Daliyeh Wadi (West Bank)

The Wadi Daliyeh (وادي دالية) is a wadi in the West Bank, located fourteen kilometres north of Jericho, flowing east from the Samarian hills down to the Jordan Valley. The valley has caves containing archaeological material. The principal cave, Abu Shinjah, yielded an assemblage dated mostly to the 4th century BCE, including approximately 200 legal and administrative papyri in Aramaic, seal impressions, coins, pottery, textiles, wooden objects, jewellery, and human skeletal remains. These finds have been associated with a group of Samaritan elites who may have sought refuge in the cave during upheavals following the Samaritan uprising against Macedonian officials following the region's conquest by Alexander the Great, and died there. The documents record transactions such as slave sales, property transfers, loans, and marriage agreements. Two seal impressions mention a governor of Samaria named Sanballat, likely belonging to the line known from Nehemiah, the Elephantine Papyri, and Josephus. The nearby En-Na'asaneh Cave preserves earlier remains from the Intermediate Bronze Age as well as later evidence from the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), including pottery, glass vessels, tools, keys, and coins. During this period, the cave may have served as the northernmost refuge cave of the rebels.