Ophel
Encyclopedia
The City of David is the oldest settled neighborhood of Jerusalem and a major archaeological site due to recognition as biblical Jerusalem. It is a narrow ridge
running south from the Temple Mount
. It was a walled city in the Bronze Age and, according to tradition, it is the place where King David built his palace and established his capital. The City of David was naturally defended by the Tyropoeon Valley
on its west, the Hinnom valley to the south, and the Kidron Valley
on the east; although over time the once-steep valley to the west has been largely filled in.
In the ancient pre-Israelite period, the City of David was separated from the Temple Mount by the Ophel
, an uninhabited area which became the seat of government under Israelite
rule. During the reign of Hezekiah
, the walls of the city were expanded westward, enclosing a previously unwalled suburb in the area now known as the Old City of Jerusalem, west of the Temple Mount.
Today the archaeological dig and visitor center are one of the major tourist destinations in Israel
. Although there is currently both Muslim and Jewish housing in the area, archeological digs are ongoing under many of the homes and it is proposed to make the entire ridge into an archaeological park.
was found), Warren's shaft
(an earlier structure, postulated by some to have been a water supply system), and the Pool of Siloam
(the presently extant Byzantine-era pool, and the recently discovered Second Temple
-period pool). All of these water supply systems drew their water from the Gihon Spring
which lies on the Ophel's eastern slope, and is generally considered the reason that the City was built at this location.
The site of the Gihon Spring
and Pool of Siloam
are incorporated in an archaeological park open to the public. Visitors can wade through Hezekiah's Tunnel, through which the waters of the ancient spring still flow.
The earliest excavations were undertaken by Charles Warren
in 1867; there have been numerous excavations since and several digs are currently underway. Complete lists of the Ottoman Era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1a.shtml, British Mandate era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1b.shtml, Jordanian era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1c.shtml and of the early Israeli era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1d.shtml are available at the website of the Israel Antiquities Authority
.
Edwin C. M. van den Brink, who notes that similar carved basins have been found at Beit Shemesh and near Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut
speculates that they may have been created by repeated grinding and crushing activity, such as the grinding of grain or the crushing of olives. Eilat Mazar speculates that they were used to collect rainwater.
.(Genesis 14:18-20) In this period the city is sufficiently large and powerful to construct a "massive" stone wall to defend its water supply, the Gihon Spring
, by have been protecting the vulnerable passage from the top of the hill to the spring tower below.
In 2010, a fragment of a clay tablet
dating form the 14th century BCE was uncovered, making it the oldest written document yet uncovered in Jerusalem. It is dated by the writing it bears, in an ancient Akkadian cuneiform
script. The text was deciphered by graduate student Takayoshi Oshima working under professor Wayne Horowitz
. According to Horowitz, the quality of the writing indicates that this was a royal inscription, apparently a letter from the a king of Jerusalem to the pharaoh in Egypt. Professor Christopher Rollston points out that there is no mention of any personal names or titles and no place names in the document. He notes that the quality of the script is good but that this does not show that it is "international royal correspondence." He also suggests that caution should be taken before positing a definite date as it is not a stratified find, having been discovered after excavation in a 'wet sieving' process.
city. A city wall dating to no later than the twelfth century BCE has been uncovered, and neither its existence nor the existence of a fortified city at that date is in dispute. On one side of the controversy are those who maintain the plausibility or validity of the biblical account of a conquest by troops under King David who, as described in the Bible, capture the city not only by breaching the walls, but also by climbing upwards through the ancient water system at the Gihon Spring
. The supposition is that the Israelites continued to use the intact Jebusite walls and extended the city northward, under king Solomon, to include the Temple Mount.
The period of the tenth and ninth centuries BCE, corresponding to the biblical Kings David
and Solomon
, has been the subject of an intense scholarly dispute, as well as of ongoing archaeological investigations.
