Sicaminon
The port at the foot of Mount Carmel, today Haifa.
Description[edit | edit source]
Maria Valtorta gives a detailed description of the place."At the end of the bay there is a desert beach, with some hovels of fisherme [...] the end of the bay, which protrudes into the sea like a bent arm [...] with the surf rustling on the pebbly shore [...] They move away from the houses about two hundred metres and they sit on a huge boulder, which I do not know whether it is the ruin of a pier, or the extreme ramification of a cliff fallen into the sea, or the wreck of one of the little houses swallowed by the water that through centuries advanced on the shore."[1]Today, it is possible to observe satellite views to appreciate the precision of this description from 1945.
Significant events[edit | edit source]
The significant event does not specifically concern Sicaminon, but the journey in which it is included. In the spring of the second year of his public life, Jesus organizes the first apostolic journey accompanied by the Women disciples, throughout Galilee: from Nazareth to Sicaminon and Caesarea on the Sea.Mary of Magdala (Magdalene), a new convert, fears returning to the places of her past wanderings, but this will be the way to publicly show her victory over herself."'Where shall we go first, Master?''To Bethsaida. Afterwards we shall go to Nazareth via Magdala, Tiberias and Cana. From Nazareth we shall proceed to Bethlehem in Galilee via Japhia and Shimron and then to Sicaminon and Caesarea…' Jesus is interrupted by an outburst of weeping of the Magdalene. He raises His head, looks at her and then continues as nothing had happened: 'At Caesarea you will find your wagon. That is the instruction I gave the servant and you will go to Bethany. We shall meet later, at the Feast of the Tabernacles.'
Mary Magdalene collects herself at once, she does not reply to her sister’s questions, but she goes out of the room and probably withdraws to the kitchen for a little while.
'Jesus, Mary suffers on hearing that she has to come to certain towns. We must understand her… I am saying this more for the disciples than for You» remarks Martha humbly and worried.
'That is true, Martha. But it must be so. If she does not face the world at once and does not overcome public opinion, which is a dreadful torturer, her heroic conversion will be paralysed. She must do that at once and in our company.'"[2]
Its name[edit | edit source]
Sicaminon, Sykaminon, Tel Shikmona, Haifa. The name Sykaminon, under which the port was known in Antiquity, would come from the Sycamore fig.
Where is it mentioned in the work?[edit | edit source]
GRM 239 GRM 250
Learn more about this place[edit | edit source]
The village was located on the tip of the Carmel cape, at the western end of the bay of present-day Haifa. Excavations carried out in 1963-1964, 1.3 km southwest of the Carmel cape, proved that the site was occupied since the Bronze age.
Explore[edit | edit source]
- 32° 49’ 31’’ N / 34° 57’ 20’’ E /
- +10m.
Notes and references[edit | edit source]
Article partially based on the Geographical Dictionary of the Gospel by Jean-François Lavère.