SAGU & AMPA
SA-GU-U
North of
the Rawsch Chaqaa lies the next (10th) town which Esarhaddon in 676 BC sums up
when he describes the kingdom of Sidon. The old village of Chekka, or šaqqa,
built on a hill, most likely corresponds to the šigata of the Amarna correspondence
and the Sa-gu-u of Esarhaddon’s list. That is all what E.Lipinski says about it
in his Itineraria Phoenicia. There is no motivation. But he is in good company,
because also G.Kestemont in “Tyre
Back to the
name of the town in the Amarna correspondence. There it is seven times
mentioned. EA 74 is important: Abdi-Aširta has taken šigata to himself! EA 76
als: Gaz-people against šigata!
The
Bordeaux Itinerary places the name TRICLIS halfway between Tripoli
Meanwhile
we have already passed a big promontory: Rawsch Chaqaa. This cape has not
mentioned by Esarhaddon but several classical writers did so all the more. The
Greek name of the promontory was Theouprosopon, which means “face of god”. This
name is probably of Phoenician “Penu’el” which must have designated the white
stone of the cliff, going down precipitously into the sea and offering an
impressive view to sailors doubling the headland or shaping the course of their
vessels from Cyprus
The
(Penu’el) could be connected with a memory-stone and inscription out of the Western Mediterranean , which says: “…it being a tall
stone <engraved> with the figure of Baalhammon, his face to the West and
his back to the East.” (KAI 78.4/6). It confirms exactly the direction the
Phoenician choose and in the case of Penu’el it was the god EL whose name was
invoked. See: Krahmalkov: Dictionary, Leuven ,
2000. p.399/400.
AM-PA
In December
2012 Fadi Nassar paid already attention to this place and Roux Renard made a
comparison with Brean peninsula in Somerset (UK).
Four
kilometres north of Chekka and 16 km southwest of Tripoli, the peninsula of
Anfe is the site of Am-pa in Esarhaddon’s list and most likely of Ambi in the
time of the Canaanites and in the Amarna correspondence. This Ambi is mentioned
seven times, of which EA 102.20 is important: Ambi is hostile (to Rib Addi of
Gubla).
Ampa or
Ambi was certainly the site of the Phoenician city, called “nose”, because it
enters “like a nose” into the sea. Unfortunately we don not know the Phoenician
name for nose.
In later
times it is the NEPHIN of the Crusaders, a dependence of the Counts of Tripoli
and the Anf al-Hagar, “the Stone Nose”, of al-Idrisi (Nuzhat al Muštaq fi
ihtiraq al afaq).
The castle
of the Crusaders occupied the promontory, which is about 400 meters long ans
only 125 meters wide in its widest point.
See:Itineraria
Phoenicia
See:Les
Ports Phéniciens et Puniques, Carayon, Strassbourg 2008.
See:Cuatro
estudios sobre los dominios territoriales de las ciudades-estado fenicia,
Belmonte, Barcelona 2003.
ncfps
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