The 2005 discovery by archaeologist Eilat Mazar
of a Large Stone Structure
, which she dated to the tenth century BCE, would be evidence of buildings in Jerusalem of a size appropriate to the capital of a centralized kingdom at that time. Others, most notably Israel Finkelstein
of Tel Aviv University
, argue that the structure could, for the most part, be from the much later Hasmonean
period. However, new evidence continues to emerge from the dig. Mazar's date is supported by 10th century imported luxury goods found within the large Stone Structure, including two Phoenician-style ivory inlays once attached to iron objects, comparable objects found in a Phoenician tomb at Achziv suggest that they may have decorated a sword handle. A quantity of luxury round, carinated bowls with red slip and hand burnishing support both the tenth century date and a sophisticated, urban lifestyle. A bone has been radiocarbon dated by Elisabetta Boaretto at the Weizmann Institute, showing a probability date between 1050 and 780 BCE. A large section of a "delicate and elegant" Black-on-red jug, also found in the structure, is of a kind dated to the second half of the tenth century BCE.
In 2010 Mazar
announced the discovery of what Mazar believed to be a 10th-century BCE city wall
. According to Mazar, ""It's the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel," and "It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction." The 10th century BCE is the period the Bible describes as the reign of King Solomon. Aren Maeir, an archeology professor at Bar Ilan University, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. Whilst acknowledging that 10th century BCE remains have been found in Jerusalem he describes proof of strong, centralized kingdom at that time as "tenuous".
Support for Mazar's dating of the wall and the Large Stone Structure
to the 10th century comes from the discovery of a major Judean royal fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa
that stood for a mere 20 years sometime in the 11th or 10th century BCE before being destroyed. The site is dated by pottery styles and by two burned olive pits tested for carbon-14 at Oxford University and found to date from between 1050 and 970 BCE, the period most scholars consider to be during the reign of King David. These date shave been challenged with dates for activity at the site suggested as having occurred after 1050 and before 915 BCE. The fortress may be the biblical Sha'arayim.
in and under the Arab village of Silwan
. These are large, elaborate tombs of finely-cut stone,such as could only have been built by the highest-ranking members of a wealthy society. According to David Ussishkin
, "here ministers, nobles and notables of the kingdom of Judah were buried."
The architecture of the tombs and the manner of burial is different "from anything known from contemporary Palestine. Elements such as entrances located high above the surface, gabled ceilings, straight ceilings with a cornice,13 trough-shaped resting-places with pillows, above-ground tombs, and inscriptions engraved on the facade appear only here." However, the stone benches were carved with headrests in a style borrowed from Egyptian Hathor
wig. Ussishkin believes that the architectural similarity to building styles of the Phoenician cities validates the biblical description of Phoenician influence on the Israelite kingdoms, but speculates that some or all of the tombs may have been built by Phoenician aristocrats living in Jerusalem.
Although only three partial inscriptions survive, the paleography makes the dating certain and they suffice for most archaeologists to identify one tomb with the Biblical Shebna
, steward and treasurer of King Hezekiah
.
through Josiah
and the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah
by Nebuchadnezzar II.
King Hezekiah secured the city's water supply against siege by digging the Hezekiah Tunnel
through bedrock and covering over all signs of the Gihon Spring
and the fortifications that had surrounded it in earlier periods. He built the Pool of Siloam
as a water reservoir. Hezekiah then surrounded the new reservoir and the city's burgeoning western suburbs with a new city wall
.
and Nabu
. A polished, black, stone Scaraboid seal
showing a "Babylonian cultic scene" of two bearded men standing on each side of an altar dedicated to the Babylonian moon god Sin
. The scaraboid is understood to have been produced in Babylonia, with space left below that altar for a personal name. In that space are Hebrew letters that Peter van der Veen has read as the name Shelomit.
, the Jerusalem pilgrim road
, the palace of Queen Helena of Adiabene
and the Jerusalem Water Channel
. Active Roman-era excavations are also underway at the Givati Parking Lot dig
site.
