most westerly point. Other through tracks in Palestine ran then as they
do to-day, by Beesheba and Hebron, or along the 'Arabah and west of the
Dead Sea, or through Edom and east of Jordan by the present Hajj route
to Damascus. But the great highway from Egypt, the most westerly of
the trunk-roads through Palestine, was that mainly followed, with some
variant sections, by both caravans and armies, and was known by the
Hebrews in its southern course as the "Way of the Philistines" and
farther north as the "Way of the East".

The plain of Esraelon, where the road first trends eastward, has been
the battle-ground for most invaders of Palestine from the north, and
though Egyptian armies often fought in the southern coastal plain, they
too have battled there when they held the southern country. Megiddo,
which commands the main pass into the plain through the low Samaritan
hills to the southeast of Carmel, was the site of Thothmes III's famous
battle against a Syrian confederation, and it inspired the writer of the
Apocalypse with his vision of an Armageddon of the future. But invading
armies always followed the beaten track of caravans, and movements
represented by the great campaigns were reflected in the daily passage
of international commerce.

With so much through traffic continually passing within her borders,
it may be matter for surprise that far more striking evidence of its
cultural effect should not have been revealed by archaeological research
in Palestine. Here again the explanation is mainly of a geographical
character. For though the plains and plateaus could be crossed by the
trunk-roads, the rest of the country is so broken up by mountain and
valley that it presented few facilities either to foreign penetration
or to external control. The physical barriers to local intercourse,
reinforced by striking differences in soil, altitude, and climate,