Tag: Samaria

2025-12-22

Looking for Evidence for a Persian Period Temple in Samaria’s Mount Gerizim – Part 3

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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Continuing with Part 3….uraei tree.001 300x144

Surely a simpler explanation is that the capitals bearing those motifs [Astarte’s tree of life and guardian cobra heads] were on Mount Gerizim because they were not forbidden in Persian times.

This time I will skip the background introduction and begin with a list of English language articles by Yitzhak Magen. There are no doubt other articles that I have not noticed but I am more than willing to address anything of relevance if they come to my notice. Do the following writings add anything to Magen’s claim that he has published “unequivocal” proofs of a Samaritan Temple in Mount Gerizim in Persian times?

  • Magen, Yitzhak. “The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E, edited by Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz. Eisenbrauns, 2007.
  • Naveh, Joseph, and Yitzhak Magen. “Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions of the Second-Century BCE at Mount Gerizim.” ’Atiqot 32 (1997): 9–17.
  • Stern, Ephraim, and Yitzhak Magen. “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim.” Israel Exploration Journal 52, no. 1 (2002): 49–57.

I’ll address them in chronological order.

Article 1

  • Naveh, Joseph, and Yitzhak Magen. “Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions of the Second-Century BCE at Mount Gerizim.” ’Atiqot 32 (1997): 9–17.

Magen begins by explaining a detail that partly contradicts something he wrote in a later work and that was discussed in Part 1 of this series. In this 1997 article, the massive wall with its three imposing gates, the same that reminded him of Ezekiel’s description of a gated wall surrounding the Jerusalem Temple, was not from the Persian period at all.

The area of the sacred precinct on the summit of the mountain is about 5 acres. Two building  stages have been identified: the ancient precinct, dating to the Persian period, and a later one, from  the Hellenistic period; the precinct occupied the  same area in both stages. The later precinct was  surrounded by a particularly thick wall, built, like the residential buildings, of dressed quarried  stones, and coated on the outside with three layers of plaster. . . . Three gates can  be dated to this stage: the southern gate, originally  used by worshippers as the main entrance gate, of which a tower and a broad staircase have survived;  and the northern and eastern gates, of which  several cells have survived, recalling the structure  of the gates in the book of Ezekiel (40:6-16) and  the Temple Scroll. (my bolding and italics in all quotations)[1]

Later Magen wrote that some of the Persian period gates also reminded him of Ezekiel’s description. Details to help the reader decide what was so Ezekiel-like in the Persian wall are not abundant in his later post.

Again, Magen makes his emphatic declaration of what “we know” about the date of this temple for which he has provided no evidence:

However, while Josephus dates the construction to the reign of Alexander the Great, we now know that it was built in the time of Nehemiah.[2]

The remainder of the article addresses the inscriptions on the stones within the area of the precinct. All that needs to be pointed out here is that all of these inscriptions are dated from the Hellenistic era and later.[3]

The unprecedented large number of inscriptions at one site indicates that the Samaritans habitually wrote inscriptions on building stones, from the Hellenistic period onward.[4]

So when one quotes Magen’s translations of the inscriptions that seem to suggest the existence of a temple connected in some way to the stones, one is doing nothing more than sharing evidence suggesting a temple in the Hellenistic period or later. We will return to the dating of the inscriptions in the last part of this post.

Article 2

  • Stern, Ephraim, and Yitzhak Magen. “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim.” Israel Exploration Journal 52, no. 1 (2002): 49–57.

Now here we have a most interesting article. Two capitals of Phoenician design, bearing Phoenician and Egyptian religious motifs, were discovered on Mount Gerizim by Yitzhak Magen’s team.capitals.001 300x203

[5]

They consist of two motifs, “the central triangle with the two spiralling volutes and a Phoenician palmette”, very common among the Phoenicians and Iron Age Israel (that is before the Assyrian captivity).

[T]hey represent the Phoenician-Israelite version of the ‘tree of life’ (fig. 7), that major and most common ancient Near Eastern motif (Stern 1995: 319-334), towards which devotees turned with raised hands, standing or kneeling on both sides. This motif . . . was adopted from an Egyptian prototype, and is depicted . . . on a number of ivories found in the palace of the Israelite kings at Samaria . . . [6]

tree of life.001 300x258

[7]

The article continues:

It now seems almost certain that the ‘tree of life’ in these times symbolised the goddess ‘Astarte, the main Phoenician female deity. . . .

The other sacred emblem appearing on one of our capitals (fig. 1) is that of seven uraei [raised cobra heads], the heads of whom were cut away, . . . . In Egypt, uraei symbolised divine protection and as such they served as guardians to sacred locations . . . [8]

Stern and Magen conclude that the capitals were originally made in the time of the Israelite monarchy, perhaps for use in Shechem. So how to explain their presence on Mount Gerizim? Their answer: they were relics of the old “House of Yahweh” in Shechem but were taken from ruins there and re-used for the Temple on Mount Gerizim in Persian times.[9] This is their conclusion, even though they earlier wrote,

[B]oth capitals exhibit the motifs of the ‘tree of life’ and the uraei, which were prohibited during the Persian and Hellenistic periods by the Samaritan religious authorities, who—at this period—were strictly monotheistic. To the best of our knowledge, these two emblems are strict exceptions among the finds of the Mount Gerizim temple.[10]

uraei.001 236x300[11]

Surely a simpler explanation is that the Persian period Samaritans continued the same form of Yahweh worship much as it had been practised in the days of the kingdom – and as it still appeared to be practised among Jews at Elephantine in Egypt, complete with a pantheon of gods alongside Yahweh. In other words, the capital with those “pagan” motifs was on Mount Gerizim because they were not forbidden in Persian times.

