THE) TRENCH-ALTAR PREPARED FOR THE SAMARITAN PASSOVER 



Two large copper kettles filled with water are placed over this altar. At a short dis- 

 tance, and higher than the altar level, is the tanoor, or ground oven, for the sheep-roasting. 

 The men in the right background are tending the oven. 



Omri, the sixth king of Israel, in the 

 ninth century B. C, bought an isolated 

 hill a few miles west of Shechem, on the 

 north side of the valley, and there built 

 his capital, naming it Samaria, after its 

 original owner. At the time of the First 

 Captivity the Kingdom of Israel lost its 

 northernmost tribes and its possessions 

 beyond the Jordan. From them Galilee 

 was then created, while the remaining 

 southern part inherited the name of its 

 once important capital, Samaria, and be- 

 came a State subject to Assyria. Thus 

 was the land cut up into three districts — 

 Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. 



SEBASTE, CITY OE HEROD 



The city of Samaria, from its incep- 

 tion, overshadowed its rival, Shechem, 

 and probably attained the height of its 

 glory under Roman rule ; for the Em- 

 peror Augustus presented it to his pro- 

 curator, Herod the Great, who rebuilt 

 and embellished it after the Roman style, 

 and renamed it Sebaste (Greek for Au- 



gusta). Much of Herod's work still re- 

 mains, notably a double colonnade en- 

 circling the hill's crest. 



An Arab proverb says, "Beyond every 

 mountain ascent there is a descent."' And 

 Sebaste, after climbing to the zenith of 

 power, slowly relapsed into insignifi- 

 cance; so that today, amid the ruins of 

 its splendid past, a squalid mud village 

 bears the once grand title (the name in 

 Arabic being slightly altered to "Sebas- 

 tieh"). Here is a rare instance, possibly 

 the only one in Palestine, where the 

 Greek name has outlived the older Se- 

 mitic form. 



Sebaste had become a place of no im- 

 portance more than four centuries before 

 the Emperor Vespasian founded Neap- 

 olis (New City) in the Shechem vale, 

 west of the older town, in 67 A. D. This 

 "New City" soon outstripped the older 

 Shechem, and in the fourth century be- 

 came one of the foremost cities of Pales- 

 tine — a distinction which it still enjoys 

 under its Arabic name of Nablus. 



