Nablus
— the city the two mountains lean over.
Not only on a wall.
“A city held in the saddle between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, in the northern West Bank. The old town's stone alleys hold workshops that have made olive-oil soap by the same method for six centuries. Knafeh, the pulled-cheese pastry under a layer of orange-stained semolina, is the city's signature, eaten standing, cut from the round. On Gerizim above the city, the Samaritan community still keeps its Passover.
Nablus, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Nablus sits in a narrow valley in the northern West Bank, about 49 kilometres north of Jerusalem, held between Mount Gerizim to the south and Mount Ebal to the north. The city's elevation runs around 550 metres above sea level. The municipality holds roughly 160,000 people. Founded by the Romans as Flavia Neapolis in 72 CE, the name later contracted to Nablus. The city sits over the older biblical site of Shechem, where Jacob's Well still draws water on the eastern edge.
The walled old city holds an Ottoman-era core with six historic quarters, vaulted suqs, and several large mosques built over earlier Crusader and Byzantine foundations. Nabulsi soap, made from olive oil and a mineral compound, has been produced in the city since at least the 14th century; the surviving soap factories, including Tuqan and Al-Shaka'a, still cut and stack the pale cubes the same way they did under the Ottomans. The 1927 Jericho earthquake and military operations in 2002 damaged sections of the old city, much of which has since been restored.
On Mount Gerizim above the city, the Samaritan community, about 800 people split between Gerizim and Holon, still celebrates Passover by slaughtering lambs on the mountain, the only place they have offered the sacrifice for more than two thousand years. In the old city below, knafeh Nabulsiyeh, pulled white cheese under a layer of orange-stained semolina baked on a wide round and soaked in syrup, is the city's signature pastry. Al-Aqsa Sweets and Habibah are the names spoken first; both cut the round into squares to order.