Inn of the Good Samaritan

The Iron Age Israelites called this area Maale Adumim, "Red Ascent" (Josh. 15:7, 18:17), due to the red rocks seen here, and it was part of their road between Jerusalem and Jericho.[4][3]

Eusebius, writing before 324 CE, mentions the Late Roman fort of Maledomni, whose traces have disappeared under the Templar castle of Maldoim.[4] The fort was already standing by 331, and around 400 it was garrisoned by Cohors I Salutaris, a Roman auxiliary unit commissioned with protecting the travellers.[3] Under the protection of the fortified place, a caravanserai was established.[4] In 385, St Jerome accompanied his benefactress, the Roman patrician Paula, on her pilgrimage to Jericho, and at this site recalled the parable of the merciful Samaritan, seemingly hinting at the existence there of a church and road station.[3] He introduces the interpretation that the name Adummim, derived from the Semitic root for blood and the colour red, stems from the blood shed there by the victims of road robbers, an idea later picked up by medieval authors.[3]

In the Early Byzantine period there seems to have been a fortress at the site (4th-5th century), replaced in the 6th century by a square-shaped inn, erected around a central courtyard, providing Christian pilgrims with rooms, water from a central cistern, and a large church for worship.[5]

The Templar castle of Maldoim (also Maledoim, Adumim, Castrum Dumi, Turris Rubea, Rubea Cisterna, Rouge Cisterne)[6] preserves the Israelite Hebrew name, Maale Adumim.[4] The castle is mentioned by Theoderic in 1172.[3] Its ruins stand at the hilltop dominating the khan, although now it is separated from it by the modern highway).[4] The protection offered by the castle had as a result the establishment of an inn, a remote precursor of the buildings we are seeing today.[4]

After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, the castle, already deserted by the Knights Templar, was occupied by Saladin's troops.[3] A French author, writing around 1230, identifies the khan as the inn where "the Samaritan carried the man".[3] Later medieval authors start making a distinction between the khan and the castle.[3]

Felix Fabri wrote, after his 1483–84 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, about the ruined inn of which only the dangerously weathered four walls were still standing around a small well, a rare and important landmark along the steep ascent in an arid landscape.[7][8][3]

In 1767 Giovanni Mariti, a man of culture but not so much of faith,[9] writes of the ruin on the hill that it "is called Castle of the Samaritan, after the nearby khan...".[3]

The Palestine Exploration Fund studied the site in 1873[3] and reported on the ruins of the inn:

"Khan Hathrurah — A Saracen hostel, standing on high ground, and just north of the present Jericho road. A few piers and some of the walls are still standing. On the opposite side of the road are two or three small caves, in one of which is a stone with an Arabic inscription. Cisterns, well-built and supported on arches, exist beneath the Khan, and contain water. North-east of this, on the highest part of the hill, are the remains of a strong fortress, which commands the road here, ascending through a narrow pass between walls of rock on the east. On the west also there is a winding ascent to the neighborhood of the Khan. The rock, especially on the west, is of a ruddy color like burnt brick, whence the title, Tal'at ed Damm, 'Ascent of Blood ', is applied to the whole hill, and sometimes to the castle on the summit".[10]

The khan was rebuilt in its present shape in 1903.[4][10]