Editing Druze (section)

==== Iturean hypothesis ====
According to Jewish contemporary literature, the Druze, who were visited and described in 1165 by [[Benjamin of Tudela]], were pictured as descendants of the [[Itureans]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Hitti|first=P. K. |title=The Origins of the Druze People and Religion: With Extracts from Their Sacred Writings|year=1966 |publisher=Library of Alexandria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pYgvLf2GE8YC&q=druze+benjamin+of+tudela&pg=PT10|isbn=978-1-4655-4662-3 }}</ref> an [[Ismaelite]] [[Arab]] tribe, which used to reside in the northern parts of the [[Golan Heights|Golan plateau]] through Hellenistic and Roman periods. The word ''Druzes,'' in an early Hebrew edition of his travels, occurs as ''Dogziyin,'' but it is clear that this is a scribal error.

Archaeological assessments of the Druze region have also proposed the possibility of Druze descending from Itureans,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dar|first=Shimon|date=1988|title=The History of the Hermon Settlements|journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly|volume=120|issue=1|pages=26–44|doi=10.1179/peq.1988.120.1.26|issn=0031-0328|quote=Heretofore studies of the Ituraeans have been based on historical sources and written history. Archaeological surveys from 1968 to ... Proposes the possibility that the Druze descended from the Ituraeans.}}</ref> who had inhabited [[Mount Lebanon]] and [[Golan Heights]] in late classic antiquity, but their traces fade in the Middle Ages.