Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

Just inside the town wall is a modern Moslem mosque, dedicated to the “Ten Sons of Jacob,” and the site is probably connected with an ancient tradition of the tombs of the sons of Israel mentioned by St. Jerome in his account of St. Paula’s travels. Olive-groves extend eastwards for half a mile from the town, and on the west also there are groves where the lepers have taken up their abode. The ancient ruins extend some way beyond the walls on the east, and the foundations of a former monastery exist above the road on the south-west.

South of Nâblus rises the rocky and steep shoulder of Gerizim. The mountain is L-shaped; the highest ridge (2848·8 feet above the sea) runs north and south, and a lower ridge projects westwards from it. The top is about 1000 feet above the bottom of the valley east of Shechem. As compared with other Judean mountains, the outline of Gerizim is very fine; the lower part consists of white chalk, which has been quarried, leaving huge caverns visible above the groves which clothe the feet of the hill. Above this formation comes the dark blue Nummulitic limestone, barren and covered with shingle, rising in ledges and long slopes to the summit. The whole of the northern face of the mountain abounds with springs, the largest of which, with ruins of a little Roman shrine to its Genius, was close to our camp.

In ascending to the summit of the western spur of Gerizim, by the path up the gully behind our camp, the contrast was striking between the bright green of the gardens, dotted with red pomegranate blossoms, and the steel-grey of the barren slope. Riding eastwards and gradually ascending, we first reached the little drystone enclosures and the oven used during the Passover. There are scattered stones round, but no distinct ruins of any buildings; the place is called Lôzeh or Luz, but the reason of this appears to have escaped notice. The title is of Samaritan origin, and is due to their view that Gerizim is the real site of Bethel or Luz, the scene of Jacob’s vision.

The highest part of the mountain is covered by the ruins of Justinian’s fortress, built 533 A.D., in the midst of which stands Zeno’s church, constructed in 474 A.D. The foundations alone are visible, showing an octagon with its entrance on the north, and remains of six side chapels; the fortress is a rectangle 180 feet east and west, 230 north and south, with towers at the corners; that on the south-west being now a little mosque dedicated to Sheikh Ghanim, who is, according to the Samaritans, Shechem the son of Hamor. The fortress walls are built of those constantly recurring drafted stones which are often loosely described as Jewish or Phœnician masonry, though the practised eye soon discriminates between the original style of the Temple at Jerusalem, and the rude rustic bosses of the Byzantines and Crusaders.

A large reservoir exists, north of the castle which is called El Kŭl’ah in Arabic, and below this a spur of the hill projects, artificially severed by a ditch and covered with the traces of a former fortress. This is perhaps the station of the Roman guards, who thus prevented the Samaritans from approaching Gerizim, for it commands the north-eastern ascent to the mountain.

Of the ancient Samaritan Temple, probably the only relics are the remains of massive masonry known as the “Ten Stones” (’Asherah Balatât), near the west wall of Justinian’s fortress. They are huge blocks rudely squared, forming one course of a foundation, the north-west corner of which was laid bare by Captain Anderson’s excavation in 1866. There are two courses, and the lower one contains thirteen stones; this course, however, was not formerly visible, and the Samaritans considered ten stones alone to lie buried, and to be those brought from Jordan at the time of Joshua—thus supposing some supernatural agency sufficient to carry such huge blocks up a steep slope 1000 feet high, to say nothing of the journey from the Jordan. Under these stones, as before noticed, the treasures of the old Temple are supposed to lie hidden.

South of the fortress is one of those flat slabs of rock which occur all over the summit. It shelves slightly down westward, and at this end is a rock-cut cistern. The whole is surrounded by a low drystone wall. This is the Sacred Rock of the Samaritans, and the cave is traditionally that in which the tabernacle was made. At the time of my second visit some peasants were using the Sacred Rock as a threshing-floor. Rude stone walls extend on every side, and farther south there is a curious flight of steps leading down east. They are called the “seven steps of Abraham’s altar,” and just beneath them, on the edge of the eastern precipice at the southern extremity of the plateau, there is a little trough cut in the rock resembling the Passover oven. This the Samaritans suppose to be the site of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, for their version of the story reads “Moreh” instead of Moriah, and makes Gerizim the scene of the Patriarch’s trial.

This question has been taken up by Dean Stanley, who favours the Samaritan view; but it must not be forgotten that Moriah is distinctly stated in the Bible (2 Chron. iii. 1) to be the hill on which the Temple was built at Jerusalem, as also the scene of Isaac’s sacrifice (Gen. xxii. 2).

The view from the summit of Gerizim is extensive and interesting. Northward the dome-like top of Ebal shuts out the distance, whilst the eastern half of Nâblus, with its gardens, is seen below. The numerous hills of the “Land of Tampne,” as the Crusaders called it, with the dark wooded height of Jebel Hazkin, or “Ezekiel’s Mountain,” and the gorge which leads down by Salem to the waters of Ænon, appear to the right. On the east the broad Plain of Moreh lies at our feet, and the mountains of Gilead rise blue and clear behind; in the middle of the plain stands ’Awertah, the place of entombment of the sons of Aaron; farther south are the mountains round Shiloh, and Tell ’Asûr (the ancient Baal Hazor), loftier than even Ebal itself by some 300 feet. The ridge of Gerizim joins on the south the chain of Mount Salmon, on whose summit in 1874 the snow lay white and thick as late as March. Gradually turning to the south-west the gleaming sand-hills and the shining sea appear, and the stone villages of the Beni S’ab hills stand up like towers in mid distance. Here on a clear day the brown ruins of Cæsarea, once the scene of bloody feuds between Jews and Samaritans, can be descried; and farther north the range above Samaria is seen over the shoulder of Gerizim, and behind this the dark woods and volcanic crater of Sheikh Iskander, with Carmel faint and blue in the extreme distance.

Crossing the narrow valley on another July day, the Survey-party ascended the eastern brow of Ebal. The Mount of the Curses is even more barren than Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing. Cactus-hedges clothe its feet, on which the culture of the cochineal insect has lately been tried without success. The slope of steel-blue rock is less abrupt than that of Gerizim, but a band of precipitous cliffs exists near the summit. The mountain is dome-shaped, its top (3076·5 feet above the sea) is higher than those of any mountains near, though both in Judea and in Galilee more lofty points occur; thus Ebal is a conspicuous object from all sides, especially from the north and from the maritime plain. The southern face of the hill has no springs on it, but many occur on the north. The southern slopes are covered with corn, and at sunset the orange-coloured flush over the bare rocks produces a startling contrast to the rich foliage of the valley beneath.