Mid-19th century photographs taken by Scotsman James Graham
(1853–57) show the ridge of Ir David as being devoid of housing. It is terraced and planted, apparently, with olive trees.
Modern settlement on the ridge began in the City of David in 1873-1874, when the Meyuchas
family, a Jewish rabbinical and merchant family that had lived in Jerusalem since their expulsion from Spain, moved a short distance outside the city walls to a house on the ridge. During the latter stages of the Mandate era the nearby Arab village of Silwan
expanded up the ridge of the City of David. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the whole area fell on the eastern side of the Green Line
under Jordan
ian control. Arab
families continued to live on the ridge of the City of David and to build houses there after 1967. From 1968 to 1977 the Israel Exploration Society
started the first excavations at the Ophel, lead by Benjamin Mazar
and Eilat Mazar
.
The right to control both the archaeological and the residential aspects of the City of David is hotly contested by Israelis and Palestinians. There is a proposal to turn most of the area into an archaeological park, and to restore a part of the Kidron Valley
currently occupied by mostly illegally constructed housing owned by Palestinians as a park to be called the Garden of the King
.
Promontory
Promontory may refer to:*Promontory, a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water*Promontory, Utah, the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed...
running south from the Temple Mount
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
. It was a walled city in the Bronze Age and, according to tradition, it is the place where King David built his palace and established his capital. The City of David was naturally defended by the Tyropoeon Valley
Tyropoeon Valley
Tyropoeon Valley is the name given by Josephus the historian to the valley or rugged ravine, in the Old City of Jerusalem, which in ancient times separated Mount Moriah from Mount Zion and emptied into the valley of Hinnom...
on its west, the Hinnom valley to the south, and the Kidron Valley
Kidron Valley
The Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of The Old City of Jerusalem which features significantly in the Bible...
on the east; although over time the once-steep valley to the west has been largely filled in.
In the ancient pre-Israelite period, the City of David was separated from the Temple Mount by the Ophel
Ophel
The City of David is the oldest settled neighborhood of Jerusalem and a major archaeological site due to recognition as biblical Jerusalem. It is a narrow ridge running south from the Temple Mount. It was a walled city in the Bronze Age and, according to tradition, it is the place where King...
, an uninhabited area which became the seat of government under Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
rule. During the reign of Hezekiah
Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....
, the walls of the city were expanded westward, enclosing a previously unwalled suburb in the area now known as the Old City of Jerusalem, west of the Temple Mount.
Today the archaeological dig and visitor center are one of the major tourist destinations in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Although there is currently both Muslim and Jewish housing in the area, archeological digs are ongoing under many of the homes and it is proposed to make the entire ridge into an archaeological park.
Archaeology
Nahal Kidron, which separated the Ophel from today's Old City, lies hidden beneath the debris of centuries. Archaeological exploration of the area began in the nineteenth century. The area includes several sites of archaeological interest, notably Hezekiah's tunnel (a water supply system, where the Siloam inscriptionSiloam inscription
The Siloam inscription or Silwan inscription is a passage of inscribed text found in the Hezekiah tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The inscription records the construction of the tunnel in the 8th century...
was found), Warren's shaft
Warren's Shaft
Warren's Shaft is an archaeological feature in Jerusalem discovered in 1867 by British engineer Sir Charles Warren . It runs from within the old city to a spot near the Gihon Spring, and after its 19th century discovery was thought to have been the centrepiece of the city's early water supply...
(an earlier structure, postulated by some to have been a water supply system), and the Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.-History:The Pool of Siloam is mentioned...
(the presently extant Byzantine-era pool, and the recently discovered Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
-period pool). All of these water supply systems drew their water from the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring was the main source of water for the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs - and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem - the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also...
which lies on the Ophel's eastern slope, and is generally considered the reason that the City was built at this location.
The site of the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring was the main source of water for the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs - and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem - the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also...
and Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.-History:The Pool of Siloam is mentioned...
are incorporated in an archaeological park open to the public. Visitors can wade through Hezekiah's Tunnel, through which the waters of the ancient spring still flow.
