Ngo, Robin. "Jerusalem and Samaria After Destruction." Biblical Archaeology Society. Apr 30, 2014. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/biblical-archaeology-topics/ancient-samaria-and-jerusalem/. Accessed Apr 30, 2014.
Ancient Samaria and Jerusalem
Jill Katz on urban anthropology in the capitals of Israel and Judah
• 04/30/2014
Jill Katz explains how urban anthropology can illuminate the ideological importance of ancient Samaria and Jerusalem after the dissolution of the United Kingdom of Israel.
Ancient Samaria and Jerusalem had a lot in common in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E. Both were part of David and Solomon’s United Kingdom of Israel in the tenth century, and both became capitals when it split into the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. Jerusalem became the capital of Judah, and Samaria, Israel.
Jerusalem and Samaria were also very different, however. In the Archaeological Views column “Jerusalem and Samaria: An Anthropological Tale of Two Cities” in the May/June 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Jill Katz examines how the field of urban anthropology sheds light on the ideological differences between ancient Samaria and Jerusalem.
Urban anthropology examines cities in their social and political contexts. Jill Katz explains that “[as] social entities, cities have a variety of social roles, including ideological, political/administrative and economic. Yet the relative importance of these social functions is not random but rather derives from the strength of both the city’s economy and the controlling state.”
In urban anthropology terms, ancient Samaria (Israel) would be considered an administrative city—a city with strong political power and control over the agriculture-dependent economy—governed by leaders with access to great wealth. Katz writes that the administrative city “is a repository of state power but unifies through coercion rather than common ideology.”
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