So I don’t see any evidence in this article for the kind of temple Magen would want us to imagine was constructed in Persian era Mount Gerizim.

Article 3

  • Magen, Yitzhak. “The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E, edited by Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Rainer Albertz. Eisenbrauns, 2007.

Once more Yitzhak Magen begins his discussion by claiming the two-stage construction on Mount Gerizim’s “sacred precinct” area: the Persian period of the mid-fifth century BCE and the Hellenistic period of the early second century BCE. Magen describes the layout of the “sacred precinct”, its measurements, and so forth. The western wall has no discernable gate and Magen believes this is because it was closest to a Temple’s “holy of holies”:

This lack of gates may be due to the location of the Holy of Holies, the extremely hallowed rear extremity of the temple. I believe that the current Samaritan sacred site known as “The Twelve Stones” is located in the area of the Holy of Holies.[12]

Unfortunately “belief” is not evidence. Magen continues:

The Persian-period enclosure most likely featured three chamber gates: to the north, the east, and the south, reminiscent of the temple gates depicted in the book of Ezekiel (40:10–16), which was the basis for the temple built by the returning Babylonian exiles. The temple built by the returnees served, in turn, as the model for the temple erected by the Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim.[13]

So gates that “most likely” were there are “reminiscent” of Ezekie’s gates, which was the blueprint for the Jerusalem Temple supposedly built by returnees from Babylon – even though we have even less evidence for such a temple in Jerusalem at this time nor any for waves of returnees from Babylonian captivity. (See Evidence Against Jerusalem in Persian Times Producing the Hebrew Bible)

The closest Magen comes to offering any semblance of a Persian period temple is the following:

The precinct yielded thousands of pottery vessels and burned bones of sacrifices—of sheep, goats, cattle, and doves. The coins from the Persian period, the pottery vessels, and Carbon 14 (C-14) testing at the site enable us to ascribe the first phase of the temple to the mid-fifth century b.c.e. This temple was active for approximately 250 years, until the establishment of the new temple in the Hellenistic period.[14]

And then,

Numerous discoveries from the sacred precinct substantiate the existence of a Temple to the Lord. Dozens of finely dressed ashlars of similar size and fashioned with stone masons’ marks had been removed from the temple’s walls and were unearthed in the excavations. These stones, the only ashlars discovered on Mt. Gerizim in either private or public construction, were quarried away from Mt. Gerizim before being brought to the site. The debris yielded proto-Ionic or Aeolic capitals belonging to the early temple from the Persian period (fig. 8). The inscriptions discovered on Mt. Gerizim are the most striking indication of the existence of a temple.[15]

Those inscriptions, as we have seen, are acknowledged by Magen elsewhere to belong to the Hellenistic and later periods, not the Persian period. And figure 8 is a repeat of the one we saw bearing the pagan motifs associated with Astarte’s Tree of Life and the Egyptian guardian cobra (uraei).

capitals1.001 300x128

[16]

Concerning the inscriptions, Magen explains their relevance for a temple:

The inscriptions discovered on Mt. Gerizim are the most striking indication of the existence of a temple. Some contain the titles of the priests who served as religious functionaries (fig. 9),4 while others contain the formulas “before the God in this place,” “before (the) God,” or “before the Lord,” which are always indicative of a temple (fig. 10).5 An additional inscription in Hebrew notes “that which Joseph offered for his wife and his sons before the Lord in the temple” (fig. 11).6 Yet another inscription mentions the “house of sacrifice,” an expression that parallels an expression used to refer to the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chr 7:12).7 An inscription in Paleo-Hebrew script contains the Tetragrammaton, apparently as part of the phrase “the house of the Lord” (fig. 12).8 A Greek inscription on a sundial contains the phrase “Highest God,” which is the name of the Lord in Greek. Perhaps the most fascinating discovery is a small gold bell with a silver clapper from the fringes of the high priest’s ephod (Exod 28:33–35; fig. 13). [17]

Each of the footnotes I have preserved in the above quotation (from 4 to 8) point to twenty translations of inscriptions found in the volume that we discussed under the heading JSP vol. 2 in Part 1 of this series. Recall that Magen had introduced all of those inscriptions with this observation of their post-Persian date:

The excavations of Mt. Gerizim brought to light some four hundred inscription fragments in Neo-Hebrew and Aramaic (lapidary and Proto-Jewish) scripts, inscribed on building and paving stones, that were found inside the city’s Hellenistic period sacred precinct. Scores of Greek inscriptions were uncovered as well, some from the Hellenistic period, but most dating from the  reconstruction of the Samaritan sanctuary in the reign of Constantine I in the fourth century CE; some also dated from the time of the subsequent Byzantine church. Also found were a few inscriptions in the Samaritan script, whose style dates them to the medieval period. The unprecedented large number of inscriptions at one site indicates that the Samaritans habitually wrote inscriptions on building stones, from the Hellenistic period onward. . . .

We believe that most of the early inscriptions should  be dated to the Hellenistic period (third-second centuries BCE), although some may belong to the  earliest period of the sacred precinct (fifth-fourth centuries BCE).[18]

No further discussion attempts to justify the “belief” that “some may” belong to the fifth-fourth centuries.