The earliest excavations were undertaken by Charles Warren
Charles Warren
General Sir Charles Warren, GCMG, KCB, FRS was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of Temple Mount...
in 1867; there have been numerous excavations since and several digs are currently underway. Complete lists of the Ottoman Era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1a.shtml, British Mandate era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1b.shtml, Jordanian era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1c.shtml and of the early Israeli era digs http://www.archpark.org.il/excavations1d.shtml are available at the website of the Israel Antiquities Authority
Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...
.
Chalcolithic (4500–3500 BCE)
Chalcolithic remains include bits of pottery found in clefts in the bedrock by Macalister and Duncan. The expedition also discovered a number of artifices cut into the bedrock. These included places where the rock had been smoothed and others where it had been cut to form flow channels. There were also several groups of small basins, sometimes called cupmarks, cut into the bedrock. These are assumed to have been used for some form of agricultural processing. Macalister and Duncan speculated that they were used in olive oil processing.Edwin C. M. van den Brink, who notes that similar carved basins have been found at Beit Shemesh and near Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut
Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut
Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut is a city in the Center District of Israel located approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of Modi'in and Maccabim-Re'ut...
speculates that they may have been created by repeated grinding and crushing activity, such as the grinding of grain or the crushing of olives. Eilat Mazar speculates that they were used to collect rainwater.
Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550 BCE)
Middle Bronze Age Jerusalem is mentioned several times in Egyptian texts from the 19th-18th centuries BCE. It is mentioned in this era in the biblical story of MelchizedekMelchizedek
Melchizedek or Malki Tzedek translated as "my king righteous") is a king and priest mentioned during the Abram narrative in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis....
.(Genesis 14:18-20) In this period the city is sufficiently large and powerful to construct a "massive" stone wall to defend its water supply, the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring was the main source of water for the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs - and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem - the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also...
, by have been protecting the vulnerable passage from the top of the hill to the spring tower below.
Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE)
Pottery and bronze arrowheads dating form this period have been found.In 2010, a fragment of a clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
dating form the 14th century BCE was uncovered, making it the oldest written document yet uncovered in Jerusalem. It is dated by the writing it bears, in an ancient Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
script. The text was deciphered by graduate student Takayoshi Oshima working under professor Wayne Horowitz
Wayne Horowitz
Wayne Horowitz is an archeologist of the ancient Near East and Professor teaching specifically within the field Assyriology. -Activities:He completed his Ph.D thesis Wayne Horowitz (b. Roslyn, New York) is an archeologist of the ancient Near East and Professor teaching specifically within the...
. According to Horowitz, the quality of the writing indicates that this was a royal inscription, apparently a letter from the a king of Jerusalem to the pharaoh in Egypt. Professor Christopher Rollston points out that there is no mention of any personal names or titles and no place names in the document. He notes that the quality of the script is good but that this does not show that it is "international royal correspondence." He also suggests that caution should be taken before positing a definite date as it is not a stratified find, having been discovered after excavation in a 'wet sieving' process.
Iron Age I (1200–980/70 BCE)
JebusiteJebusite
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites were a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David; the Books of Kings state that Jerusalem was known as Jebus prior to this event...
city. A city wall dating to no later than the twelfth century BCE has been uncovered, and neither its existence nor the existence of a fortified city at that date is in dispute. On one side of the controversy are those who maintain the plausibility or validity of the biblical account of a conquest by troops under King David who, as described in the Bible, capture the city not only by breaching the walls, but also by climbing upwards through the ancient water system at the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring was the main source of water for the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs - and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem - the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also...
. The supposition is that the Israelites continued to use the intact Jebusite walls and extended the city northward, under king Solomon, to include the Temple Mount.
Iron Age IIa (1000–900 BCE)
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
, has been the subject of an intense scholarly dispute, as well as of ongoing archaeological investigations.
