The Wadi Daliyeh (وادي دالية) is a

wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, located fourteen kilometres north of

Jericho Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...

, flowing east from the Samarian hills down to the

Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...

. The valley has caves containing archaeological material.

Archaeological discoveries

Mughâret Abū Shinjeh

In 1962 and 1963,

Frank Moore Cross Frank Moore Cross Jr. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 ''magnum opus'' ''Canaanite Myth and ...

, a professor of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, purchased a hoard of ancient papyri and stamp seals from looters from the Bedouin tribe of Ta'amireh. The purchase also included a few coins and two gold rings. As part of the deal, the looterl revealed the place where from where the artifacts were looted. They lead him to Mughâret Abū Shinjeh cave () and in 1963-1964, Cross conducted excavations at the site in the and unearthed more papyri along with stamp seals, some still intact, and various human remains. The papyri are written in

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

and dated to the end of

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...

rule over

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...

. The material of the site was understood as the remains of noble Samaritans who had fled from the reprisals of Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, following the murder of his satrap Andromachus. In the wadi were discovered 18 partially legible Aramaic legal papyri and clay seals inscriptions from the 4th BCE, during the reigns of Artaxerses and Artaxerses II. These were excavated in 1963 and the papyri are now housed in the

Rockefeller Museum The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum located in East ...

in Jerusalem. The contents of the documents include the deeds for the sale of slaves. The most recent studies are: ''Wadi Daliyeh II: the Samaria papyri from Wadi Daliyeh'' by Douglas Marvin Gropp, pp. 1–116 in DJD XXVIII (2001); ''The Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions Vol.1'' by Mary Joan Winn Leith(Oxford, 1997); and "Les manuscrits araméens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450–332 av. J.-C." by Jan Dušek (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Iraq en-Na'sana

During the second season of the British excavations in Wadi Daliyeh, the cave of Iraq en-Na'sana was excavated. It contained material from the Intermediate Bronze Age (2500-2000 BCE) and from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the early 2nd century CE. The cave is the northernmost of the refuge caves of the rebels.

References

{{Authority control Archaeological sites in Israel Aramaic papyri