History
The history of the village of Balata is tied to that Jacob's Well and Joseph's Tomb. Benjamin of Tudela, the Navarrese traveller, who visited the site in 12th century, places it "A sabbath-way distance from Sichem," and says it contains Joseph's sepulcher. The church built around Jacob's Well and the lands of the village of Balata belonged to the Benedictine nuns of Bethany in the 12th century. Written documentation from this time of the Crusades indicates that, Balata, also known as Balathas, was a Frankish settlement.
During the rule of the Ottoman Empire over Palestine, an 1894 report by Conrad Schick for the Palestine Exploration Fund describes Balata as a hamlet made up of a few huts surrounded by gardens that lay to the west of Jacob's Well and its accompanying church complex, at that time in ruins.
Read more about this topic: Balata Al-Balad
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“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
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—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)