JERUSALEM CRICKET

also called Sand Cricket, any insect of the orthopteran family Stenopelmatidae of about 35 species. It is large, brownish, and awkward and is found in Asia, South Africa, and North and Central America. The Jerusalem cricket is active at night and spends the day beneath rocks or sand. Its thick, heavily armoured front legs are used for digging. History The early period Ancient origins The earliest traces of human settlement in the city area, found on a hill to the southeast, are from the late Chalcolithic Period and Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC). Excavations have shown that a settlement existed on the site south of the Temple Mount, and a massive town wall was found just above the Gihon Spring, which determined the location of the ancient settlement. The name, known in its earliest form as Urusalim, is probably of western Semitic origin and apparently means Foundation of Shalem (Foundation of God). The city and its earliest rulers, the Egyptians, are mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts (c. 19001800 BC) and again in the 14th-century Tell el-Amarna correspondence, which contains a message from the city's ruler, Abdi-Kheba (Abdu-Heba), requiring his sovereign's help against the invading Hapiru (Habiru, 'Apiru). A biblical narrative mentions the meeting of Canaanite Melchizedek, said to be king of Salem (Jerusalem), with the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, and in a later episode it mentions another king, Adonizedek, who headed an Amorite coalition and was vanquished by Joshua. About the year 1000 BC Jerusalem, on the frontier of Benjamin and Judah, inhabited by a mixed population described as Jebusites, was captured by David, founder of the joint kingdom of Israel and Judah, and the city became the Jewish kingdom's capital. His successor, King Solomon, extended the city and built his Temple on the threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan) the Jebusite. Thus Jerusalem became the place of the royal palace and the sacred site of a monotheistic religion. On Solomon's death the northern tribes seceded. In 922 BC the Egyptian pharaoh Sheshonk I sacked the city, to be followed by the Philistines and Arabians in 850 and Joash of Israel in 786. After Hezekiah became king of Judah, he built new fortifications and an underground tunnel, which brought water from Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam inside the city, but he succumbed to the might of Sennacherib of Assyria, who in 701 forced payment of a heavy tribute. In 612 Assyria yielded its primacy to Babylon. Eight years later Jerusalem was despoiled, and its king was deported to Babylon. In 587/586 BC the city and Temple were completely destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar, and the captivity began. It ended in 538 BC when Cyrus II the Great of Persia, who had overcome Babylon, permitted the Jews, led by Zerubbabel, of the Davidic house, to return to Jerusalem. The Temple was restored (515 BC) despite Samaritan opposition, and the city became the centre of the new statehood and its position strengthened when Nehemiah (c. 444) restored its fortifications. Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods With the coming of Alexander the Great and his victory at Issus in 333 BC, Jerusalem was drawn for the first time into the orbit of Western power politics. After Alexander's death, Palestine fell to the share of his marshal, Ptolemy I Soter, son of Lagus, who had occupied Egypt and had made Alexandria his capital. In the year 198 BC Jerusalem was acquired by the northern dynasty, descended from Seleucus I Nicator, another of Alexander's marshals, which ruled from Antioch (contemporary Antakya, Tur.). The growth of Greek, or pagan, influence affronted the orthodox, whose hostility burst into armed rebellion in 167 BC after the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes had deliberately desecrated the Temple. The revolt was led by a pious countryman called Mattathias, son of Hasmoneus (Hasmon), and was carried on by his son Judas, known as the Maccabee. The Hasmoneans succeeded in expelling the Seleucids, and Jerusalem regained its position as the capital of an independent state ruled by the priestly Hasmonean dynasty.