Tell Balata is situated at the eastern entrance, south of modern-day Nablus, between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Known as "Shechem of old," Tell Balata represents the earliest settlement in the Nablus region. Shechem was mentioned in Egyptian curse texts and on the inscriptions of Khasekhemwy dating back to the 19th century BCE. It was also referred to in the Tell el-Amarna letters in the 14th century BCE as a major Canaanite center ruled by the king Labayu. Later, it transformed into a Samaritan city mentioned in historical, Jewish, Samaritan, Byzantine, and Islamic records.

Several excavations have taken place in the last two centuries, conducted by the German expedition from 1913 to 1934, the joint American expedition in 1965 and between 1968-1969, and the Palestinian-Dutch joint excavation between 2010-2014, supervised by Dr. Hamdan Taha and Dr. Kheirat van der Kooij, in collaboration with UNESCO. These excavations revealed the settlement history of the site, exposing artifacts from the Stone-Copper, Bronze, Iron, Hellenistic, and Roman Ages.

Shechem was established in the 4th millennium BCE as a small settlement and developed into an urban center during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Excavations unveiled extensive parts of the city plan from the Bronze Age, especially the massive city walls, the northwest and east gates, remnants of a palace from the Middle Bronze Age II, and a temple from the Late Bronze Age.

In these excavations, a Canaanite inscription on a stone fragment dating back to the 15th century BCE was discovered. A Canaanite teacher's message was also found in 1926 on two Akkadian clay tablets, one of which demanded overdue payment in grains and wine, providing evidence of schools in Palestine during the Late Bronze Age, similar to those found in Iraq.

The city continued to be inhabited during the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and, after a period of abandonment during the Iron Age, was resettled in the Hellenistic period. Shechem was destroyed several times at different periods and was entirely deserted in the early Roman period. It then transformed into the new city of "Neapolis," from which the current name of Nablus was derived.