Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/266

246 S A M S A M The Christian emperors made hard edicts against them as well as the Jews, and at length excluded them from the public service. Under these circumstances they naturally came to be mainly traders and merchants' clerks ; in Con- stantinople "a Samaritan" meant "a banker's clerk." In their old homes they still remained numerous enough to make a serious insurrection under Justinian (529 A.D.). Its suppression was followed by very stern decrees against the whole sect, and Europe heard little more of the Samaritans till, towards the close of the 16th century, Western scholars took an interest in the few congregations that still remained in the East, at Cairo and Damascus as well as at Nabulus. It was found that during the Middle Ages they had formed an Arabic literature of considerable size but of little intrinsic worth, and had continued faith- fully to preserve their scriptures. Since then their num- bers have been constantly on the wane, and they have almost lost their old learning, which was never very considerable. Samaritan Literature. Of this a full accouiit is given, along with a sketch of Samaritan history, in the introduction to Nutt's Fragments of a Samaritan Targum (1874). The following list confines itself to what has been printed, (a) Thei Hebrew- Samaritan Pentateuch, i.e., the Hebrew text in Samaritan recen- sion and character, was first printed in the Paris polyglott. On the nature of this recension, see Gesenius, De Pent. Sam. origine, &c. (1815). A list of variations from the Massoretic text is given by Petermann, Hebr. Formenlehre nock der Aussprache der Samaritancr (1868). (b) Targum, also in the Paris and London polyglotts, but in very corrupt form. A critical edition of the whole is still lacking ; the best text of part is that given by Nutt from a Bodleian MS. The dialect, apart from the corruptions of the text, differs little from other Palestinian Aramaic, (c) Aramaic having been supplanted in Palestine by Arabic, an Arabic version of the Pentateuch was made by Abu Sa'id about 1100 A.D. The first three books have been edited by Kuenen (1851-54). On this version, see especially De Sacy in Aftm. Acad. Iiiscr. et Belles-Lettres, vol. xlix. (d) The so-called Samaritan book of Joshua is an Arabic chronicle going down to Roman times, but of almost no historical use. It may date from the 13th century. Juynboll edited it in 1848 from a Leyden MS. ; there are other MSS. in the British Museum and in Trinity College, Cambridge, (e) Another short chronicle, El-Tolidoth, published by Neubauer in Jour. As. <1869), sc-ems to have used the Jewish Book of Jubilees. Both (d) and (e) with some other sources were used by (/) The Chronicle of Abulfath, written in 1355, and continued by later hands ; edited by Vilmar (Gotha, 1865). (</) A collection of hymns was published by Gesenius (Carmina Samaritana, 1824). Other liturgical pieces have been published by Heidenheim. (A) Specimens of Samaritan writings on Hebrew grammar were published by Noldeke in the Gfotlinger Nachrichten (1862). For the Samaritans in general, see Nutt, op. eit.; Juynboll, Comm. in Hist. Oenti* Samar., Leyden, 1846 ; Appel, De Rebut Samaritanontm tub imperio Romano peract it. De Sacy published in the Nvticet et Extraits, xii. (18-31), all the correspondence of the Samaritans with European scholars, and other material about the modern Samaritans. For the modem Samaritans see also Pttermann's Reiten, vol. i. (1860). For Makrtzl's account of the Samaritans, see De Sacy, direst. Ar., vol. i. Other literature in Nutt and very fully in Kautzsch's article ln_IIerzog-PUtt, vol. xlll. (W. R. S.) "SAMARKAND, a city of Central Asia, anciently Mar- canda, the capital of Sogdiana, then the residence of the 'Samanids, and subsequently the capital of Timur, is now chief town of the Zerafshan district of the Russian domin- ions. It liea in a richly cultivated region, 185 miles south- west of Tashkend, and 145 miles east of Bokhara, in 39 39' N. lat. and 67 17' E. long., 2150 feet above the sea, in the valley of the Zerafshan, at the point where it issues from the extreme western spurs of the Tian-Shan before entering the steppes of Bokhara. The Zerafshan now flows about three or four miles to the north of the city, supplying its extensive gardens with water. Marcanda, a great city, whose walls had a compass of 90 stadia, was destroyed by Alexander the Great. It re- appears as Samarkand at the time of the conquests of the Arabs, when it was finally reduced by Kotaiba ibn Moslim in 9 3 A. H. ( 7 1 1 -7 1 2 A. D. ). Under the Sdmanids it became a brilliant seat of Arabian civilization. Its schools, its savants, were widely renowned ; it was so populous that, when besieged by Jenghiz Khan in 1219, it is reported to have been defended by an army of 110,000 men. De- stroyed and pillaged by the great conqueror, its population was reduced to one-quarter of what it had been, but it still reckoned 25,000 families within its walls. The great conqueror Timur made it his residence, and the inhab- Plan of Samarkand. 1, Governor's house ; 2, Burying-place of Russian soldiers who fell in the defence of 1868; 3, College of Ulug-bec; 4, College of Shir-dar; 5, College of Tilla-kari; 6, Grave of Timur; 7, Grave of Timor's wives. itants rose to 150,000. The magnificent buildings of the epoch of the successors of Timur, which still remain, testify to its former wealth. But new invaders again re- duced it to ruin, so that at the beginning of last century it is reported to have been almost without inhabitants. It fell under Chinese dominion, and subsequently under that of the emir of Bokhara, suffering again and again from wars which were fought for it and around it. But no follower of Islam enters it without feeling that he is on holy ground, although the venerated mosques and beautiful colleges of Samarkand are falling into ruins, its high influ- ence as a seat of learning has vanished, and its very soil is profaned by infidels. It was not without a struggle that the Mohammedans permitted the Russians to take posses- sion of their holy city ; and, while other cities of Central Asia submitted almost without striking a blow, Samarkand revolted in 1868, the Russian garrison shut up in the citadel being rescued only by the timely arrival of a corps despatched from Tashkend. The present city, which is but a wreck of its former self, is quadrangular in shape and is enclosed by a low wall 9 miles long. The citadel rises in the west, and to the west- ward of this again the Russians have laid out their new town, with broad streets and boulevards radiating from the citadel, while a pretty public garden, carefully irrigated, occupies the centre. The central part of Samarkand is the Righistan a square limited by the three madrasahs (colleges) of Ulug-beg, Shir-dar, and Tilla- kari ; in its architectural symmetry and beauty this is rivalled only by some of the squares of Italian cities. Though differing in detail, the'great lines of the three colleges are the same. An immense doorway decorates the front of each of these large quadri- lateral buildings. A high and deep-pointed porch, whose summit almost reaches the top of the lofty fa?ade, is flanked on each side by a broad quadrilateral pillar of the same height, subdivided into three sections, each of which has its own style of decoration. Two fine columns, profusely decorated, in turn flank these broad pillars. On each side of the high doorway are two lower archways connect- ing it with two elegant towers, narrowing towards their tops and slightly inclined. The whole of the fa9ade and also the interior courts are profusely decorated with enamelled bricks, whose colours blue, green, pink, or golden, but chiefly turquoise-blueare wrought into the most fascinating designs, in striking harmony with the whole and with each part of the building. In the recess of the deep doorway is the wide door, with proportions of remark- able elegance, and above it are the broad decorations filling up the upper part of the arch. Over the interior are bulbed or melon-like domes, perhaps too heavy for the facade. The cool and shady