tur, ancient Raithou.

History

According to ancient tradition, the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites who were preventing them from passing through as mentioned in Exodus 17: 10-15 took place at Pharan, identified as the Biblical Rephidim. Coins found point to settlement going back to the 1st century BC. It thus developed parallel to the Nabatean immigration to Palestine, the tribe of the Pharanites probably being related to the Nabateans. Around the middle of the 4th century AD, the inhabitants of the town became Christians; at the end of that century, the city became a bishop's see. When the Arabs conquered the city, the inhabitants abandoned Pharan and most likely returned to nomadism.  

Objectives

Examination of the city complex and church structures including the necropolises. 

History of Research

	Church of St. Cosmas and Damian (town church)

The inhabitants of Sinai have never forgotten the town with its churches. The first written reports were provided by European travelers. Photos and maps were published by the officers of the British Ordnance Surveys (1869), who also excavated at a few locations in the cathedral. Since 1984, the DAI in Cairo has been carrying out systematic excavations in cooperation with St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai.  

Previous Activities

	View of houses and the church from the so-called acropolis.

Since 1984, a yearly approximately four-week excavation campaign has been conducted regularly with architectural history studies of the church complex and its auxiliary buildings as well as a few selected residences in the city. A map of the city complex has been made. Additionally, the numerous Nabatean inscriptions in the area were systematically recorded by A. Reichert (Tübingen). 

Current Work

Continuation of the architectural studies of various houses and a Nabatean temple complex on the so-called acropolis, compilation of the corpora of coins, inscriptions, and ceramics. 

Methods

Stratigraphic excavation and detailed recording (stone by stone) the building remains found. Recording the city complex was carried out using a polygon of fixed-point coordinates that was used as the starting basis for detailed recording. The acropolis was recorded using photogrammetric tools. The Nabatean inscriptions were photographed and their positions mapped. 

Results

	Western section of the cathedral

Pharan is the only settlement in the southern Sinai Peninsula organized as a city and it was also inhabited by an Arabic speaking population. It thus forms an interesting parallel to the Arabic Nabatean settlements in the Negev. The cathedral on the northern slope of the acropolis proved to be similar in structure to the type of cruciformed churches. The church dedicated to St. Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of physicians and pharmacists, appears to have also been used as a treatment centre. However, the small church from the last decades of the 4th century, located on the top of the Gabal Tahuna (Mill Mountain) opposite the city, which has a single pair of interior supporting pillars, is also the oldest example of a wide arched basilica, otherwise found almost exclusively in Syria. 

Cooperation

with the Greek-Orthodox St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. 

Further Contact Partners

Dr. Peter Grossmann, c/o Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) in Kairo
sonst privat: Valtinon 50, GR-11474 Athen, Tel. 00301-6429924

Bibliography

C.W. Wilson-H.S. Palmer, Ordnance survey of the peninsula of Sinai (Southampton 1869) I-III passim;
M.-J. Lagrange, Chronique. De Suez à Jérusalem par le Sinaï. I : De Suez au Sinaï, Rev.Bibl. 5 (1896) 618-643;
R. Weill, La presqu'île du Sinai, étude de géographie et d'histoire (Paris 1908) 205-234;
L. Prévost, Le Sinai hier ... aujourd'hui (Paris 1937) 246-253;
I. Hershkovitz, The Tell Mahrad population in Southern Sinai in the Byzantine Era, IEJ 38, 1988, 47-58;
R. Solzbacher, Mönche, Pilger und Sarazenen (Altenberge 1989) 411-420;
P. Grossmann, Die antike Stadt Pharan. Ein archäologischer Führer (Cairo 1998);
Diverse Grabungsvorberichte in: Göttinger Miszellen (GM) und Byzantinische Zeitschrift (ByzZ)