Tomb of Samuel - Archeological Excavations

Archeological Excavations

Yitzhak Magen conducted archaeological excavations from 1992-2003. On the southeastern slope is a 4-acre (16,000 m2) urban settlement dating back to the 8th-7th centuries BCE, and remnants that Magen believed to be the Mizpah in Benjamin of the Book of Samuel. By contrast, Jeffrey Zorn concluded that there are no remains at the site, from the period in which the Samuel narratives are set, and it could therefore not be Mizpah. Magen's own conclusions have been criticised for stretching the evidence beyond the obvious implications, which he himself hints at:

However, if Mizpah in Benjamin was Tell en-Nasbeh on the Nablus road, Ishmael who had assassinated Gedaliah would not have fled to Ammon via Gibeon which is located to the West near Neby Samwil which overlooks Jerusalem. Furthermore, Judas Machabeus, preparing for war with the Syrians, gathered his men "to Maspha, over against Jerusalem: for in Maspha was a place of prayer heretofore in Israel".

A large monastery was built by the Byzantines, of which little remains. There is no clear evidence that the place was considered the Tomb of Samuel, or indeed a place of religious significance, before Byzantine times. Magen argues that the builders of the monastery did not believe they were building over the tomb of Samuel, instead regarding their construction only as a memorial. The fifth century writer Jerome, for example, argues that Samuel's remains were moved to Chalcedon, on the orders of Emperor Arcadius; this would be a century before the Byzantine monastery was built.

A sixth-century Christian author identified the site as Samuel's burial place. According to the Bible, however, the prophet is buried at his hometown, Ramah, to the east of the hill which is located near Geba. The 12th century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited the site when he traveled the land in 1173, noting that the Crusaders had found the bones of Samuel in a Jewish cemetery in Ramla on the coastal plain and reburied here, overlooking the Holy City. He wrote that a church dedicated to St. Samuel of Shiloh had been built on the hill. This may refer to the abbey church of St. Samuel built by Premonstratensian canons and inhabited from 1141 to 1244.

Raymond of Aguilers, who wrote a chronicle of the First Crusade (1096–1099), relates that on the morning of June 7, 1099, the Crusaders reached the summit of Nebi Samuel, and when they saw the city of Jerusalem, which they had not yet seen, they fell to the ground and wept in joy; the Crusaders named the place "Mount of Joy", Mons Gaudi, for this reason. The Crusaders built a fortress on the spot, which was razed by the Mamelukes.

Some identify the location with the Biblical temple of Gibeon, though consensus among experts places it at the village of el-Jib.