Located on the hills of Judea at an altitude of almost 930 meters and approximately 32 kilometers south of Jerusalem at the crossroad that connects the arable lands of the north to the desert lands of the south, Hebron is one of the oldest cities in the world, the seat of a tribe of giants – the Anakim. Its name would be drawn from the Hebrew root h.b.r.- friend or to pass – which is found in the name Habirus, the presumed ancestors of the Hebrews.

During the Middle Ages, one of the fields in the city was known for its sand, « sweeter than sugar and more precious than perfume », which God used to create the first man. Sold in Egypt, in Arabia and in the Indies, masons used it for many years in order to impart its miraculous properties to the houses that they built – it is said that the holes that remained in the ground when it was extracted would be miraculously refilled with new sand. According to the legend, one of the caves in the city is still considered to be the one in which Adam and Eve took refuge when they were expelled from Paradise and where they mourned Abel who had been killed by his brother, Cain. Another legend considers Hebron to be the place where Noah settled after the deluge and planted his first grapevines – the Arab village of Dura, which is on the border of Hebron, is considered to be the site of his tomb. Indeed, the city draws its fame and its sanctity from the presence of the tombs of the patriarchs on its territory. For many centuries, Jewish pilgrims came to die within its walls and to be buried in its soil where souls are supposed to return to their « roots at the seat of divinity ». These remarkable tombs, which no one would ever dream of digging out to exhume their secrets, prompted Pierre Loti to write these words during his visit to Palestine towards the end of the 19th century: