Shoreshthe drift report · all case files
Case file

Tell Balata

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “site of the remains of an ancient city located in the palestinian city of nablus in the west bank”. Today it says “archaeological site in the west bank near nablus”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025

Site of an ancient Canaanite/Israelite city in the West Bank Tell Balata ( Arabic : تل بلاطة ) is an archaeological site in the West Bank near Nablus , Palestine , that includes the remains of an ancient Canaanite and Israelite ( Samaritan ) city, identified since 1913 with the Biblical city of Shechem . The built-up area of Balata , a Palestinian village and suburb of Nablus, covers about one-third of the tell , and overlooks a vast plain to the east. The Palestinian village of Salim is located 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi) to the east. The site is listed by UNESCO as part of the Inventory of Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites of Potential Outstanding Universal Value in the State of Palestine . Experts estimate that the towers and buildings at the site date back 5,000 years to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages .

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1290239484.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “site of the remains of an ancient city located in the palestinian city of nablus in the west bank”. Today it says “archaeological site in the west bank near nablus”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

site of the remains of an ancient city located in the palestinian city of nablus in the west bank

Now

archaeological site in the west bank near nablus

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

← back to the drift report