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Sebastia سبسطية
2020 | Short Documentray | Arabic (Eng. subs) | 25' Sebastia, a small archaeological town, sits on top of a hill Northwest of Nablus, Palestine surrounded by Shavei Shomron, an illegal Israeli settlement and confiscated agricultural fields of olive groves and apricot trees. This ancient site was excavated multiple times over the last century by colonial archaeologists funded by Zionist individuals and institutions. The first excavation of 1908 led by Harvard University took advantage of Sebastia locals including women, men, and children as cheap labor digging their own land for the sake of biblical archaeology. Each excavation extracted soil and artifacts from the ground, taking what they considered valuable to their home institutions and leaving pottery shards and rubble on the surface. Today, what’s left of the archaeological monuments is contested by the nearby settlement as well as the Israeli military. The Roman Forum is a battlefield, but the locals are incredibly resilient.
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Directed by Dima Srouji
Dima is a Palestinian architect, designer, artist, and educator working in the expanded context of interdisciplinary research-based projects using multiple mediums.
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Still Pasts: Conversation with Dima Srouji and Yazan Kopty
Dima and Yazan discuss their thoughts and interpretations of five archival imagery from Palestine from the small archaeological town of Sebastia.
Archival Images Seen in Discussion
Sebastia, Palestine. Photograph by the American Colony Photo Department, c. 1908.
This scan of a nitrate negative was found in the Matson Collection in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress with the caption: In the Northern views. The excavations at Samaria. Unearthing Ahab's Palace.
The same caption was used as the image description in the American Colony’s 1927 Lantern Slide Catalogue, which they used to advertise and sell photographs from their “Holy Land” collection to tourists in Jerusalem and customers abroad. The photograph also appeared in the January 1920 issue of National Geographic Magazine in a feature written by one of the Colony’s residents and photographers, John D. Whiting, titled “The Last Israelitish Blood Sacrifice: How the Vanishing Samaritans Celebrate Passover on Sacred Mount Gerizim”, with the following caption:
REBURYING AHAB’S PALACE: SAMARIA
The enormous quantity of earth removed by the American excavators in clearing these ruins was conveyed in baskets on the heads of women, who, like ants, formed an endless chain of toil, running back and forth. Once the archeological researches had been made, the ruins were again filled with dust of remote ages, thus preserving them for future generations as well as returning the land to its owners in its original state.
This scan of a nitrate negative was found in the Matson Collection in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress with the caption: In the Northern views. The excavations at Samaria. Unearthing Ahab's Palace.
The same caption was used as the image description in the American Colony’s 1927 Lantern Slide Catalogue, which they used to advertise and sell photographs from their “Holy Land” collection to tourists in Jerusalem and customers abroad. The photograph also appeared in the January 1920 issue of National Geographic Magazine in a feature written by one of the Colony’s residents and photographers, John D. Whiting, titled “The Last Israelitish Blood Sacrifice: How the Vanishing Samaritans Celebrate Passover on Sacred Mount Gerizim”, with the following caption:
REBURYING AHAB’S PALACE: SAMARIA
The enormous quantity of earth removed by the American excavators in clearing these ruins was conveyed in baskets on the heads of women, who, like ants, formed an endless chain of toil, running back and forth. Once the archeological researches had been made, the ruins were again filled with dust of remote ages, thus preserving them for future generations as well as returning the land to its owners in its original state.
Sebastia, Palestine. Photograph by the American Colony Photo Department, c. 1908.
This scan of a nitrate negative was found in the Matson Collection in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress with the caption: Northern views. The excavations at Samaria. Excavating the Ostraca House.
The same caption was used as the image description in the American Colony’s 1927 Lantern Slide Catalogue, which they used to advertise and sell photographs from their “Holy Land” collection to tourists in Jerusalem and customers abroad.
This scan of a nitrate negative was found in the Matson Collection in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress with the caption: Northern views. The excavations at Samaria. Excavating the Ostraca House.
The same caption was used as the image description in the American Colony’s 1927 Lantern Slide Catalogue, which they used to advertise and sell photographs from their “Holy Land” collection to tourists in Jerusalem and customers abroad.
