Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1912 — The CITY OF THE GOOD SANARITAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The CITY OF THE GOOD SANARITAN

SND he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver and built on the hill and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria.” So speaks the Hebrew chronicler of Omri, captain of the host, who began to reign over GJGA the little principality of /W Israel about the end of the jr tenth century B. C. His l better-known successor

Ahab, confirmed the new capital and built there a house to Baal of the Syrians. Samaria had this great advantage over the capital of Judah, that it lay on the main north and south road of Syria. If this situation caused it to be visited rather too often by passing invaders, It brought a more actiVe commerce than Jerusalem ever enjoyed, and, when the Romans came to control Palestine, obtained for it, under the new name, Sebasteia, administrative superiority, and enrichment with the usual public architecture by which the remoter provincial chief places were externally Hellenised. But Sebasteia never attained to the second or third rank of Roman provincial cities, just as, before Roman times, Samaria had failed to become one of the great cities of Syria. The poverty of Palestine has always condemned even Its chief settlements to comparatively mean estate. Harborless, rocky, thinly clad, possessing but one stream which is worthy the name of a river, and that sunk so deep below the general level as to be a curse rather than a blessing, the “Promised Land” could only have allured a people long condemned to the awful Aridity of Sinai. Excavations In Palestine have always Illustrated its poverty, and If It were not for the religious associations of itß sites, they would probably never have attracted the spade of the western archaeologist at all. Compared with the products of excavation in any of the surrounding lands, in North Syria, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete, Egypt, or Mesopotamia, those found hitherto in Palestine are so rustic that if the “treasure” of either the first or second temple in Jerusalem were ever to come to light, one would expect it

to fall far short of the traditional estimate of either its intrinsic or its artistic value. We commend this consideration to the ardent searchers in the Hill of Ophel, should they be permitted to resume their interrupted burrowings—though there 1b little enough chance that either they or anyone else will ever'be In a position to reduce the Judean values of pious tradition to the hard facts of a sale at auction! It is not likely, however, that Dr. Reisner has undertaken, on behalf of Harvard University, to excavate In Palestine under any illusions of this kind. Having long dug in Egypt, on the rich sites of a great civilization, he is now clearing Samaria for the good and sufficient reason that pew light on the history of the Hebrew monarchies (whose Importance bears no relation whatever to their scale) is to be expected most confidently from the sites of their capitals. Samaria Is a favorable spot for such scientific Investigation; for although it can claim nothing like the antiquity of Jerusalem, its site is not, as is the latter’s, overbuilt with a modern city, which has disturbed its stratification with Intrusive foundations, appropriated itß stones, and rendered many parts inaccessible. Modern Samaria lies on a small portion only of the hill which Omri bought, and the. rest is occupied by gardens, orchards and fields. The extant remains are, of course, for the most part, those, not of Ahab’B Samaria, but of Herod’s

Sebasteia; but below these, at various points, Greek and pre-Greek strata have been found going down to virgin rock. So far as the excavations have proceeded up to now, they confirm the inference, which would naturally be drawn from the Biblical chronicle, that the hill Samaria was a vacant site before Omri’s time. Dr. Reisner has found ruins of a considerable structure of good masonry Redded on the rock itself, and preserved in places to the height of several feet, mid this he identifies with the Palac of Omri and Ahab. Within its area occurred the four-score inkwritten potsherds—so-called ostraka —about which, a good deal has been heard. They are not, as it turns out, documents which convey any historical Information, but Just labels or tallies of wine and oil stores, which mention no king’s name, and contain no indication of their date except so far as this may be inferred from their handwriting. The script is Hebrew of an early sort, hardly distinguishable from Phoenician, and nearly related to the eplgmphic character used for the Siloara Inscription in the age of Hezekiah. Even if they are no part of the archives of Omri or Ahab (as they were once reported to be), and even If the building, in which they were found, is not the palace of those kings (its severely undecorated and unfurnished character raises a doubt), they constitute a find of very great interest to Semitic scholars. Very little else of the tlvity time seems to have rewarded Dr. Reisner, but it is not safe to say this certainly until he has said it himself. He is a seasoned digger, not at all given to advertising his successes. üßt of one thing we can be sure —whatever there was in the ground which he has dug over, he will have found. No one engaged in the digging trade has a Bounder method than he or devotes himself more whole-heartedly to putting his method into practice. In the meantime, the photographs of the American colony at Jerusalem, which are published herewith, can show us the remains of Roman Sebasteia, which overlay Samaria—for. instance, the ruined colonnade of monolithic pillars which ran round the creßt of the hill from the gate to the Forum; the broad Btairway which led down from the summit to the sltar of Roma Dea; and the Basilica. The singular interest of the place, however. 1b lost by Herod’s time, and unless Dr. Reisner can promise more on Ahab and Omri, we hope, for our part, that he will transfer his energy and experience to some other' site. If underground Jerusalem cannot be adequately explored, a Philistine or a Phoenician city would probably repay excavation more than any of the Hebrew cities.