Tell Balata
Encyclopedia
Tell Balata is the site of the remains of an ancient city located in the Palestinian
West Bank
. The built-up area of Balata
, a Palestinian village and suburb of Nablus, covers about one-third of the tell, and overlooks a vast plain to the east.
The Palestinian village of Salim
(biblical Salem) is located 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) to the west.
The site is listed by UNESCO
as part of the Inventory of Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites of Potential Outstanding Universal Value in the Palestinian Territories
. Experts estimate that the towers and buildings at the site date back 5,000 years to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
s.
is the Hebrew and Arabic word for an archaeological mound
.
Balata is the name of the ancient Arab
village located on the tell, and of the adjacent Palestinian refugee
camp of Balata
established in 1950. The name was preserved by local residents and used to refer both to the village and the hill (and later on, the refugee camp).
One theory holds that balata is a derivation of the Aramaic
word Balut, meaning acorn (or in Arabic, oak); another theory holds that it is a derivation of the Byzantine
-Roman era, from the Greek
word platanos, meaning terebinth
, a type of tree that grew around the spring of Balata
. The local Samaritan community traditionally called the site 'The Holy Oak' or 'The Tree of Grace'.
said by Josephus
to have been destroyed by John Hyrcanus I
, based on circumstantial evidence such as its location and preliminary evidence of habitation during the late Bronze and early Iron Age
s. Tell Balata lies in a mountain pass between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal
, a location fits well with the geographical description provided for Shechem in the Bible
. No inscriptional evidence to support this conclusion has been found in situ, and other sites have also been identified as the possible site of biblical Shechem; for example, Y. Magen places locates that city nearby, on Mount Gerizim
at a site covering an area of 30 hectares.
Excavations were conducted at Tell Balata by the American Schools of Oriental Research
, Drew University
, and the McCormick Theological Seminary
in 8 seasons between 1956 and 1964 when the West Bank was under the rule of Jordan
.
Archaeologists who took part in this expedition included Paul and Nancy Lapp, Albert Glock
, Lawrence Toombs, Edward Campbell, Robert Bull, Joe Seeger, and William G. Dever
, among others. Further excavations are to be undertaken by Palestinian archaeologists along with students from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
as part of a joint effort funded by the Dutch government.
A 2002 final published report on the stratigraphic
and architectural evidence at Tell Balata indicates that there was a break in occupation between the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1150 BC) through to the early Iron Age II (c. 975 BC).
A small quadrangular altar discovered in Tell Balata, similar to ones found in other Iron Age sites such as Tel Arad
and Tel Dan, may have been used for burning incense.
One of the oldest coins discovered in Palestine was an electrum
Greek Macedonian coin, dated to circa 500 BC, found at Tell Balata. There is evidence that the site was inhabited in the Hellenistic period
until the end of the 2nd century BC. This Hellenistic era city was founded in the late 4th century BC and extended over an area of 6 hectares. The built structure shows evidence of considerable damage dated to the 190s BC, and attributed to Antiochus III's conquest of Palestine. Habitation continued until the final destruction of the city at this site in the late 2nd century BC.
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
. The built-up area of Balata
Balata al-Balad
Balata al-Balad is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate in the northeastern West Bank, located east of Nablus.-Etymology:The village's name is Balata, the name of an ancient Arab village, which was preserved by local residents...
, a Palestinian village and suburb of Nablus, covers about one-third of the tell, and overlooks a vast plain to the east.
The Palestinian village of Salim
Salim, Nablus
Salim is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, located six kilometers east of Nablus and is a part of the Nablus Governorate. It is the site of the ancient Israelite capital city Shechem, situated in a well-watered valley between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Nearby towns include Deir...
(biblical Salem) is located 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) to the west.
The site is listed by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
as part of the Inventory of Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites of Potential Outstanding Universal Value in the Palestinian Territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
. Experts estimate that the towers and buildings at the site date back 5,000 years to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
s.
Modern name
TellTell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...
is the Hebrew and Arabic word for an archaeological mound
Mound
A mound is a general term for an artificial heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. The term may also be applied to any rounded area of topographically...
.
Balata is the name of the ancient Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
village located on the tell, and of the adjacent Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...
camp of Balata
Balata
Balata Camp is a Palestinian refugee camp established in the northern West Bank in 1950, adjacent to the city of Nablus. It is the largest refugee camp in the West Bank. Balata Camp is densely populated with 30,000 residents in an area of 0.25 square kilometers.-History:In 1950, the UN gave the...
established in 1950. The name was preserved by local residents and used to refer both to the village and the hill (and later on, the refugee camp).
