Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The vineyards of Shiloh have disappeared, though very possibly once surrounding the spring, and perhaps extending down the valley westwards, where water is also found. With the destruction of the village desolation has spread over the barren hills around.

A yearly feast was held at Shiloh, when the women came out to dance in the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21). It is possible that a tradition of this festival is retained in the name Merj el ’Aid, “Meadow of the Feast,” to the south of the present site.

Shiloh lies in so remote a situation, so hidden by its surrounding hills, and so out of the main highways, that neither the early pilgrims nor the Crusaders seem to have ever known of its position, and it is unnoticed by any writer but Jerome before the sixteenth century. The Crusaders considered Neby Samwîl (or Mount Joy, as they preferred to call it) to be Shiloh, and also Ramathaim Zophim, or Gibeah of Saul. Such wild ideas are sufficient to show their ignorance of the Bible, and are only noticeable as among the curiosities of Palestine geography.

The Tabernacle and Ark remained so long at this spot that it was regarded by the Jews as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. A curious peculiarity of their worship is noticed in the Mishna, where they are said to have been allowed to eat certain sacrifices at any spot whence the Tabernacle could be seen, but not farther from it. As Shiloh was shut in by mountains, the effect must have been to gather the congregation much oftener to this remote valley, than when, at Nob or Gibeon, the same sacrifices (the second tithes) might be eaten in any of the cities of Israel.

The road from Shechem to Samaria leads down the course of the western valley through groves of ancient olives with gardens of pomegranates and figs. The olives are more picturesque than in Judea, as the trees are not regularly arranged in quincunx order, but grow almost wild with a tangled underwood. Those in the valley beneath Nâblus seem to be of great age, and have split up into two or three stems from one root, with numerous suckers. Leaving these groves, the road climbs the side of a white chalk swell, where the ground is strewn with gravel from the huge blocks of beautiful brown flint conglomerate like agate, which runs in bands through the rock. It finally descends into a valley, open and well watered, and passes beneath the Hill of Samaria, which is thickly covered with olives.

Samaria is in a position of great strength, and though it would now be commanded from the northern range, it must, before the invention of gunpowder, have been almost impregnable. It stands some 400 feet above the valley, the sides of the hill being steep, and terraced in every direction for cultivation, or perhaps for defensive purposes, as Josephus tells us the hill was scarped by Herod the Great (Ant., xv. 8, 5); broad and open valleys stretch north and south, and the hill is thus almost isolated, being joined only by a low tongue on the east to the chain of Ebal. The view northwards extends to the high ridge a few miles off which divides the Nâblus district from the outskirts of the great plain. On the east the lower slopes which run out of the great dome of Ebal are visible, on the south and west the flat Samaritan hills stretch away, covered with olives, and crowned by numerous villages which stand on high knolls, generally with a central tower or larger house. It is wonderful to reflect how great the antiquity of most of these hamlets is. For four thousand years, in some instances, the little hill has been covered by a succession of probably just the same sort of cottages which now rise upon the ruins of their predecessors; for four thousand years the women have gone down to the same spring, quarrelled, talked scandal, and returned with their brown jars on their heads; for four thousand years the cattle have trampled the corn and the wind has borne the chaff from the great yellow corn-heap; for all this time the same race has lived on, and has handed down the same village name, scarcely changed from the time of Abraham to the present day.

The village of Sebŭstieh, representing the ancient Samaria, is built on the brow of the great white hill, and immediately north-east of the mud-hovels are the ruins of the beautiful Crusading church of St. John Baptist, where, in a crypt, now held sacred by the Moslem peasantry, the saint was supposed to have been beheaded. The tradition, though erroneous, is ancient, and existed in 380 A.D. The church is a mere shell, its roof and the pillars of the nave having been destroyed.

The site of the Paradise of Samaria, mentioned in the Talmud, is perhaps represented by the spring and gardens to the south of the hill. The ancient tombs, which included those of the Kings of Israel, seem to have been situate to the north, on the opposite side of the valley, and none have as yet been discovered on the hill itself.

The most interesting ruins, however, are those of Herod’s colonnade to the west of the modern village. This building seems to have run round the hill on a flat terrace, in the middle of which rises a rounded knoll on which the Temple, dedicated to Augustus, and stated by Josephus to have been in the middle of the town, presumably stood.

The cloister measures about 2100 feet east and west, and 660 feet north and south; the walk being fifty feet wide in the one case, and 100 feet in the other. The total circuit is thus some 5500 feet, but Josephus (Ant. xv. 8) estimates it at twenty furlongs or 10,000 feet; his statement is therefore considerably exaggerated, but is no doubt to be considered as conjectural only.