Word: shechem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Ernest Wright, Parkman Professor of Divinity, will work in Jordan this summer and next year to continue excavations he has been working on since 1956. He is digging at Shechem, site of the largest surviving temple of ancient Palestine. While there he will serve as director of the new American School of Archaeology in Jerusalem...
...Shechem was one of the great cities of its area in ancient times; its 4000 years of history now lie buried in a ten-acre mound, or "tell," just east of Nablus in Jordan. When it flourished during ancient Egyptian and Biblical times, it occupied a strategie position at the eastern opening of the pass between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerasim. At the edge of the site is the modern village of Balatah, whose beautiful spring and nearby Jacob's Well once supplied Shechem with water...
...Shechem is the first city mentioned in Bible; when Abraham and Jacob visited it, the city was a stronghold of an empire ruled from Egypt. It was during this early era at the very beginning of what is called the "Hyksos" age (13th century B.C.) that Shechem's inhabitants enclosed the sacred place within a large courtyard, with rooms for priests and pilgrims adjoining it. They also erected a fortification wall outside it to put the sacred area within the confines of the city...
Throughout this period Shechem was the religious, as well as political, center of north-central Palestine, long before Jerusalem took over that role under King David...
Deuteronomy 37 relates the farewell of Moses to his people, who are preparing to leave for the land in Jordan promised them by the Lord. Moses commands the people, when they arrive there, to build an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal, which flanks Shechem, and also to erect on the site plastered stones inscribed with the laws of the covenant...