One theory holds that balata is a derivation of the Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
word Balut, meaning acorn (or in Arabic, oak); another theory holds that it is a derivation of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
-Roman era, from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word platanos, meaning terebinth
Pistacia palaestina
Pistacia palaestina is a tree or shrub common in the Levant region . It is called terebinth in English, a name also used for Pistacia terebinthus, a similar tree from the western Mediterranean Basin.-Description:...
, a type of tree that grew around the spring of Balata
Balata al-Balad
Balata al-Balad is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate in the northeastern West Bank, located east of Nablus.-Etymology:The village's name is Balata, the name of an ancient Arab village, which was preserved by local residents...
. The local Samaritan community traditionally called the site 'The Holy Oak' or 'The Tree of Grace'.
Identification as ancient Shechem
Traditionally, the site has been associated with biblical Samaritan city of ShechemShechem
Shechem was a Canaanite city mentioned in the Amarna letters, and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an Israelite city of the tribe of Manasseh and the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel...
said by Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
to have been destroyed by John Hyrcanus I
John Hyrcanus
John Hyrcanus was a Hasmonean leader of the 2nd century BC.-Name:...
, based on circumstantial evidence such as its location and preliminary evidence of habitation during the late Bronze and early Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
s. Tell Balata lies in a mountain pass between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal
Mount Ebal
Mount Ebal is one of the two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank , and forms the northern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the southern side being formed by Mount Gerizim...
, a location fits well with the geographical description provided for Shechem in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. No inscriptional evidence to support this conclusion has been found in situ, and other sites have also been identified as the possible site of biblical Shechem; for example, Y. Magen places locates that city nearby, on Mount Gerizim
Mount Gerizim
Mount Gerizim is one of the two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the West Bank city of Nablus , and forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated,...
at a site covering an area of 30 hectares.
Archaeology
The site was first excavated by a German team led by Ernst Sellin from 1913 to 1914. After the end of World War I, work by Sellin was resumed in 1926 and lasted until 1934 with the last few seasons led by G. Welter.Excavations were conducted at Tell Balata by the American Schools of Oriental Research
American Schools of Oriental Research
The American Schools of Oriental Research, founded in 1900, supports and encourages the study of the peoples and cultures of the Near East, from the earliest times to the present. It is apolitical and has no religious affiliation...
, Drew University
Drew University
Drew University is a private university located in Madison, New Jersey.Originally established as the Drew Theological Seminary in 1867, the university later expanded to include an undergraduate liberal arts college in 1928 and commenced a program of graduate studies in 1955...
, and the McCormick Theological Seminary
McCormick Theological Seminary
McCormick Theological Seminary is one of eleven schools of theology of the Presbyterian Church . It shares a campus with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, bordering the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois...
in 8 seasons between 1956 and 1964 when the West Bank was under the rule of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
.
Archaeologists who took part in this expedition included Paul and Nancy Lapp, Albert Glock
Albert Glock
Albert E. Glock was an American archaeologist working in Palestine, where he was murdered.Glock's parents were deeply religious Lutherans of German ancestry living in Illinois...
, Lawrence Toombs, Edward Campbell, Robert Bull, Joe Seeger, and William G. Dever
William G. Dever
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002...
, among others. Further excavations are to be undertaken by Palestinian archaeologists along with students from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
as part of a joint effort funded by the Dutch government.
A 2002 final published report on the stratigraphic
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
and architectural evidence at Tell Balata indicates that there was a break in occupation between the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1150 BC) through to the early Iron Age II (c. 975 BC).
A small quadrangular altar discovered in Tell Balata, similar to ones found in other Iron Age sites such as Tel Arad
Tel Arad
Tel Arad or 'old' Arad is located west of the Dead Sea, about 10 km west of modern Arad in an area surrounded by mountain ridges which is known as the Arad Plain. The site is divided into a lower city and an upper hill which holds the only ever discovered 'House of Yahweh' in the land of...
and Tel Dan, may have been used for burning incense.
One of the oldest coins discovered in Palestine was an electrum
Electrum
Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. It has also been produced artificially. The ancient Greeks called it 'gold' or 'white gold', as opposed to 'refined gold'. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the...
Greek Macedonian coin, dated to circa 500 BC, found at Tell Balata. There is evidence that the site was inhabited in the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
until the end of the 2nd century BC. This Hellenistic era city was founded in the late 4th century BC and extended over an area of 6 hectares. The built structure shows evidence of considerable damage dated to the 190s BC, and attributed to Antiochus III's conquest of Palestine. Habitation continued until the final destruction of the city at this site in the late 2nd century BC.