As for the “dating the first phase of the Temple and the surrounding precinct”, Magen refers readers to the finds already covered in this series:

This section is devoted to the Persian period, with the goal of ending the long-standing debate concerning the beginnings of the Samaritan temple at the site. I anticipate that the presentation of the ceramic finds, the coins, and the C-14 examinations of the bones and ashes of the sacrifices will securely date the construction of the first phase of the temple to the mid-fifth century B.C.E. and not to the late fourth century B.C.E.—the time of Alexander the Great—as was claimed by Josephus (and subsequently by later scholars). [19]

As we have already seen, Magen does well enough in convincing us of the date of the pottery but continues to fail to explain how this pottery is evidence of a nearby temple:

[A]ll the pottery discovered at the site’s sacred precinct is to be securely dated to the period between the fifth and the fourth centuries b.c.e., that is, before the conquest of Alexander the Great. This dating is further supported by the numismatic finds.[20]

Similarly, again as we have seen by now, with the coins:

Despite the abundance of coins at the site, the number of coins from the Persian period is relatively small. . . .

I conclude, therefore, that all the Samaritan coins found on Mt. Gerizim, even if undated, preceded the time of the conquest of Alexander the Great (figs. 27–29).[21]

Gerizim coins.001

And the date of the ashes of the sacrificed animals? As we would expect:

Several C-14 samples were taken of charred wood and bones found at the site, all from the strata belonging to the early phase of the sacred precinct—the Persian–Ptolemaic period (450–200 B.C.E.), preceding the Seleucid conquest of the land of Israel in the time of Antiochus III.[22]

And we recall Magen’s perhaps inadvertent reminder elsewhere that there were more common centres for regular sacrifices than temples:

The sole acceptable fashion of worshiping a deity, whether YHWH or some other god, was by the construction of altars, shrines, and temples and offering sacrifices and burning incense.[23]

Conclusion

I believe that I have given Yitzhak Magen a fair chance to demonstrate the existence of a temple on Mount Gerizim in Persian times. When I first saw his emphatic claims (e.g. “unequivocal proof”) I assumed that he must have published irrefutable material evidence for that temple. I remained puzzled, however, by a few remarks of other scholars holding on to doubts or even outright rejection of such a temple. And the only other scholars who insisted on the temple cited the same source: Y. Magen. So I read and re-read Magen’s volumes on the archaeological finds and have presented the main points in this series of posts. I fail to see how Magen has come close to demonstrating that a Samaritan temple was built on Mount Gerizim in the Persian period.

And without that evidence, we cannot assume that Deuteronomy or any other work reflecting temple ideologies of the Pentateuch was being composed.

The fact is that Magen has left indications in his writings that support the alternative view that Samaria in Persian times embraced a polytheistic cult worship of Yahweh. Evidence for Pentateuchal ideas does not surface until well into the Hellenistic period.

 

Notes

[1] Joseph Naveh and Yitzhak Magen, “Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions of the Second-Century BCE at Mount Gerizim,” ’Atiqot 32 (1997): 9. Bolded highlighting is mine.

[2] Naveh and Magen, “Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions of the Second-Century BCE at Mount Gerizim,” 10.

[3] Naveh and Magen, “Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions of the Second-Century BCE at Mount Gerizim,” 10ff. The same article covers inscriptions clearly made in the Christian era.

[4] Yitzhak Magen et al., Mount Gerizim Excavations. Volume I: The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscriptions, trans. Edward Levin and Michael Guggenheimer, JSP Series Judea and Samaria Publications 2 (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2004), 13. Magen does qualify this point by saying that “some may belong to the earliest period of the sacred precinct (fifth-fourth centuries BCE). (p.14)

[5] Ephraim Stern and Yitzhak Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” Israel Exploration Journal 52, no. 1 (2002): 49.

[6] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 53.

[7] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 53.

[8] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 54.

[9] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 56.

[10] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 55.

[11] Stern and Magen, “Archaeological Evidence for the First Stage of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,” 55.

[12] Yitzhak Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E, ed. Oded Lipschits et al. (Eisenbrauns, 2007), 160.

[13] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 161.

[14] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 164f.

[15] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 166.

[16] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 166.

[17] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 166ff.

[18] Magen et al., Mount Gerizim Excavations. Volume I, 13f.

[19] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 176.

[20] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 179.

[21] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 179f. Coins are from pages 207, 209, 211.

[22] Magen, “The Dating of the First Phase of the  Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim  in Light of the Archaeological Evidence,” 180.

[23] Yitzhak Magen, The Samaritans and the Good Samaritan, trans. Edward Levin, JSP Series 7 (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2008), 10.

2024-04-20

Comparing Samaria and Judah/Yehud – and their religion – in Persian Times

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Archaeology, Old Testament
Tags: , ,

Recent posts have focussed on the case for the earliest books of the Bible being composed as late as the Hellenistic era, that is less than 300 years before Christ. The longstanding conventional wisdom has understood the first biblical narratives go back to the time of King David (around 1000 BCE) or at least to the time of the Babylonian captivity (circa 600 BCE) and that much editing of these earlier works and creation of some new ones all took place under the benign rule of the Persians (late 500s through to 330 BCE).

The very idea of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament covering creation, the patriarchs, the exodus, the giving of law) and later books depicting the conquest of Canaan, the united kingdom of David and Solomon not having at least some roots in the historical past (however much real events may have been mythologized) of the “Near East” is very hard to accept for many of us. A long held assumption has been that the thought of the Near East is in many ways so opposed to Greek or Hellenistic thought and intellectual and ethical culture that it is inconceivable to imagine the early books of the Old Testament being products of Hellenistic times and culture. Recent posts here have attempted to demonstrate that such conventional assumptions need to be questioned. New scholarship has been drawing attention to a symbiosis between Hellenism and Near Eastern cultures and I will be addressing more of that work in future posts.

