Wadi Daliyeh Papyri - Biblical Archaeology Encyclopedia

Overview

In 1962 Taʿâmireh Bedouin brought papyri, bullae and coins from a cave in Wadi ed-Daliyeh, north of Jericho, to the antiquities dealer Kando. The lot was bought for the Palestine Archaeological Museum (now the Rockefeller Museum) in November 1962 and August 1963. Paul and Nancy Lapp then excavated the cave, Mughâret Abū Shinjeh, for ASOR in 1963-1964 and found more fragments, bullae, and the remains of a large number of people.

The documents are Aramaic legal deeds written 'in Samaria the fortress/city, in Samaria the province' in the last decades of Persian rule (c. 375-335 BCE). Most are sales of slaves, single men, women or groups. Others record a loan (WDSP 17), a lawsuit (WDSP 11 verso), a house sale and other contracts. Dušek distinguishes three successive family archives among them. Witness lists and sealings name governors of Samaria: Ḥananyah (WDSP 7, dated 4 March 354 BCE) and a bulla (WD 22) of '[Dela]yahu son of [Sanba]llat, governor of Samaria'.

The excavators and editors explain the deposit by the events of 332/331 BCE. Quintus Curtius (4.8.9-11) reports that the Samarians burned Alexander's governor Andromachus alive and that Alexander returned to punish them. Refugees from Samaria carrying their deeds would have fled to the cave. Cross (1974) proposed that they were found there and suffocated by a fire lit at the entrance. The cave's contents fit that sequence, but no text in the cave records it.

In its own words

[lDl]yhw bn [sbʾ]blṭ pḥt šmr[n] — '[Belonging to Dela]yahu son of [Sanba]llat, governor of Samar[ia]'Literal translation (this encyclopedia) of the transliterated Hebrew legend of bulla WD 22 as given (in Hebrew characters) by J. Dušek, Religions 11/2 (2020): 63, citing Dušek 2007, p. 316. Square brackets mark restored letters.

What the evidence shows

Findspot: Mughâret Abū Shinjeh, Wadi ed-Daliyeh, about 14 km north of Jericho. The papyri were bought for the Palestine Archaeological Museum on 19 Nov 1962 and 7 Aug 1963 (Dušek 2020).
Place of writing: 'Samaria the fortress/city' in 'Samaria the province' (šmryn byrtʾ/qrytʾ, šmryn mdyntʾ) (Dušek 2020).
Dated deeds run from c. 375-365 BCE (WDSP 22) to 19 March 335 BCE (WDSP 1). The kings named are Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III and Arses/Darius III (Puech 2003; Dušek 2020).
Content: at least half are slave sales. There are also a house sale (pap. 15), rooms in a public building (pap. 14), a vineyard (pap. 16), a loan receipt (pap. 17) and a lawsuit (WDSP 11v) (Puech 2003; Dušek 2020).
Governors of Samaria named: Ḥananyah or ʿAnanyah, as witness in WDSP 7 (4 March 354 BCE), and the bulla WD 22 of '[Dela]yahu son of [Sanba]llat, governor of Samaria', attached to WDSP 16 (Dušek 2020).
The latest coin is from Tyre, 334 BCE (year 15 of Ozimilk), which gives a terminus post quem for the deposit (Puech 2003).
Human remains: Lapp's early report, from Bedouin interviews, gave about 205 skeletons, and after excavation about 300 men, women and children were reported (as summarized by Mendonça 2024, citing Lapp 1965 and Lapp & Lapp 1974). Signs of fire were found at the cave entrance.

