A Report on the Samaria Papyri

Abstract

In the early spring of 1962, Taʿâmireh Bedouin discovered a cache of ancient papyri buried together with scores of human skeletons in a cave of the Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh, a desolate canyon in the rim of the Jordan Rift some 14 km north of ancient Jericho. Most of the papyri, however, are slave conveyances, deeds describing the sale of single slaves, male or female, or the sale of slave families, or several families or groups of slaves. The persons who died in the cave were patricians from Samaria. The historical occasion for the flight of Samaritan nobles from their capital city into the cave in the cliffs and wasteland of the Jordan can be specified with some confidence. The Samaria Papyri, while of primary interest for the history of law, nevertheless yield some scraps of data for the political history of Samaria and Jerusalem in the Persian period. Keywords: Jerusalem; Persian period; Samaria Papyri; Taʿâmireh Bedouin; Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh

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