Cuthah

Cuthah (also spelled Cuth) was a Babylonian city or district from which the Assyrian king Shalmaneser transported colonists to settle in Samaria after the deportation of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. (2 Kings 17:24, 30). The Cuthites brought with them the worship of their deity Nergal, whom they continued to serve alongside the syncretistic adoption of Israelite religion — the combination that the biblical author condemns as the characteristic religion of the Samaritans. The Cuthites were apparently the most numerous of the transplanted groups, so that Cuthean became in later Jewish usage a standard term for Samaritans.

Cuthah is identified with the site of Tell Ibrahim, northeast of Babylon in modern Iraq, a significant ancient city with an important temple. The deportation and resettlement policy that brought Cuthites to Samaria was standard Assyrian practice for pacifying conquered territories — removing indigenous populations and replacing them with foreigners who had no ancestral loyalty to the land or its traditions.