Open questions

How many Sanballats? F. M. Cross (JBL 94, 1975) used the Daliyeh material to reconstruct a line of governors that repeats the name Sanballat across generations, to fit Josephus' Sanballat in Alexander's time. This summary of Cross comes from secondary accounts; the article was not read. J. Dušek (2007; Religions 11, 2020) reads bulla WD 22 as probably belonging to Delayah son of Sinʾuballiṭ, the same Delayah named with his father in the Elephantine letter of 407 BCE. He argues that Josephus confused events, dating the Gerizim sanctuary a century too late, so no second or third Sanballat is needed. The evidence is one broken bulla legend with the patronym restored, the Elephantine letter, and Josephus Ant. 11.
Who died in the cave, and how? Cross (1974) proposed Samarian refugees trapped and suffocated by Alexander's troops, using Curtius 4.8.9-11 and the fire at the entrance. The documents are deeds carried by their owners and do not describe the event. The link to Alexander rests on the terminal dates (335 BCE deed, 334 BCE coin) and Curtius's report.
What faith did the Samarian owners hold? Dušek (2020) analyses the personal names in the deeds and finds them largely Yahwistic or West Semitic. That is evidence for Samarian religion before the Samaritan–Jewish split. The deeds themselves contain no cultic texts.

Since 2024

2024-03Mendonça publishes a study of the Daliyeh slave-sale deeds as evidence for the slave trade in Persian Samaria. It is a new analysis of the published texts, with no new fragments. [7]

Sources

J. Dušek, 'The Importance of the Wadi Daliyeh Manuscripts for the History of Samaria and the Samaritans', Religions 11/2 (2020): 63. doi:10.3390/rel11020063 link study
D. M. Gropp et al., Wadi Daliyeh II: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh; Qumran Cave 4: Miscellanea, Part 2 (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 28; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) link editio princeps
J. Dušek, Les manuscrits araméens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450-332 av. J.-C. (Leiden: Brill, 2007), incl. 'Wd 22 : « Bulle du fils de Sanballat »', pp. 321-331. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004161788.i-702 link editio princeps
P. W. Lapp & N. L. Lapp (eds.), Discoveries in the Wadi ed-Daliyeh (Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 41; Cambridge, MA: ASOR, 1974). doi:10.2307/3768541 link excavation report
F. M. Cross, 'The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri', The Biblical Archaeologist 26/4 (1963): 110-121. doi:10.2307/3211040 link study
F. M. Cross, 'A Reconstruction of the Judean Restoration', Journal of Biblical Literature 94/1 (1975): 4-18. doi:10.2307/3266031 link study
M. J. Mendonça, 'Os Papiros Aramaicos do Sítio Arqueológico de Wadi Daliyeh: registros de compra e venda de escravizados na Samaria do período persa', Estudos Bíblicos 39/147 (2024): 63-73. doi:10.54260/eb.v39i147.996 link study

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

The old entry said the papyri are 'housed in various institutions, including the Jordan Museum'. The corpus was bought for the Palestine Archaeological Museum, today the Rockefeller Museum, in Jerusalem (Dušek 2020). A few extra fragments are in the Schøyen Collection. No source consulted places them in the Jordan Museum.
The old entry said they concern 'Jewish and Samaritan relations', 'religious practices' and 'intermarriage'. They are legal deeds from the province of Samaria: mostly slave sales, plus a loan, a lawsuit and property transactions. None discusses Jews, Judeans or intermarriage.
The old entry linked them to Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 13 (intermarriage) and to Ezra 4. Nothing in the texts corresponds to those passages. The verifiable biblical point of contact is the name Sanballat (Nehemiah), through the bulla WD 22.
The old entry gave the date as 'c. 350 BCE'. The documents span c. 375-335 BCE, with the latest dated deed on 19 March 335 BCE.
The old entry described them as 'papyrus fragments… Dimensions: Various' and did not mention the bullae, coins or human remains. The find includes sealed bullae (one naming a governor of Samaria), coins down to 334 BCE, and the remains of a large group of people in the cave.
The old entry gave the discovery simply as '1962, West Bank'. Bedouin found them in or before 1962. The cave, Mughâret Abū Shinjeh, was excavated by Paul and Nancy Lapp in 1963-1964.

Checked against new publications through 2026-09.