Where Worlds and Ideas Connect: The Caravanserai
Steve – If this will open for you, it is a great illustration of all the commercial and social considerations that would have gone on in a caravanserai. But please note that the one illustrated here is a Moslem establishment from a much later time. Yours will not be nearly this elaborate or well developed.
Dave – A hilltop like Shemer’s might have felt like a safe place to establish a caravanserai. Then, after Omri fortified it, even more attractive.
Steve – Yes. But these were probably not the big commercial caravans paying the heavy rents. Those would have been on the main N/S highways and would have been forts built specifically to protect the caravans. From my reading of the siting of Samaria it was chosen for it’s centrality to the kingdom and the fact it was a bit remote from the main action. Sort of like Dodge City being a cattle drive railhead but not the main one. So what existed in Samaria was a scaled down version of what existed out on the frontier. But the size of the garrison there would have been suitably large, so a big enough compound of stables and caravanserai for the regular supply trains coming thru.
