HISTORY

The history of Jaffa Port dates back to the Bronze Age. It is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1470 before Christ, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, who hid armed warriors in large baskets and gave the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor. The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, (Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33). The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 before Christ. Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters (130 ft) and offers a commanding view of the coastline. Hence its strategic importance in military history. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even higher.
		Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Bible, as one of the cities given to the Tribe of Dan (Book of Joshua 19:46), as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple (2 Chronicles 2:16), as the place whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah 1:3) and as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Book of Ezra 3:7). It was also an important city in the Arab Middle East. During the Crusades, it was the County of Jaffa, a stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Jaffa is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of the Tribe of Dan, hence the term "Gush Dan", used today for the coastal plain. Many descendants of Dan lived along the coast and earned their living from shipmaking and sailing. In the "Song of Deborah" the prophetess asks: "Why doth Dan dwell in ships?" King David and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used its port to bring the cedars used in the construction of the First Temple from Tyre. The city remained in Jewish hands even after the split of the Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BC, in the days of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, invaded the region from Jaffa.
Armenian Church The port of Jaffa was conquered by all the major empires in the region throughout history – Egyptian, Jewish, Roman, Crusader, Arab, Ottoman & Napolean. Indeed the remnants of a Crusader wall, dating from 1044, are visible in the apartment's car park located underneath the Armenian Church complex. Napolean visited the Armenian Church when it served as a hospital for his soldiers who had succumbed to a plague after conquering the city in 1799. He is purported to have asked his doctor to poison those men who could not make the return journey, as he did not wish for them to fall into the hands of the Turks. The doctor famously replied, "My job is to heal them, not to kill them." Andromeda's Rock Greek mythology tells of Perseus, who on his return to Olympus after slaying the monster Medusa, flew on the winged horse Pegasus, over a rock just off the port of Jaffa, on which a beautiful young maiden, Andromeda, was chained. She told him a sad story: Every year a dragon appeared from the depth of the sea to terrorize the residents of Jaffa. In order to appease the dragon, a young maiden was sacrificed. The lot had fallen upon Andromeda this year and she was waiting for the dragon to devour her. Perseus fell in love on the spot, and when the dragon appeared, he slayed it. As an offering of thanks, he was given Andromeda's hand in marriage and they lived together happily ever after.