Capital of the northern kingdom of Israel from Omri onward — he bought the hill from a man named Shemer and built a new capital on it (1 Kings 16:24), the way David had taken Jerusalem: a city belonging to the dynasty rather than to a tribe. Ahab and Jezebel's ivory-inlaid palace here is described in Kings and its ivories have been excavated. Besieged and taken by Assyria in 722 BC, ending the northern kingdom; its later inhabitants are the Samaritans of the Gospels.