Description

The Onomasticon, a monumental endeavor begun in the 1960s by the late Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah, collates all the known Greek and Latin literary and documentary sources mentioning geographical and ethnic names attested in Iudaea, under the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasties, and in the Roman and Byzantine provinces of Palaestina and Arabia - an area today spread over Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Sinai and southern Syria. The source texts, dating from the fourth century BCE to the seventh century CE, are culled from over 1,300 texts by more than 750 separate authors, and from papyri, inscriptions and coins. The individual place names are arranged in alphabetical entries, each presenting a comprehensive collection of excerpts from the texts in which that place is mentioned. Where possible, the places are identified and described on the basis of up-to-date archaeological and bibliographical research. Volume I contains an annotated bibliography of the primary source texts, a collection of major texts from which many of the sources in the alphabetical entries are excerpted, and a listing of all the place names covered in the series. Volume II, in two parts, will contain the entries for geographical names beginning with the letter A, including the massive entry for Arabia.