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Samaria, or the Shomron (Arabic: سامريّون, Sāmariyyūn or السامرة, as-Samarah – also known as جبال نابلس, Jibal Nablus; Hebrew: שֹׁמְרוֹן, Standard Šoməron Tiberian Šōmərôn; Greek: Σαμάρεια) is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.
Etymology
The name "Samaria" derives from an ancient city of the same name, which was located near the south of Samaria, and was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. According to Kings 1 16:24, it is derived from the individual [or clan] Shemer, from whom Omri purchased the site.
Geographical location
To the north, Samaria is bounded by the Jezreel Valley; to the east by the Jordan Rift Valley; to the west by the Carmel Ridge (in the north) and the Sharon plain (in the west); to the south by the Jerusalem mountains. In Biblical times, Samaria "reached from the [Mediterranean] sea to the Jordan Valley",[1] including the Carmel Ridge and Plain of Sharon. The Samarian hills are not very high, seldom reaching the height of over 800 meters. Samaria's climate is more hospitable than the climate further south.
Political control
The modern history of Samaria begins when the territory of Samaria, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, was entrusted to the United Kingdom to administer in the aftermath of World War I as a British Mandate of Palestine, by the League of Nations. As a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the territory was unilaterally incorporated as Jordanian-controlled territory and residents would later receive Jordanian passports. The areas of Samaria and Judea conquered by Jordan were renamed the West Bank (of the Jordan river).[citation needed]
Samaria came under the control of Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan withdrew its claim to the West Bank, including Samaria, only in 1988, and later confirmed by the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of 1993. Jordan instead recognizes the Palestinian Authority as sovereign in the territory. In the 1994 Oslo accords, responsibility for the administration over some of the territory of Samaria (Areas 'A' and 'B') was transferred to the Palestinian Authority.
Samaria is one of the several standard statistical "areas" utilized by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.[2] "The Israeli CBS also collects statistics on the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza District. It has produced various basic statistical series on the territories, dealing with population, employment, wages, external trade, national accounts, and various other topics."[3] The Palestinian Authority however use Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin, Qalqilya, Salfit, Ramallah and Tubas Governorates as administrative centres for the same region.
The Shomron Regional Council administers the Jewish communities and settlements throughout the northern Samaria area.
Israel has been criticized for the policy of establishing settlements in Samaria. Israel's position is that the legal status of the land is unclear.
Samaritans
Ethnically, the Samaritans are the inhabitants of Samaria after the beginning of the Assyrian Exile of the Israelites.[4] When Assyria overran the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E, part of the Jewish population was deported, and other peoples from the Assyrian Empire were resettled in Israel. Sargon claimed in Assyrian annals that he carried away 27,280 inhabitants from Samaria, the capital of Kingdom of Israel.[5] This could not have been the entire population; many Israelites must have remained.[6]
The new inhabitants worshiped their own gods, but when the then-sparsely populated areas became infested with dangerous wild beasts, they appealed to the king of Assyria for Israelite priests to instruct them on how to worship the "God of that country." The result was a syncretistic religion, in which national groups worshiped the Hebrew god, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.[dubious ] Samaritans claim to be descendants of Israelites from the Northern Kingdom who escaped deportation and exile.
A genetic study concluded from Y-chromosome analysis that Samaritans descend from the Israelites (including Kohanim, or priests), and mitochondrial DNA analysis shows descent from Assyrians and other foreign women, effectively validating both local and foreign origins for the Samaritans. (Shen et al., 2004)[1]
Samaritanism is a religion closely related to Judaism, though it is not considered part of it, and its adherents are not considered to be Jews. Samaritanism primarily uses a Torah as its holy book, though little of later Jewish theology. Their temple was at Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, and was destroyed by the Macabbean (Hasmonean) John Hyrcanus late in the second century BC, although their descendants still worship among its ruins. The purported antagonism between Samaritans and Jews is important in understanding the Christian bible's stories of "The Good Samaritan" and the Samaritan Woman.
History
Shomron (Samaria) is literally a watch-mountain or a watch-tower. In the heart of the mountains of Judaea/Israel, a few miles north-west of Shechem, stands the "hill of Shomeron," a solitary mountain, a great "mamelon". It is an oblong hill, with steep but not inaccessible sides, and a long flat top.
Omri, the king of Israel, purchased this hill from Shemer its owner for two talents of silver, and built on its broad summit the city to which he gave the name of "Shomeron", i.e., Samaria, as the new capital of his kingdom instead of Tirzah (1 Kings 16:24). As such it possessed many advantages. Omri resided here during the last six years of his reign.
As the result of an unsuccessful war with Syria, Omri appears to have been obliged to grant to the Syrians the right to "make streets in Samaria", i.e., probably permission to the Syrian merchants to carry on their trade in the Israelite capital. This would imply the existence of a considerable Syrian population.
