As-Samu

As Samu' or es-Samu' ( ar, السموع) () is a town in the Hebron Governorate of the West Bank, Palestine, 12 kilometers south of the city of Hebron and 60 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem.

Geography

The area is a hilly, rocky area cut by some wadis. The Armistice Demarcation Line (ADL, Green line) runs generally east to west approximately five kilometers south of as-Samu'. The village of as-Samu' is located on twin hills with a wadi varying from shallow to deep between them. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics the town had a population of 19,649 in 2007.2007 PCBS Census
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. p.121.

History

Ancient period

As-Samu' is built upon a tell identified with Eshtemoa, an ancient Judahite and later Jewish settlement mentioned in various historical sources.

In 1971, five pottery jars dated to the 9th-8th centuries BCE were found in as-Samu', bearing inscriptions written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. These jars contained one of the largest silver hoards ever found in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Classical period

In the 4th-century CE, Eshtemoa was described by Eusebius in his ''Onomasticon'' as a large Jewish village.Eusebius, ''Onomasticon - The Place Names of Divine Scripture'', (ed.) R. Steven Notley & Ze'ev Safrai, Brill: Leiden 2005, p. 84 (§429), note 429 The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Eshtemoa as the place of residence of an '' amora'' (scholar) who dwelt in the town during the 4th century by the name of Hasa of Eshtemoa.

In 1934, the remains of an ancient Jewish synagogue, now known as the Eshtemoa synagogue, were unearthed at as-Samu'. The synagogue is dated to around the 4th–5th century CE. Four seven-branched ''menorahs'' were discovered carved onto door lintels and one of them is displayed in Jerusalem's Rockefeller Museum. Beginning in the seventh century, the structure served as a mosque.

Middle Ages

What was earlier identified to be part of a 12th-century Crusaders tower, turned out to be a 4th-century synagogue, which was turned into a mosque at the time of Saladin, according to tradition.

Ottoman era

As-Samu' was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596 the village appeared as being in the ''Nahiya'' of Halil of the '' Liwa'' of Quds. It had a population of 16 households, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, vineyards and fruit trees, in addition to occasional revenues, goats and bee-hives; a total of 3000 akçe.

In 1838, Edward Robinson identified the town of Semua with biblical Eshtemoa.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, p
194
/ref> He described As-Samu as a "considerable" village..."full of flocks and herds all in fine order". He also found remains of walls built from very large stones, some of which were more than 10 feet long. In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the place.

An Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that as-Samu had a population of 298, in 77 houses, though the population count included men, only.Socin, 1879, p
154
/ref>

In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described it as "A village of moderate size, standing high.
On the north is an open valley, and the modern buildings extend along a spur which runs out west from the watershed. The ground is rocky
on the hills, but the valleys are arable land. There are remains of an ancient castle in the village, and other fragments. A church is said once
to have existed here, and the ruins to the west show that the town was once much larger. To the south there are olives in the valley. To the north there are rock-cut tombs on the hill-side ; the water-supply is from cisterns. The inhabitants number some 400 to 500 souls.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, As-Samu (called: AI Samu) had an entirely Muslim population of 1,600 inhabitants.Barron, 1923, Table V, p
10
/ref> In the 1931 census, As-Samu, together with Khirbat al-Simia and ''Kh. Rafat'' had a total of 1,882 Muslims, in 372 houses.
In 1934, remains of the towns ancient synagogue were discovered and the site was later excavated in 1969, by Ze'ev Yeivin.

In the 1945 statistics the population of as-Samu' was 2,520, all Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
23
/ref> who owned 138,872 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 30 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 40,398 for cereals, while 165 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements

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