Digitizing Tell en-Naṣbeh, Biblical Mizpah of Benjamin

About this collection

This digital collection includes a series of 1:100 scale plans of the archaeological site Tell en-Naṣbeh. The original plans are housed at the Badè Museum in Berkeley, California, and were digitized with support from the Grant Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences at Cornell University Library, selected by Professor Jeffrey Zorn, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies.

Historical context

Tell en-Naṣbeh is an archaeological site about 12 km (eight miles) north of the Old City of Jerusalem and south of the modern Palestinian city of Ramallah (31°53'07"N, 35°13'00"E; New Israel Grid 220559.86E - 643543.35N; Old Israel Grid 1706.1144) at 848 m (2762’) above sea level. The site sits on the trunk road running along the spine of the central hill country, connecting Hebron and Jerusalem on the south with important sites to the north, such as Samaria and Shechem. The site, excluding surrounding cemeteries, is about 250 m north to south and 160 m east to west. It covers an area of 3.2 hectares (ca. 8 acres), though the area inside the fortifications only amounts to about 2.4 hectares and the actual area occupied by houses is only a bit over 1.7 hectares.

William Frederic Badè of what is now Pacific School of Religion, in Berkeley California, excavated about two-thirds the site in five lengthy seasons (1926, 1927, 1929, 1932, and 1935). Badè died in 1936, a year after the conclusion of the excavation. His death, the Great Depression, and the advent of World War II delayed the publication of the final report until 1947. The two-volume final report was brought to completion by Badè’s seminary colleague, Chester C. McCown and his chief assistant during the last three years of the excavation, Joseph C. Wampler. The site plans were largely the work of Labib Sorial, the excavation’s Egyptian surveyor and architect. Sorial was the only member of the staff, besides Badè, to participate in all five seasons of the excavation.

Using the collection

Items in this collection are titled by plan number. The collection includes an item that shows the geographical boundaries of all of the site plans.

For more information about the collection, please contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.

More information

Collection steward

Katherine Reagan, Ernest Stern Curator, Rare Books & Manuscripts

Metadata creation

Jeffrey Zorn, Visiting Scholar, Near Eastern Studies

Funding

Grant Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences grant, awarded to Jeffrey Zorn in 2016.

Credits

This collection overview was adapted from an essay about the collection written by Jeffrey Zorn in 2016.

Collection sources

• This is an online only collection; physical originals are from the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology.