In ascending to the summit of the western spur of Gerizim, by the path up the gully behind our camp, the contrast was striking between the bright green of the gardens, dotted with red pomegranate blossoms, and the steel-grey of the barren slope. Riding eastwards and gradually ascending, we first reached the little drystone enclosures and the oven used during the Passover. There are scattered stones round, but no distinct ruins of any buildings; the place is called Lôzeh or Luz, but the reason of this appears to have escaped notice. The title is of Samaritan origin, and is due to their view that Gerizim is the real site of Bethel or Luz, the scene of Jacob's vision.
The highest part of the mountain is covered by the ruins of Justinian's fortress, built 533 A.D., in the midst of which stands Zeno's church, constructed in 474 A.D. The foundations alone are visible, showing an octagon with its entrance on the north, and remains of six side chapels; the fortress is a rectangle 180 feet east and west, 230 north and south, with towers at the corners; that on the south-west being now a little mosque dedicated to Sheikh Ghanim, who is, according to the Samaritans, Shechem the son of Hamor. The fortress walls are built of those constantly recurring drafted stones which are often loosely described as Jewish or Phoenician masonry, though the practised eye soon discriminates between the original style of the Temple at Jerusalem, and the rude rustic bosses of the Byzantines and Crusaders.
A large reservoir exists, north of the castle which is called El K[)u]l'ah in Arabic, and below this a spur of the hill projects, artificially severed by a ditch and covered with the traces of a former fortress. This is perhaps the station of the Roman guards, who thus prevented the Samaritans from approaching Gerizim, for it commands the north-eastern ascent to the mountain.
Of the ancient Samaritan Temple, probably the only relics are the remains of massive masonry known as the "Ten Stonesâ ('Asherah Balatât), near the west wall of Justinian's fortress. They are huge blocks rudely squared, forming one course of a foundation, the north-west corner of which was laid bare by Captain Anderson's excavation in 1866. There are two courses, and the lower one contains thirteen stones; this course, however, was not formerly visible, and the Samaritans considered ten stones alone to lie buried, and to be those brought from Jordan at the time of Joshua--thus supposing some supernatural agency sufficient to carry such huge blocks up a steep slope 1000 feet high, to say nothing of the journey from the Jordan. Under these stones, as before noticed, the treasures of the old Temple are supposed to lie hidden.