SICHAR (Gr. Sychar). - A small town in the center of Palestine, mentioned only once, in Jn 4:5, as the homeland of the Samaritan woman, converted by Jesus at the nearby well of Jacob. The locality is generally identified with the present-day village of 'Askar, situated on the southern slopes of Mount Hebal, about 1 km. from the well of Jacob.

The pilgrim of Bordeaux (333), Eusebius, St. Jerome (Onom., 164,1) and the mosaic map of Madaba seem to confirm this identification, distinguishing S. from the city of Shechem, in their time an abandoned and deserted place. But the archaeological excavations carried out on Tell el-Balāqah, the site of ancient Shechem, have shown that in the Roman period this was still inhabited, but no longer designated by the name of Shechem, rather by the Aramaic name of Sycchora, corresponding in Greek to the Gospel's S. Later the inhabitants, having moved further east, preserved for their new village, built around a rich spring, the name of Sycchora transformed into the Arabic 'Askar, which in tradition passed as the homeland of the Samaritan woman and as a locality distinct from Shechem.

Bibliography

BIBL.: D. Baldi, Enchiridion Locorum Sanctorum, Jerusalem 1935, pp. 273-80.

Donato Baldi

@incollection{ec11_sichar_gr_sukhar, author = {Baldi, Donato}, title = {Sichar (Gr. ΣΥΧΆΡ)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {516}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/sichar-gr-sukhar} }

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