The 2005 discovery by archaeologist Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar is a third-generation Israeli archaeologist, specializing in Jerusalem and Phoenician archeology. A senior fellow at the Shalem Center, she has worked on the Temple Mount excavations, as well as excavations at Achzib. In addition to heading the Shalem Center's Institute of Archeology,...
of a Large Stone Structure
Large Stone Structure
The Large Stone Structure is the name given to the remains of a large public building in the City of David neighborhood of central Jerusalem, south of the Old City, tentatively dated to 10th to 9th century BCE. The name was given to the structure, as a result of its proximity with another site...
, which she dated to the tenth century BCE, would be evidence of buildings in Jerusalem of a size appropriate to the capital of a centralized kingdom at that time. Others, most notably Israel Finkelstein
Israel Finkelstein
Israel Finkelstein is an Israeli archaeologist and academic. He is currently the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University and is also the co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel...
of Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, argue that the structure could, for the most part, be from the much later Hasmonean
Hasmonean
The Hasmonean dynasty , was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea...
period. However, new evidence continues to emerge from the dig. Mazar's date is supported by 10th century imported luxury goods found within the large Stone Structure, including two Phoenician-style ivory inlays once attached to iron objects, comparable objects found in a Phoenician tomb at Achziv suggest that they may have decorated a sword handle. A quantity of luxury round, carinated bowls with red slip and hand burnishing support both the tenth century date and a sophisticated, urban lifestyle. A bone has been radiocarbon dated by Elisabetta Boaretto at the Weizmann Institute, showing a probability date between 1050 and 780 BCE. A large section of a "delicate and elegant" Black-on-red jug, also found in the structure, is of a kind dated to the second half of the tenth century BCE.
In 2010 Mazar
Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar is a third-generation Israeli archaeologist, specializing in Jerusalem and Phoenician archeology. A senior fellow at the Shalem Center, she has worked on the Temple Mount excavations, as well as excavations at Achzib. In addition to heading the Shalem Center's Institute of Archeology,...
announced the discovery of what Mazar believed to be a 10th-century BCE city wall
Ancient city walls around the City of David
This refers to an ancient fortification re-excavated in 2010 in the City of David by archaeologist Eilat Mazar who believes that it dates to the late 10th-century BCE....
. According to Mazar, ""It's the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel," and "It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction." The 10th century BCE is the period the Bible describes as the reign of King Solomon. Aren Maeir, an archeology professor at Bar Ilan University, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. Whilst acknowledging that 10th century BCE remains have been found in Jerusalem he describes proof of strong, centralized kingdom at that time as "tenuous".
Support for Mazar's dating of the wall and the Large Stone Structure
Large Stone Structure
The Large Stone Structure is the name given to the remains of a large public building in the City of David neighborhood of central Jerusalem, south of the Old City, tentatively dated to 10th to 9th century BCE. The name was given to the structure, as a result of its proximity with another site...
to the 10th century comes from the discovery of a major Judean royal fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient city overlooking the Elah Valley. The ruins of the fortress were uncovered in 2007, near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, 20 miles from Jerusalem. It covers nearly six acres and is encircled by a 700-meter long city wall constructed of stones weighing...
that stood for a mere 20 years sometime in the 11th or 10th century BCE before being destroyed. The site is dated by pottery styles and by two burned olive pits tested for carbon-14 at Oxford University and found to date from between 1050 and 970 BCE, the period most scholars consider to be during the reign of King David. These date shave been challenged with dates for activity at the site suggested as having occurred after 1050 and before 915 BCE. The fortress may be the biblical Sha'arayim.
Necropolis
The elaborate rock-cut tombs of the Israelite period, dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BCE are found on the ridge on the far side of the Kidron ValleyKidron Valley
The Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of The Old City of Jerusalem which features significantly in the Bible...
in and under the Arab village of Silwan
Silwan
Silwan or Wadi Hilweh is a predominantly Palestinian village adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years a small Jewish minority of 40 families has settled in the area. The village is located in East Jerusalem, an area occupied by Jordan from 1948 until the 1967 Six-day War and by Israel...
