A team of Dutch and Palestinian archaeologists have unearthed a biblical ruin inside a Palestinian city in the West Bank and are planning to open it as an archaeological park next year.
The residents of the city of Nablus long used the particular area the archaeologists are working on as an unofficial garbage dump, but it has now been rescued and will help introduce the Palestinians in the area, who have been beleaguered for the last ten years by bloodshed and isolation, to the wealth of antiquities in the middle of their city.
"The local population has started very well to understand the value of the site, not only the historical value, but also the value for their own identity," said Gerrit van der Kooij of Leiden University in the Netherlands, who co-directs the dig team.
"The local people have to feel responsible for the archaeological heritage in their neighborhood," he added.
The ancient city of Shekhem was positioned in a pass between the mountains of Gerizim and Eibal and controlled access to the Askar Plains to the east. It was considered an important regional center more than 3,500 years ago and as such had extensive fortifications. The city was surrounded by fortifications of massive stones, was entered through monumental gates and centered on a temple with walls five meters thick.
A king of Shekhem, Labaya, is mentioned in cuneiform tablets of the Pharaonic archive found at Tel al-Amarna in Egypt, dated to the 14th century B.C. The king had rebelled against his Egyptian overlords, and soldiers were dispatched to subdue him, but failed.
The city also appears often in the Bible. In Genesis, Abraham passes near Shekhem when God promises to give the land of Canaan to his descendants. In another story, Abraham's grandson Jacob was camped outside the walls when a local Canaanite prince raped his daughter, Dinah. Jacob's sons sacked the city in revenge. The remains of the most famous son of Jacob, Joseph, were brought out of Egypt hundreds of years later by fleeing Israelites and buried at Shekhem.