Ptolemais

PTOLEMAIS (Ac.21.7) - The same as Acco (Jg.1.31), now the port 'Akka, called in the West, since Crusading times. Acre or St. Jean d'Acre. The city of early times lay at Tell el-Fukhkhar, E. of the present port; sherds of 2200-900 BC are found there. Acco received the name Ptolemais some time in the 3rd cent. BC, probably in honour of Ptolemy II., but although this name was in common use for many centuries, it reverted to its Semitic name after the decline of Greek influence. Although so very casually mentioned in OT and NT, this place has had as varied and tragic a history as almost any spot in Palestine. On a coast peculiarly unfriendly to the mariner, the Bay of 'Akka is one of the few spots where nature has lent its encouragement to the building of a harbour; its importance in history has always been as the port of Galilee and Damascus, of the Hauran and Gilead, while in the days of Western domination the Roman Ptolemais and the Crusading St. Jean d'Acre served as the landing-place of governors, of armies, and of pilgrims. So strong a fortress, guarding so fertile a plain, and a port on the highroad to such rich lands to north, east, and south, could never have been overlooked by hostile armies, and so we find the Egyptian Thothmes in., Seti I., and Rameses II., the Assyrian Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, and several of the Ptolemies engaged in its conquest or defence. It is much in evidence in the history of the Maccabees - a queen Cleopatra of Egypt holds it for a time, and here some decades later Herod the Great entertains Caesar. During the Jewish revolt it is an important base for the Romans, and both Vespasian and Titus visit it. In later times, such warriors as Baldwin I. and Guy de Lusignan, Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin, Napoleon I. and Ibrahim Pasha are associated with its history.

In the OT Acco is mentioned only as one of the cities of Asher (Jg.1.31), while in Ac.21.7 Ptolemais occurs as the port where St. Paul landed, 'greeted the brethren and stayed with them for one day,' on his way to the new and powerful rival port, Caesarea which a few decades previously had sprung up to the south.

The modern 'Akka (16,000 inhabitants) is a city, much reduced from its former days of greatness, situated on a rocky promontory of land at the N. extremity of the bay to which it gives its name. The sea lies on the W. and S. and somewhat to the E. The ancient harbour lay on the S., and was protected by a mole running E. from the S. extremity, and one running S. from the SE. corner of the city. Ships of moderate dimensions can approach near the city, and the water is fairly deep. The walls, partially Crusading work, which still surround the city, are in the ruined state to which they were reduced in 1840 by the bombardment by the English fleet under Sir Sidney Smith. Extending from Carmel in the S. to the 'Ladder of Tyre' in the N., and eastward to the foothills of Galilee, is the great and well-watered 'Plain of Acre,' a region which, though sandy and sterile close to the sea, is of rich fertility elsewhere and is dotted with ancient tells. The two main streams of this plain are the Nahr Na'man (R. Belus), just S. of 'Akka, and the Kishon near Carmel.

Under modern conditions, Haifa, with its better anchorage for modern steamships, and its railway to Damascus, has usurped the place of 'Akka. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - E.W.G.M. - E.G.K.]