. These are large, elaborate tombs of finely-cut stone,such as could only have been built by the highest-ranking members of a wealthy society. According to David Ussishkin
David Ussishkin
David Ussishkin is an Israeli archaeologist. Now retired as Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Ussishkin has directed and co-directed important excavations at a variety of sites, including Lachish, Jezreel and Megiddo....
, "here ministers, nobles and notables of the kingdom of Judah were buried."
The architecture of the tombs and the manner of burial is different "from anything known from contemporary Palestine. Elements such as entrances located high above the surface, gabled ceilings, straight ceilings with a cornice,13 trough-shaped resting-places with pillows, above-ground tombs, and inscriptions engraved on the facade appear only here." However, the stone benches were carved with headrests in a style borrowed from Egyptian Hathor
Hathor
Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...
wig. Ussishkin believes that the architectural similarity to building styles of the Phoenician cities validates the biblical description of Phoenician influence on the Israelite kingdoms, but speculates that some or all of the tombs may have been built by Phoenician aristocrats living in Jerusalem.
Although only three partial inscriptions survive, the paleography makes the dating certain and they suffice for most archaeologists to identify one tomb with the Biblical Shebna
Shebna
Shebna was "treasurer over the house" in the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah, according to the Old Testament....
, steward and treasurer of King Hezekiah
Hezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....
.
Iron Age IIIb (8th century – 586 BCE)
This is the period that corresponds to the biblical Kings HezekiahHezekiah
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....
through Josiah
Josiah
Josiah or Yoshiyahu or Joshua was a king of Judah who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by most historians with having established or compiled important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after...
and the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
by Nebuchadnezzar II.
King Hezekiah secured the city's water supply against siege by digging the Hezekiah Tunnel
Hezekiah tunnel
Hezekiah's Tunnel, or the Siloam Tunnel is a tunnel that was dug underneath the City of David in Jerusalem before 701 BC during the reign of Hezekiah, in Israel. The tunnel is mentioned in in the Bible...
through bedrock and covering over all signs of the Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
The Gihon Spring was the main source of water for the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem. One of the world's major intermittent springs - and a reliable water source that made human settlement possible in ancient Jerusalem - the spring was not only used for drinking water, but also...
and the fortifications that had surrounded it in earlier periods. He built the Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.-History:The Pool of Siloam is mentioned...
as a water reservoir. Hezekiah then surrounded the new reservoir and the city's burgeoning western suburbs with a new city wall
Broad Wall (Jerusalem)
The Broad Wall is an ancient defensive city wall in Jerusalem dating from the reign of King Hezekiah -Discovery:The wall was discovered by archaeologist Nahman Avigad in the 1970s. This is a massive defensive structure, seven meters thick. The unbroken length of wall uncovered by Avigad's dig...
.
Babylonian and Persian periods (586–322 BCE)
Two bullae in the neo-Babylonian style, one showing a priest standing beside an altar to the gods MardukMarduk
Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...
and Nabu
Nabu
Nabu is the Assyrian and Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, worshipped by Babylonians as the son of Marduk and his consort, Sarpanitum, and as the grandson of Ea. Nabu's consort was Tashmetum....
. A polished, black, stone Scaraboid seal
Scaraboid seal
The Scaraboid seal is a category of the impression seals of Egypt. It is also a category of Jewellery and amulets, though as a seal it is of minor size ....
showing a "Babylonian cultic scene" of two bearded men standing on each side of an altar dedicated to the Babylonian moon god Sin
Sin (mythology)
Sin or Nanna was the god of the moon in Mesopotamian mythology. Nanna is a Sumerian deity, the son of Enlil and Ninlil, and became identified with Semitic Sin. The two chief seats of Nanna's/Sin's worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north.- Name :The original meaning of...
. The scaraboid is understood to have been produced in Babylonia, with space left below that altar for a personal name. In that space are Hebrew letters that Peter van der Veen has read as the name Shelomit.
