Bible Synapse
Samaria: royal quarter and ivories
Site · c. 880–720 BC · Israel and Judah · also called Sebastia, Samaria ivories, Palace of Omri and Ahab
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 880–720 BC (Samaria as capital of the kingdom of Israel)
- Found
- Sebastia, West Bank, 1908. Excavated by Harvard University in 1908–1910 (first under Gottlieb Schumacher, then George A. Reisner with C. S. Fisher and D. G. Lyon), and by the Joint Expedition under J. W. Crowfoot in 1931–1935, with Kathleen Kenyon and E. L. Sukenik.
- Now
- At the site, Sebastia, West Bank
- Passages
- 1 Kings 16:24, 1 Kings 22:39, Amos 3:15, Amos 6:4, 2 Kings 17:5–6
What it is
On the summit stand the foundations of a royal palace about 55 by 40 metres, very large for its time, built in two main phases on a platform held up by a massive casemate wall. Some 500 fragments of carved ivory came from the palace area, many of them inlays, probably from furniture; their subjects range from wild beasts and plants to mythical creatures and foreign gods.
How it connects to the Bible
1 Kings 16:24 says that Omri bought the hill of Samaria and built his capital there, and the palace’s two main phases are usually linked with Omri and Ahab. The ivories fit “the ivory house” that Ahab built (1 Kings 22:39) and Amos’s warnings against “houses of ivory” and “beds of ivory” (Amos 3:15; 6:4). The city fell to Assyria after a three-year siege, around 722–720 BC (2 Kings 17:5–6).
What scholars debate
The dating of the earliest building phases is debated, and so is the ivories’ origin: long called Phoenician, they may come from a local carving tradition.