A capital city on a hill

07.02.2012                      14.Schwat. 5772

Sehenswertes:

A capital city on a hill

Tel Samaria remains a testimony of all earthly glory; the only beauty that remains is what was there to begin with.

I stood on the crumblings of an Iron Age acropolis with a valley all around the isolated hill. Cool breezes offset the summer heat, but the haze still obscured the western hills toward the Mediterranean.
With a squint in the other direction, I could make out the hilltop of Mount Ebal, towering over Shechem (modern day Nablus). It seemed a lot closer than it looked on a map. Shechem was the first capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. The final capital stood beneath my feet, rising three hundred feet above the valley floor….