ABSTRACT
PALESTINE has occupied throughout history an important strategic position between Egypt and Mesopotamia and between Egypt and Asia Minor. Its communications, therefore, have from early times been of great importance. Two immemorial routes pass by it or through it: one, from Damascus south and west by the plains of Esdraelon and Megiddo and over the Carmel ridge to Philistia-the 'Way of the Sea' to Egypt (p. 344); the other, east of the Jordan depression to south-west Arabia (p. 435). Both were great caravan routes, linking up the trading centres of the Euphrates and southernmost Arabia with the ports of the eastern Mediterranean. Of these ports only Acre (Ptolemais) is now within the limits of Palestine and its functions have been taken over by Haifa; the ancient Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon, now in the State of the Lebanon, have lost their importance.