It was the only great city of Israel created by the sovereign. All the others had been already consecrated by patriarchal tradition or previous possession. But Samaria was the choice of Omri alone. He, indeed, gave to the city which he had built the name of its former owner, but its especial connection with himself as its founder is proved by the designation which it seems Samaria bears in Assyrian inscriptions, "Beth-khumri" ("the house or palace of Omri"). (Stanley)
Samaria was frequently besieged. In the days of Ahab, Benhadad II came up against it with thirty-two vassal kings, but was defeated with a great slaughter (1 Kings 20:1-21). A second time, next year, he assailed it; but was again utterly routed, and was compelled to surrender to Ahab (1 Kings 20:28-34), whose army, as compared with that of Benhadad, was no more than "two little flocks of kids."
In the days of Jehoram, Benhadad again laid siege to Samaria. But just when success seemed to be within their reach, they suddenly broke off the siege, alarmed by a mysterious noise of chariots and horses and a great army, and fled, leaving their camp with all its contents behind them. The famished inhabitants of the city were soon relieved from the abundance of the spoil of the Syrian camp; and it came to pass, according to the word of Elisha, that "a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gates of Samaria" (2 Kings 7:1-20).
Shalmaneser V invaded Israel in the days of Hoshea, and reduced it to vassalage. He laid siege to Samaria (723 BCE), which held out for three years, and was at length captured by Sargon II, who completed the conquest Shalmaneser had begun (2 Kings 18:9-12; 17:3), and removed vast numbers of the tribes into captivity. See Lost ten tribes.
Ancient Israel
SAMARIA (Hebrew: shomron, modern: Sebaste), established as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Omri circa 884 B.C.E. Prior to the Omride period the site appears to have been the center of an extensive wine and oil production area, which may have accounted for its choice as the new capital. Apparently the origin of the name of the site was from Shemer the eponymous owner of the land that Omri purchased for two talents of silver (1 Kings 16:23-24).
The site has been excavated by two archaeological expeditions. The first was the Harvard Expedition, initially directed by G. Schumacher in 1908 and then by George Andrew Reisner in 1909 and 1910; with the assistance of architect C.S. Fisher and D.G. Lyon. The second expedition was known as the ‘Joint Expedition,’ a consortium of 5 institutions directed by J.W. Crowfoot between 1931 and 1935; with the assistance of Kathleen Mary Kenyon, Eliezer Sukenik and G.M. Crowfoot. The leading institutions were the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the Hebrew University. In the 1960’s small scale excavations directed by F. Zayadine were carried out on behalf of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.
The city is built on the summit of a rocky hill, and all the remains discovered so far date from the Roman era and were built according to the Roman style. The earliest remains consist of extensive rock cut installations, initially thought to date to the Early Bronze Age by Kenyon, these have recently been re-evaluated, first by Stager and then by Franklin, and are now recognized to be the remains of an extensive early Iron Age oil and wine industry (designated Building Period 0).
Assyrian invasion
During the reign of the last king of the northern kingdom, Hoshea 2 Kings 10, the Assyrians invaded in 722/721 BC. (initially under Shalmaneser V and finally under Sargon II) when they established complete control over the capital city and the remainder of the northern kingdom. The fragment of a stela with an Assyrian inscription attributed to Sargon II was found on the eastern slope of the acropolis testifying to their presence. In addition, according to inscriptions from Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad, the inhabitants of Samaria were deported to Assyria. The remains of a wall relief in Room 5 of Sargon’s palace is thought to depict Samaria and its defeated defenders. New inhabitants were brought in (from Kutha and the Syro-Mesopotamian area, 2 Kings 17:24) and they formed a new Samaritan population, also known as Cuthim. The city together with the neighboring highland area became known as Samerina and was ruled by an Assyrian governor. There are only meager remains from the succeeding Babylonian period and it was only in the Persian period, in the mid 5th century, that the city reemerged in importance. The tensions between the ruling family of Sanballat and Jerusalem under the governorship of Nehemiah are documented in the Bible (Ezra 4:10, Neh 2:1-8). Samaria became a Hellenistic town in 332 B.C.E. and thousands of Macedonian soldiers were settled there following a revolt by the Samaritans. Three 13 m diameter round towers dating to that period have been excavated (the first two by Harvard who attributed them to the Israelite period) and a later, massive, fortification wall with square towers. These fortifications were breached during the destruction of the city by John Hyrcanus in 108. Traces of the destruction wrought by Hyrcanus were found by the excavators, but the city was apparently resettled under Alexander Yannai. In 63 B.C.E. Samaria was annexed to the Roman province of Syria.