Aspects of Samaritan and Jewish History in Late Persian and Hellenistic Times

In 1962, papyri of the fourth century B.C. were discovered by Beduin in a desolate canyon north of Jericho on the rim of the Jordan rift. These documents, known by their place of discovery as the Wâdī Dâliyeh Papyri, were inscribed in Samaria during the half century before the conquest of Alexander the Great. The papyri are without exception legal documents, not a few executed before the governor and prefect of Samaria. Among the surprises to be found in the new documents is the appearance twice of the name Sanballat, or more properly Sin'uballiṭ. In each instance Sanballat is listed as father of the governor of Samaria, once on an official sealing inscribed in Palaeo-Hebrew script, once in Aramaic in the context of a document of about the mid-fourth century.