Tur Shimon
Tur Shimon or Horvat Tura, the Hebraized form of Khirbet et-Tantura, so-called after the shape of the hill, is an archaeological site in Nahal Sorek, Israel. The mountain is built like a natural fortress. Below it to its southeast, in close proximity, is the ruin Khirbet Deir esh-Sheikh.
Geography
Tur Shimon sits above sea level, conspicuous among the mountains as it rises up from the riverbed of the Nahal Sorek Nature Reserve in the form of a conical shaped mountain. The hilltop ruin is covered with brushwood and wild growth, ashlars, a partially standing wall of field stones, razed structures, and large rock-cut cisterns. The entire grounds are strewn with fragments of ancient pottery. Near the summit are six large water reservoirs, hewn in bedrock and plastered. On the northeastern slope of the ruin is a tunnel measuring c. 80 meters long, ending in a rock-hewn pit with niches resembling a columbarium. On the southwest slope of the mountain are seen other traces of the town's material culture: a columbarium carved into the rock, a lime pit for burning limestone, a cistern and a wine press.History
Antiquity
Ancient Tur Shimon, mentioned twice in classical Hebrew literature, has been tentatively identified with Khirbet Sammunieh based on a comparison of the name Tur Shimon with two given Arabic names. The fertility of the region is highlighted in rabbinic lore, which states that the inhabitants of Tur Shimon prepared 300 sealed jars of summer produce every week.In the summer, Tur Shimon would put out three-hundred jars each Friday, and why was it destroyed? Some say because of lechery, but others say because they would play with a ball .
Ottoman era
, describing the terrain in July 1881, wrote: "Riding down the great gorge which, under various names, runs down from near Gibeon to Beth Shemesh, we gradually ascended the southern slopes in the vicinity of the little ruined village of Deir esh Sheikh. Before us was a notable peaked knoll of Khurbet Sammûnieh, a conspicuous feature of the view, etc. … to the south were clothed with a dense brushwood of lentisk, arbutus, oak, hawthorn, cornel, kharûb, and other shrubs, while in the open glades the thyme, sage, citus, and bellân carpetted the ledges with a thick fragrant undergrowth." Lt. Conder goes on to surmise that the knoll of Kh. Sammunieh could have been Kirjath Jearim or Baal, or even Gibeah, seeing that the Camp of Dan was located directly to their west.In another description of the site, he writes: "Khurbet Sammunieh. Square foundations and cisterns. On the hill-top is a foundation measuring 23 feet north and south, 16 feet east and west. It is filled with rubbish. A stone with a draft 3 inches wide was observed in it. About 60 or 70 yards to the south is a rock-hewn cistern, 12 feet deep, 15 feet square, etc., etc." He names a well located to the south of the ruin, called Bir es Salib, cut in rock, 2½ feet square with a trough to the west, 5 feet by 10 feet.
Conder and Kitchener who visited the valley in the late 19th century under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund noted that a branch of an ancient Roman road passed alongside the mountain on its southern side, leading from Bethlehem to Beth-shemesh.