Image Description from historic lecture booklet: "On a large isolated hill, rising by successive terraces, several hundred feet above the surrounding valley is the site of Samaris, the once celebrated capital of Israel. According to 1 Kings 16:24, the city was built by Omri, a king of Israel, who bought a hill from a certain man named Shemer, on which he built a city and named it after the former possessor. The city was taken by Sargon in B.C. 772, after a siege of three years. In the time of the Maccabees it was again an important and fortified city. After a year's siege it was taken and totally destroyed by John Hyrcanos. Pompey restored it to its former inhabitants, and it was rebuilt by Gabinius. Augustus presented the city to Herod the Great, who adorned it with many splendid buildings, fountains, and colonnades such as the one in the picture, and strongly fortified it and called it Sabaste. We are reminded that Samaria has a place in Bible history. Many of the wonderful events in the lives of Elijah and Elisha are connected with Samaria and her idolatrous and bloody rulers. Here Naaman, the Syrian leper, came to be healed (2 Kings 5) Philip the Evangelist preached here (Acts 8:5)."