Meanwhile, it is surely necessary to understand as much as possible about the various settings and cultures that are being proposed as the birthplace of the Bible. In this post I am continuing to write up what I have been learning about Persian era Samaria and Judah (known as the Persian province Yehud). Do we find in either of these places the conditions that make the production of the biblical works likely?

The beginning of Persian era Palestine

The northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BCE and the southern kingdom appears to have come to its end at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The long term results of the respective conquests were very different from each other. Let’s compare how each region fared in the wake of their respective conquests.

Persian era + Kuntillet
I have adapted the Persian era map from Michael Wolffsohn’s Whose Holy Land? to include the eighth century BCE site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (discussed below), the site of Wadi Daliyeh and the estimated “borders” of Yehud according to archaeological finds (blue line based on article and map by Frevel and Pyschny). The original map shows the Yehud according to Ezra-Nehemiah.

Samaria from Assyrian conquest into the Persian period

In the north, the city of Samaria was made the provincial capital of the new Assyrian province. The entire region of Samaria did suffer significant population decline in the wake of Assyrian deportations of much of the population but the archaeological evidence also informs us that there was significant continuity of settlement. Assyrian destruction was not all encompassing. Large areas remained untouched, perhaps the result of surrendering rather than attempting resistance. New ethnic groups were brought in by the Assyrians but these coexisted with indigenous populations. There was no population replacement. After the Assyrian conquest much of (northern) Samaria continued to increase in population and prosperity (Knoppers 2004). Major recovery for southern Samaria had to await the Hellenistic era (Knoppers 2006).

This growth continued into the Persian period. Newly built major and minor roads no doubt facilitated this expansion:

The Achaemenid [= Persian] Period witnesses an unprecedented number of sites in the northern region, suggesting that this was a time of considerable demographic expansion. . . . Almost all of these Iron Age [= kingdom of Israel before 722 BCE] rural sites exhibit continuity into the Persian Period . . . . The western area of Samaria was intensively settled during the Achaemenid era. (Knoppers 2006: 268)

The city of Samaria itself was in the forefront of this expansion:

In Samaria, unlike in Jerusalem, one finds a fundamental continuity of settlement from the beginning of the Iron III period to the Achaemenid era. . . .

The areas around the town of Samaria were thickly settled during the Achaemenid era. . . .

The city of Samaria prospered and grew during much of the Persian era. . . . Stern (2001: 424) thinks, in fact, that Samaria was one of the most important urban areas in all of Palestine during the Achaemenid era. (Knoppers 2006: 270f)

The city’s population and material growth peaked in the Persian period with descendants of deportees from Assyrian times returning:

Surveys indicate that about half of the Iron II Israelite settlements in Manasseh, including the city of Samaria, continued to exist into the Persian period . . . ; in the Persian Period the area around Samaria was more densely populated than at any other time in history . . .

It also appears that deported Israelites or their descendants later returned to their homeland in significant numbers (Barmash 2005: 229-231).  (Leith 273f)

Judah/Yehud from Babylonian conquest into the Persian period

The destruction of Judah by the Babylonians was punitive and “fateful” — in unmistakable contrast with how Samaria fared at the hands of the Assyrians.

The immediate results of the Babylonian conquest of Judah are clear. Much of the country, especially in the west, south, and east and in the immediate envi­rons of Jerusalem, was destroyed by the foreign invaders. Archaeological exca­vations at many Judean sites show evidence of destruction that scholars have related to Nebuchadrezzar’s campaigns. Evidence for destruction extends from Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish) in the west, to Arad and environs in the south, to En-gedi and Jericho in the east. This is not to suggest, however, that every Judean city was left in ruins. Primarily those cities that served as fortress towns and where anti-Babylonian sentiment was high would have been the most likely targets for the Babylonians. One area, however, is the exception to the rule. Cities north of Jerusalem, in the traditional territory of Benjamin, suffered little or no destruction. . . . 

The destruction of most Judean cities meant a disruption in the governmen­tal apparatus as well as in the industry and economics of the country. Because soldiers profited from the spoils of war, plundering was the conqueror’s priv­ilege and the conquered’s fate. Thus one must assume that much of the peo­ple’s possessions became Babylonian spoils of war. Many cities, like Jerusalem, that had once been thriving centers were left as depleted, subsistence-level vil­lages if occupied at all. The primary economy of the country was probably reduced to a purely agricultural base.

A significant percentage of the manpower and leadership was killed off. There is no way to estimate the number of casualties who died at the hands of Babylonian troops, but it certainly would have been a sizable portion of the population, even though the Babylonians had no reputation for needless destruction and excessive killing. Nebuchadrezzar had taken a lenient attitude toward the country in 597, but no ancient ruler was very hospitable to a rebel­lious subject on the second military visit. (Miller and Hayes 479f)

Persian rulers did not improve the situation for Yehud (the name of the Persian province for the erstwhile kingdom of Judah):

The Jerusalem of the Achaemenid era has been described as a village with an administrative center. (Knoppers 2006:272)

Yehud was essentially irrelevant to the major interests of Persia:

One has to face the reduced extent of Yehûd against the background of the broader development in the Southern Levant in the 5th/4th century BCE. The marginal international importance is likewise true for the Persian period, when Yehûd achieved the status of a Persian province (at the latest) in the mid-5th century. . . . At least until the upheavals in Egypt and the loss of the control of Egypt by the Persian authority, the province of Yehûd was politically and economically more or less irrelevant. (Fravel and Psychny 4)

Transition to the Persian period is often unclear

With reference to the archaeological remains. . . .