Hasmonean and Herodian periods (167 BCE – 70 CE)
Major archaeological finds include the Pool of SiloamPool of Siloam
Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.-History:The Pool of Siloam is mentioned...
, the Jerusalem pilgrim road
Jerusalem pilgrim road
The Jerusalem pilgrim road is an ancient road used by ritual processions ascending from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount via the Hulda Gates in the Southern Wall.-History:...
, the palace of Queen Helena of Adiabene
Helena of Adiabene
Helena of Adiabene was queen of Adiabene and wife of Monobaz I. With her husband she was the mother of Izates II and Monobaz II. She died about 56 CE. Her name and the fact that she was her husband's sister indicate a Hellenistic origin...
and the Jerusalem Water Channel
Jerusalem Water Channel
The Jerusalem water channel is an archaeological site in Jerusalem, Israel. It is a large, ancient drainage tunnel or sewer that runs down the Tyropoeon Valley and once drained runoff and storm water from the city of Jerusalem....
. Active Roman-era excavations are also underway at the Givati Parking Lot dig
Givati Parking Lot dig
The Givati Parking Lot dig is an archaeological excavation located in the City of David neighborhood, the original center of the city of Jerusalem...
site.
Byzantine and early Islamic Periods (324–1099 AD)
Byzantine era mansion called the House of Eusebius.Modern period
James Graham
-British noblemen:*James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose , Scottish nobleman and soldier*James Graham, 2nd Marquess of Montrose *James Graham, 3rd Marquess of Montrose...
(1853–57) show the ridge of Ir David as being devoid of housing. It is terraced and planted, apparently, with olive trees.
Modern settlement on the ridge began in the City of David in 1873-1874, when the Meyuchas
Meyuchas
The Meyuchas are a Jerusalem Sephardi family that has produced notable rabbis and merchants for hundreds of years. They trace their ancestry to Spain before the Alhambra Decree....
family, a Jewish rabbinical and merchant family that had lived in Jerusalem since their expulsion from Spain, moved a short distance outside the city walls to a house on the ridge. During the latter stages of the Mandate era the nearby Arab village of Silwan
Silwan
Silwan or Wadi Hilweh is a predominantly Palestinian village adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years a small Jewish minority of 40 families has settled in the area. The village is located in East Jerusalem, an area occupied by Jordan from 1948 until the 1967 Six-day War and by Israel...
expanded up the ridge of the City of David. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the whole area fell on the eastern side of the Green Line
Green Line (Israel)
Green Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
under Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian control. Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
families continued to live on the ridge of the City of David and to build houses there after 1967. From 1968 to 1977 the Israel Exploration Society
Israel Exploration Society
The Israel Exploration Society was founded in 1914 as the Society for the Reclamation of Antiquities, then renamed the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society...
started the first excavations at the Ophel, lead by Benjamin Mazar
Benjamin Mazar
Benjamin Mazar was a pioneering Israeli historian, recognized as the "dean" of biblical archaeologists. He shared the national passion for the archaeology of Israel that also attracts considerable international interest due to the region's biblical links...
and Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar is a third-generation Israeli archaeologist, specializing in Jerusalem and Phoenician archeology. A senior fellow at the Shalem Center, she has worked on the Temple Mount excavations, as well as excavations at Achzib. In addition to heading the Shalem Center's Institute of Archeology,...
.
The right to control both the archaeological and the residential aspects of the City of David is hotly contested by Israelis and Palestinians. There is a proposal to turn most of the area into an archaeological park, and to restore a part of the Kidron Valley
Kidron Valley
The Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of The Old City of Jerusalem which features significantly in the Bible...
currently occupied by mostly illegally constructed housing owned by Palestinians as a park to be called the Garden of the King
Garden of the King
The Garden of the King is a controversial proposed development project in Jerusalem in the Kidron Valley to the south of the Temple Mount at the edge of the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. The land is traditionally considered as once part of the royal gardens of the Israelite kings...
.