chapter began. This prolific wanderer spent about thirteen years traveling
mostly in the Mediterranean basin and in the Middle East, roughly between
1159 and 1173. Benjamin’s travels came relatively soon after the first significant
attack on the Crusader states by Zengi in 1144 , which occurred after the defeat
of the Seljuks of Sanjar by Central Asians in 1141 —a moment of major global
power shifts.
While most of the stories in his bestsellingItinerarioare based on actual
experiences, Benjamin incorporates numerous fictional anecdotes, traditions,
and legends. In this regard, Benjamin’s itinerary is at once concrete and
mythical, and his travels can be read in real time and real space, as well as in
a hypertext that reflects scripture, Talmudic and oral tales, and the history of the
locations he visited. The result is a unified narrative made of actual geography,
history, legend, and rumor. This hypertext is not only reserved to the ten tribes.
Benjamin furnishes othertopoi—Jerusalem, for instance—with similar lore.
A learned scholar, Benjamin cites rabbinic literature and scripture. Unlike Eldad,
he is not interested in concealing his movements or sources, and he takes care to
record the details of his travels in space.^61 His meticulous accountings allow us to
reconstruct Benjamin’s course with a degree of accuracy. And since he does
eventually discuss the ten tribes, Benjamin’s itinerary allows us to view the
world from which the ten tribes were imagined, to see them in the context of
the real travel itself as a sort of ever-lurking point of geographic reference.
Benjamin’s description of the ten tribes reflects in many ways the stories of
Eldad in combination with Prester John’s additions and adoptions. One can
almost put one’s finger on the page and mark the place where Benjamin enters
the ten tribes’ world, moving from the concrete map to the hypertext, as he
moves from giving an account of places he has actually seen, to discussing
places he has not physically visited.
Benjamin begins his hypertextual journey as he discusses Hamadan,
formerly known as Ecbatana. Hamadan is a real place that recently had gained
some new significance. Recall here that Hamadan is the city (according to
Bishop Hugo of Jabala) that had been stormed by Prester John. Benjamin was
undoubtedly aware that this ancient city was the capital of Medes. Located in
the foothills of the Alvand mountain chain, it was close to the ancient city of
Nahavand. The old biblical locations of the ten tribes were “the cities of
Medes,” and the Talmud mentions Nahavand and the mountains of Salug
(Snow Mountains) in connection to them. No doubt, this came to Benjamin’s
mind as he approached Hamadan:
[This] is the great city of Media, where there are 30 , 000 Israelites. In
front of a certain synagogue, there are buried Mordecai and Esther.