. . .  we are still largely unable to distinguish clearly between material remains of Iron Age III (the period of Babylonian overlordship) and those of the early Persian period (in turn, this might indicate a very smooth transition from one to the other, with Persian administration remaining in fact ‘Babylonian’ for quite some time). (Uehlinger 136)

Most histories of this period focus on Palestine’s relations with Persia and to some extent Greece as the rival power to Persia. The economic impact and cultural influence of Phoenician cities is also recognized. Yet there was evidently a strong Egyptian influence in the area given the number of scarab amulets, Egyptian-style bronze statuettes and Egyptian deity representations on coins in Palestine during this same period.

In this respect, the impact of Egypt on Palestine during the 5th and particularly the 4th century . . . is too often disregarded in historical treatments of the period. (Uehlinger 136)

Evidence of Persian interest (or lack of it) in Samaria and Yehud

Images on seals and coins functioned as imperial propaganda to remind subject populations of Persian power. By comparing the locations of these finds and the particular styles of iconography archaeologists are informed about the areas of main interest to the Persians. Persian royalty appears to have little interest in stridently imposing its presence in Palestine until very late in the Persian period.

The bulk of seals and sealings discussed belongs to the second half or even last third of the Persian period, which makes the potential for Persian impact in the late 6th and earlier 5th centuries BCE even slimmer. . . .

In great contrast to other imperial administrations that had ruled in Palestine during earlier periods (Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and to some extent Assyria), the Achaemenid imperial administration apparently did not interfere in any way in the local seal production, certainly not in the engravers’ choices regarding the composition of their figurative repertoire.

Two main reasons may explain this contrast: basically, Persian interest and involvement must have been much more intense in Asia Minor than in far-off Palestine which was ‘Third World’ to the Achaemenids not worthy for investment. . . . To the extent that the physical presence of people of Persian origin was probably limited to military officers and administrators, Persian culture remained a largely foreign element in Palestine. Granted that we interpreted the incomplete evidence correctly, we could even observe a certain reluctance or reservation on behalf of Phoenician seal engravers to adopt Persian Achaemenid (even royal) figurative models, an attitude which is in strong contrast to the same craftsmen^ openness to integrate schemes from Egypt, Cyprus or Greece. (Uehlinger 171f)

Most of the seals and coins promoting Persian power that do appear come from Samaria, not Yehud.

Achaemenid iconography and other ‘Persianisms’ figure much more prominently on coins from Samaria than from anywhere else in the country. . . . It is striking that except for one item from Jericho, Yehud is not represented at all in our survey on iconographical Persianisms. (Uehlinger 173)

There is little evidence that the Persian administration was interested in interfering with local religious practices as a rule. The indication for this is the absence of specifically Persian religious or cult images on coins and seals.

We may notice in passing the total lack of specifically ‘religious’ subject matter other than ‘heroic combat’ or ‘encounter’, such as cult (worship or offering) scenes, representations of deities, divine symbols or the like, which contrasts neatly with Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian glyptic and their respective influence on Palestinian glyptic in earlier periods. This observation confirms the commonly accepted opinion that the Persian administration generally did not interfere with the religious beliefs of their subjects, certainly not by imposing nor even publicizing the worship of Persian deities, but rather aimed at favouring cultic normality in pacified provinces . . . . The one common notion which is emphatically stressed by a great proportion of seals and sealings is the heroic character of Persian kingship. (Uehlinger 175)

When we come to the fourth century BCE (note Persian rule over Palestine commenced in the late sixth century BCE) it is Samaria, the northern province, that is the leading representative of imperial power.

Yehud coinage, generally of rather poor minting quality, shows very few ‘Persianisms’, but also no particular dependency on Phoenician models. . . . In contrast, Samarian coinage is literally full of ‘Persianisms’, surpassing by far any other mint of the region in this respect. This confirms and emphasizes our conclusion based on the glyptic evidence, namely that Persian iconographical models and Achaemenid royal ideology had a particularly strong impact on 4th-century Samaria. (Uehlinger 177f)

Was this because Samarians were inherently more loyal to Persia? Or might the explanation be somewhat more complex?

Obviously these depictions are not all an expression of Samarian loyalty to the Achaemenid king and to the Persian imperial administration. One should rather suspect that the unusual emphasis betrays propaganda which may have intended to cover particular tensions in real life. The many ‘portraits’ of Persian officers point to a strong Persian military presence at Samaria. Many of these issues must have been minted by order of Persian officials stationed in the province, or of some higher authority such as Mazday the satrap. . . .

In sum, one cannot ignore that more than any other repertoire of the area, the coins of Samaria emphatically claim strong allegiance of the province to the Great King and his representatives. (Uehlinger 178f)

Comparing Samaria and Yehud culture and religion

If the archaeological evidence indeed supports such disparity between Samaria and Judah, there is no comparison, only contrast, between Samaria and Yehud (the name of the Persian province) in the Persian era. Yehud became a backwater under Persian rule.

I distinguish between ‘Samarian’ and ‘Samaritan’ studies, the latter having long been a subset of biblical studies, addressing the Jewish sect that continues to worship on Mt. Gerizim to this day. (Leith 268)

The two regions shared a common language and scripts.

