# Deir Sammit

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Deir Sammit (Arabic: دير سامت) is a Palestinian town located eight kilometers west of Hebron. The town is in the Hebron Governorate Southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 8,114 in 2017.

## History

An amulet composed of a very thin copper sheet with a Christian Palestinian Aramaic inscription was discovered at Deir Sammit.

### Ottoman period

In the early tax registers from the 1500s in the Ottoman Empire, Deir Sammit was noted as being cultivated by the villagers of Suba.
In 1838, it was noted as a place "in ruins or deserted," part of the area between Hebron and Gaza, but under the jurisdiction of Hebron.
In 1863, Victor Guérin called the place Khirbet Deir Samit.
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Palestine noted "traces of ruins, caves, and cisterns" here.

### British Mandate era

At the time of the 1931 census of Palestine the population of Deir Samit was counted under Dura.

### Modern era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Sammit came under Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 808 inhabitants in Deir Sammit.
After the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Sammit has been under Israeli occupation. Since 1995, it has been governed by the Palestinian National Authority as part of Area B of the West Bank.

## Demography

The residents of Deir Samit belong to four main families: Al-Haroub, Al-Sharowna, Al-Sharha', and the Al'Awawdh family. The local Haribat (Haroub) clan has its origins in Bedouins who migrated from Tubas.

## Footnotes

* 1 2 Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census, 2017 (PDF). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (Report). State of Palestine. February 2018. pp. 64–82. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
* ↑ Palmer, 1881, p. 398
* ↑ Corpus inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae: a multi-lingual corpus of the inscriptions from Alexander to Muhammad. Vol. IV: Iudaea / Idumaea. Eran Lupu, Marfa Heimbach, Naomi Schneider, Hannah Cotton. Berlin: de Gruyter. 2018. pp. 1329–1333. ISBN 978-3-11-022219-7. OCLC 663773367.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
* ↑ Toledano, 1984, p. 302. Toledano gives its location as 31°31′20″N 34°58′05″E
* ↑ Toledano, 1984, p. 282
* ↑ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 117
* ↑ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, p. 10
* ↑ Guérin, 1869, pp. 344-345: "...au milieu des débris d'une petite ville détruite, qui me sont indiqués sous le nom de Khirbet Deir Samit,, ou peut-être Samith. La place que cette ville occupait sur les pentes et sur le sommet d'une colline est maintenant couverte de nombreux amas de grosses pierres, soit taillées avec soin, soit presque brutes. Les citernes et les silos y abondent. Plusieurs excavations, qui paraissent être d'anciennes carrières, servent aujourd'hui de refuge aux bergers et à leurs troupeaux, pendant la mauvaise saison."
* ↑ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 353
* ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 29
* ↑ Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 22
* ↑ Deir Samit village profile, ARIJ, 2009
* ↑ Grossman, D. (1994). Expansion and Desertion: the Arab Village and its Offshoots in Ottoman Palestine (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. p. 222.