Sinjil

Sinjil (Arabic: سنجل‎) is a Palestinian town 21 kilometers (13 mi) northeast of Ramallah in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank. The village is bordered by Turmus Ayya and the Israeli settlement of Shilo.

History

Tombs at Sinjil from the Middle Bronze Age have yielded an array of metal weapons.

The village is thought to have taken its name from the Crusader town of St. Gilles, being the home town of French Count Raymond VI of Toulouse who camped here on the first crusade, before entering Jerusalem. The same man later built a castle in Sinjil to protect the passage of passing caravans.

Doubt over the Crusader origin of the name was raised by historian Levy-Rubin. A Samaritan chronicle, (ostensibly by Abu l-Fath), written in the 14th century but based on much older sources, twice refers to a location Sinḥil in the 8th or 9th century. The Arab geographer Zakariya al-Qazwini in his Athar al-bilad cited a 10th-century mention of Sinḥil, though this cannot be verified from extant manuscripts. Levy-Rubin proposes that Sinḥil was the original name of Sinjil, and that the Crusaders' association of the place with St Gilles was prompted by the Arab name rather than the reverse.