The language of the [Samaria] papyri is a conservative version of Official Aramaic. The language used is virtually identical to the language employed in the fifth-century Elephantine papyri . . . . 

The hundreds of short inscriptions found in Samaria dating to the late Persian and Hellenistic Periods suggest that the Samarians wrote and spoke the same language as the Judeans did during this time. Aramaic evidently was employed, as it was in other provinces in western Asia, as the language of governance and international diplomacy. Hebrew was employed, but not restricted to, certain official or sacred purposes. The scribes of both communities employed a similar system of scripts, an Aramaic script for diplomatic and commercial activities and a Hebrew script (the so-called palaeo-Hebrew) for certain religious purposes . . . Both the Judeans and the Samarians used the two scripts as late as the Hellenistic era. (Knoppers, 273f)

The names of persons between the two provinces are similar, both pointing to a religious affiliation with Yahweh worship.

The linguistic and religious features of onomastica can be used to provide some indication of their bearers’ religious identities. One may begin by observing the large number of proper names shared with Judah. . . . 

In addition to the Yahwistic nomenclature found within the Samaria papyri, Yahwistic names have also been found on the legends of fourth-century Samarian coins. (Knoppers 2006: 275f)

There are also non-Yahwistic names, names with links to other deities, though some scholars would prefer to date these to the early Hellenistic era. Even so, one notes that they are Samarian and not from Yehud.

In contrast with the Samarian coins bearing Yahwistic appellatives, there are a few Samarian coins featuring non-Yahwistic theophorics. One Samarian coin type with the divine name ‘Zeus’ (ΙΕΥΣ) is attested, along with an image of this deity . . . On the reverse of this coin is the name ׳Jeho’anah’ (yhw’nh). On yet another coin one finds the face and short form of the name of the god ‘[Hera]cles’. . . . The appearance of these Greek deities may indicate a stronger western cultural influence in Samaria than in contemporary Yehud . . . . (Knoppers 2006: 277)

But the Yahwistic names are far more numerous:

Neither did Samaria post 722 become a majority non-Yahwistic province; the names of Samarians mentioned in the fourth-century Samaria Papyri in the fourth century are overwhelmingly Yahwistic. (Leith 274)

As for the material evidence of religious developments in these two areas, there is nothing to indicate any difference from the pre-Assyrian and pre-Babylonian monarchic periods of Israel and Judah.

There was no “religious revolution” in Yehûd or in Samaria that can be drawn from the account of the material culture. Even if there was a ‘material otherness’ of the Yehûdite material culture, Judaism was not the outcome of a revolution and a deliberate distinctiveness. (Fravel and Psychny 19)

The message is that there was cultic or religious continuity from the time both regions were independent kingdoms through to the time they became separate Persian provinces.

What did that common and long standing religious life look like?

Yahweh worship in the Kingdom of Israel continues through the Persian era

In the above context one should take special note of the evidence for the continuity of religious practices of the people of the Kingdom of Israel through to the Persian province of Samaria. We had a glimpse of aspects of the Samarian cult in an earlier post so I won’t repeat what I posted there but supplement it a little.

Around 800 BCE an Israelite settlement (from the northern kingdom of Israel) of what appears to have been a group of Israelites sent by the king of Israel to establish within the southernmost borders of the kingdom of Judah. The site is known to us as Kuntillet Ajrud (meaning “the isolated hill of the water sources”). The Kingdom of Judah had earlier established a fortress at Kadesh Barnea but this had been abandoned at the time of the Kuntillet Ajrud settlement.

Evidently, the founders of Ajrud did not want to occupy the fortress because of its Judean identity. They preferred to found a new site, in a less comfortable location with a meagre water source, 15 km off the main road, rather than settle in a place associated with a Judean tradition. (Meshel 67)

How do we know it was a distinctively (northern) Israelite site and not a (southern) Judahite one? Some of the clues:

  • Inscriptions at the site specifically document “YHWH of Samaria”
  • the site’s personal names use the Samarian “yw” as opposed to the Judean “yaho” to refer to YHWH
  • the pottery is Samarian style
  • the script is Phoenician (as used in Israel)

The site was short-lived, being abandoned by around 750 BCE.

The artwork at Kuntillet Ajrud is clearly related to the images on Samarian coins and therefore throws more light on Samarian religion of the Persian era. The images in the left column are from eighth century Kuntillet Ajrud and their comparable Samarian Persian coin images on the right.

samarian coins
1. Cow and calf: coin inscribed with “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” – Symbol of mother goddess;
2. Ibexes [goats] flanking blossoming tree (see below);
3. Bes, Egypto-Phoenician dwarf deity of life and prosperity;
4. Harpist on chair; Samarian coin of nude harpist with Egyptian goddess Hathor’s headdress in front;
5. Lion – frequent image in Israelite coins; an image of Yahweh? or a goddess “mistress of lions”? (Images and notes from Leith)
Referring to the second from the top, a pair of ibex flanking a tree, Leith writes:

This motif was a common one throughout the ancient Near East for centuries, but is not a known coin motif anywhere except fourth-century Samaria. The uniqueness of the coin image and the inscribed letters Š-M-R (abbreviation for ‘Samaria’) on the coin reverse suggest this particular coin was specifically designed to communicate Samarian identity. . . .  The goat and tree motif is plausibly linked with the goddess Asherah. (Leith 276)

Here is a photo of the original image:

meshel

For clarity, here is a sketched outline of that tree:
tree

And here is a copy of Russell Gmirkin’s recent comment:

A key aspect of the Iron II cult of Asherah was a pole or rod. A contemporary representation of this rod appears at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, where a picture of a stylized sacred tree flanked by ibexes appears on Pithos A where it is thought to represent Asherah as a fertility goddess (Leith 2014: 276; Asherah is associated with flocks of sheep or goats at Deut. 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51). This sacred tree corresponds in great detail to the blooming rod of Aaron, the symbol of his priesthood, with its buds, blossoms and almonds (Num. 17:8), which was laid up in the sacred ark in the tabernacle (Num. 17:10; cf. Heb. 9:4).

