Place names of Palestine
Many place names in Palestine were Arabized forms of ancient Hebrew and Canaanite place-names used in biblical times or later Aramaic formations.
Shortly thereafter, the British Mandatory authorities set out to gather toponymic information from local fellahin, who had been proven to have preserved knowledge of the ancient place names which could help identify archaeological sites.
[6] In his 4th-century work, the Onomasticon, Eusebius of Caesarea provides a listing of the place-names of Palestine with geographical and historical commentary, and his text was later translated into Latin and edited and corrected by Jerome.
[17] These surveys by Robinson the PEF, and other Western biblical geographers in late 19th and early 20th centuries, also eventually contributed to the shape of the borders delineated for the British Mandate in Palestine, as proposed by the League of Nations.
[19] He attributes this continuity to the common Semitic background of Palestine's local inhabitants throughout the ages, and the fact that place names tended to reflect extant agricultural features at the site in question.
For example, some place names incorporate the Semitic root for "spring" or "cistern", such as Beersheba or Bir as 'Saba, ("be'er" and "bir" meaning "well" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively) and En Gedi or 'Ayn Jeddi ("en" and "'ayn" meaning "spring" in Hebrew and Arabic respectively).
[22] Haim Ben-David notes that the word "caphar" appears just once in the Hebrew Bible (for Cephar-ammoni) but much more frequently in later sources, which implies it is of Aramaic origin and was introduced to the area only during the Second Temple period.
[27] Other examples are the names of Capitolias, which was referred to in the 6th century Talmud in Aramaic as Bet Reisha, and was later translated to Arabic as Beit Ras,[28][29][30][26] and the Ladder of Tyre, also known in Rabbinic literature as Lavanan or Lavlavan (from the Hebrew: לבן, "white"), was later translated into Arabic as Ras el-Bayda (White head), and into Latin by the Crusaders, as Album Promontorium.
[26] The Hebrew letter Ḥet (ח) is correctly Ḥāʾ (ح) in Arabic, though frequently also Ḫāʾ(خ), and sometimes 'Ayn (ع) takes its place (as happened in Beth Horon > Beit 'Ur).
The Jews of Galilee (specifically in Haifa, Beth-shean and Tiv'on) were already "producing Ayins as Alephs," according to rabbinic literature, which already makes notice of this shift.
[32] The vast majority of place-name identifications are made upon their similarity to existing Palestinian Arabic place names, or else upon the assessment of other geographical information provided by the Biblical texts.
[35] James B. Pritchard wrote in 1959 that of the thousands of ancient places throughout Palestine known by name from the Hebrew Bible and historical sources, only four had then been identified based on inscriptions found during archaeological excavations at the respective locations:[33] Gezer (boundary stones near Tell el-Jazari), Beit She'an (an Egyptian stela of Seti I found at Beisan), Lachish (the Lachish lettersfound at Tell ed-Duweir) and Gibeon (the Al Jib jar handles).