“It is difficult to imagine a more precise pictorial representation of the object described verbally in the Pentateuchal account than this drawing. The central element of the drawing plainly resembles a staff. It is adorned with six buds alternating with eight blossoms. And at the top are two elements shaped like almonds in the shell and speckled with dots that match the pockmarks typical of these shells.” (Eichler 2019: 36.)

It would appear that the Priestly author, perhaps along with Ezekiel, did not find the Asherah objectionable, and included this flowering staff among the most precious contents preserved in the sacred ark (Eichler 2019: 40-41). This sacred staff later featured in the account of Moses striking the rock to obtain water in Num. 20:1-13 (Eichler 2019: 41-45). The sacred tree flanked by rampant goats is an image that also uniquely recurs in fourth-century BCE Samarian coinage, along with other imagery also depicted at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Leith 2014). This seems to indicate the persistence of the Asherah as revered sacred tree at a late date in Samaria.

It would appear that if we are looking at a Hellenistic provenance for the Hebrew Bible, the biblical tropes themselves go back much earlier.

Eichler, Raanan. “The Priestly Asherah.” Vetus Testamentum 69, no. 1 (January 21, 2019): 33–45.

Frevel, Christian, and Katharina Pyschny. “A ‘Religious Revolution’ in Yehûd? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case: Introduction.” In A “Religious Revolution” in Yehûd?: The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case, edited by Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny, and Izak Cornelius, 1–22. Fribourg: Academic Press, 2014.

Knoppers, Gary. “In Search of Postexilic Israel: Samaria After the Fall of the Northern Kingdom.” In In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, edited by J. Day, 150–80. JSOTSup 406. London: T. & T. Clark Continuum, 2004.

Knoppers, Gary N. “Revisiting the Samarian Question in the Persian Period.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming, 265–90. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2006.

Leith, Mary Joan Winn. “Religious Continuity in Israel/Samaria: Numismatic Evidence.” In A “Religious Revolution” in Yehûd?: The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case, edited by Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny, and Izak Cornelius, 267–304. Fribourg: Academic Press, 2014.

Meshel, Zeev, Shmuel Aḥituv, and Liora Freud. Kuntillet ʻAjrud (Ḥorvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2012.

Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. 2nd edition. Louisville, Ky. London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Uehlinger, Christoph. “‘Powerful Persianisms’ in Glyptic Iconography of Persian Period Palestine.” In The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times, edited by Bob Becking and Marjo C. A. Korpel, 134–82. Brill, 1999.

2024-04-15

Samaria in the Persian Period

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Religious Cultures, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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Our quest is to test the thesis that the earliest books of the Bible were written or at least heavily redacted and supplemented in the Persian period. To that end we have been trying to understand what Persian era candidate “biblical” societies were like. We’ve looked at Judeans in Persian times according to the evidence in both the Persian province of Yehud and their “brethren” in Egypt, so for the next stop we will have a look at the “Samarians”. Samarians may seem unusual against our more familiar Samaritans . . .

The Samarians (no “t”) of the Persian period are not to be confused with the Samaritans of the first century CE. (Betlyon 27)

We are talking about the people who inhabited the “biblical northern kingdom of Israel” after the biblical united kingdom of David and Solomon divided between “Israel” in the north and “Judah” in the south. After the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom they established in its place the province of “Samerina”, but in subsequent Persian times we speak of the Samarians.

Samaria, though subservient to imperial overlords, continued to be a major administrative centre.

When Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus and his successors retained Samaria as the administrative center in the “Province Beyond the River [Euphrates]” and placed it under the governorship of Sanballat. Excavators have discovered a large garden area (.25 m-thick; 45 x 50 m) that surrounded the district governor’s palace there. A fifth-century Athenian coin, three Sidonian coins from the reign of Abdastart I (370-358 BCE), fourteen Aramaic ostraca, plus significant quantities of pottery imported from Aegean centers during the late sixth to late fourth centuries BCE . . . all attest to the solvency of the Ephraimite economy . . . . (Tappy 583)

Coins

Ancient coinage in general can provide significant information not only about the economic, but also the political, cultural and religio-historical state of affairs of a city or province. Coins were commissioned by those in power, were often used to communicate specific values and ideas and served as mass medium in Antiquity. Accordingly, the images appearing on them were not randomly chosen but selected with great precision and reflect a certain ‘spirit’. (Wyssmann 222)

The sampling here is taken from Wyssmann’s study and were selected on the basis of having been more probable than not minted in the province of Samaria itself. The inscriptions on Samarian coins were in Aramaic, Paleo-Hebrew and Greek letters. Greek gods appear along with names of Persian satraps and Samarian governors.

These images have been selected from Wyssmann, Patrick: “The Coinage Imagery of Samaria and Judah in the Late Persian Period” 2014.

bird-man
Man wearing Persian dress with bird’s tail and two pairs of wings. A “human-headed bird deity”?
zeus
Crowned bearded man on throne reminds us of the Persian king. But the adjacent inscription ZEYΣ (=ZEUS). Some scholars claim ‘Zeus’ refers to the Greek name of Baal or Baalshamen and Yhwh respectively who were already equated in Samaria in pre-Persian times.
Screenshot 2024-04-14 at 8.42.56 pm
Draped bearded man on throne holding blossom. This is an adaptation of Baal of Tarsos. The name behind him is Hananyah. A Samarian governor with a theophoric name (including Yah [=Yahweh]) thus had no trouble being associated with Baal.
Jeroboam
The inscription between the two figures = Jeroboam (a Samarian governor). Some scholars have interpreted the scene as Jeroboam (right) being blessed by the (naked) god on the left. Or it might be a scene of worship of a local god (Yhwh?)
aphrodite
Some interpret the woman to be Aphrodite, others a city goddess, Tyche.
medusa
Common female heads were Athena, Arethusa and Gorgo Medusa.
heracles
Heracles, who was connected with the Phoenician god Melqart.

The Wadi Daliyeh finds

The Samaria papyri from Wadi Daliyeh provide us with precious information regarding some of the inhabitants of Samaria, including some of its officials.  (Dušek 2020, 2)

The cache of papyri, coins, jewelry, pottery were deposited in a cave in Wadi Daliyeh by people fleeing from Samaria as Alexander the Great was on his way back there after the city had rebelled against his recent conquest by burning his appointed governor alive (according to Josephus). Those who hid in the cave were probably found and suffocated by a fire Alexander’s troops lit at the cave’s entrance.

‎Wadi Daliyeh.‎001
Wadi ed-Daliyeh in relation to Samaria: From researchgate

The following notes are taken from Dušek 2007:

  • Names on the papyri contain theophoric elements relating to Yahweh (mostly) but also El, Ab, Nabu, Shamash, Sahar, Šalman, Bel, Baga, Sîn, Baal, Isis, Ilahi et Qôs.
  • Clay seals include images of Hermes, Heracles and Perseus.

The following images are from Lapp, Paul W., and Nancy L. Lapp, eds. Discoveries in the Wadi Ed-Daliyeh. American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974.

seal 14
Possibly the Greek hero Jason
seal 42
Heracles, nude, with club on the left and fighting a lion.
scarab
Scarab with goddess wearing crown of Egyptian goddess Hathor, incense altar, Horus hawk, papyrus flower.

According to the onomastics of the Wadi Daliyeh manuscripts, the population of the province of Samaria would have been quite diverse: most of the names are Yahwist; in the other names, the theophoric elements El, Ab, Šamaš, Sahar, Bel, Baga, Sîn, Nabu, Šalman, Ba’al, Isis, Ilahi and Qôs refer to West Semitic, North Arabic, Aramaic onomastics, Hebrew, Babylonian, Phoenician, Egyptian, Persian and Idumean. We also identified a possible Assyrian name and a name expressing ethnic origin. As we have suggested, not all of these people were likely inhabitants of the province of Samaria; in certain cases it may have been merchants who were traveling, or slaves sold in Samaria, but originating from other provinces. The variety of the population of the province of Samaria can be explained on the one hand by the great prosperity of the region and by political stability which favored settlement in the territory of the province, and on the other hand by the deportations of populations in the province of Samaria before the Persian era. (Dušek 2007, 601 – translation)

Mount Gerizim

One of the most astonishing discoveries was unearthed by a team of archaeologists led by Yitzhak Magen, who excavated a site in Samaria at Jabal al-Tur, one of the three peaks of Mount Gerizim, from 1982–2006. They identified a Yahwist sacred precinct active from the 5th century BCE until its destruction in the mid–late 2nd century BCE.4

4 It is unclear if this sacred precinct included an actual temple building, despite the suggestions of the excavators in Magen, Mount Gerizim Excavations Volume II . For further discussion, see Pummer, “Was There an Altar?”. (Economou 155)

That’s another topic, though.

Betlyon, John W. “A People Transformed Palestine in the Persian Period.” Near Eastern Archaeology 68, no. 1/2 (2005): 4–58.

Dušek, J. Les Manuscrits Araméens Du Wadi Daliyeh Et La Samarie Vers 450-332 Av. J.-C. Leiden ; Boston: BRILL, 2007.

Dušek, Jan. “The Importance of the Wadi Daliyeh Manuscripts for the History of Samaria and the Samaritans.” Religions 11, no. 2 (January 29, 2020): 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11020063.

Economou, Michael. “The Aramaic Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim: Production, Identity, and Resistance.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 15, no. 1 (October 16, 2023): 154–73. https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-bja10032.

Lapp, Paul W., and Nancy L. Lapp, eds. Discoveries in the Wadi Ed-Daliyeh. American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974. http://archive.org/details/discoveriesinwad0041delb.

Lemche, Niels Peter. “Samaritans in History and Tradition.” In Samaritans and Jews in History and Tradition, by Ingrid Hjelm. Taylor & Francis, 2024.

Tappy, Ron E. The Archaeology of Israelite Samaria. Volume 2: The Eighth Century BCE. Brill, 2001.

Wyssmann, Patrick. “The Coinage Imagery of Samaria and Judah in the Late Persian Period.” In A “Religious Revolution” in Yehûd? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case, edited by Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny, and Izak Cornelius, 221–66. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 267. Fribourg: Academic Press, 2014. https://www.academia.edu/9216977/The_Coinage_Imagery_of_Samaria_and_Judah_in_the_Late_Persian_Period.