New Evidence on the Location and Nature of Iron Age, Persian and Early Hellenistic Period Jerusalem

Abstract

The article presents finds unearthed during the renewed excavations at the Giv>ati Parking Lot in the ‘City of David’, Jerusalem. The finds, which date from the late Iron Age to the Persian and Early Hellenistic periods, testify to the importance of the western slope of the City of David ridge in the city’s urban development. When water was transferred from the Gihon Spring to the Siloam Pool the significance of the rugged eastern slope of the ridge was reduced. As a result, the western slope was adapted for public construction. After the 586 BCE destruction, the city was rebuilt along the summit of the ridge and on the northwestern slope.

Keywords:

• Giv’ati Parking Lot
• City of David
• Jerusalem
• Iron Age
• Persian period
• Hellenistic period

Notes

1 We use City of David as a modern archaeological term only.

2 Excavations at the site were resumed in July 2017 (licenses G-71/17 and G-11/18) and were headed by Yuval Gadot (TelAviv University) and Yiftah Shalev (Israel Antiquities Authority). Efrat Bocher and Nitsan Shalom served as field directors. Other staff members included David Gellman, Helen Machline, Helena Roth and Ayala Zilberstein, who served as area supervisors; Rikki Zalut and Shiran Aber were in charge of registration. Johanna Regev and Elisabetta Boaretto dealt with ¹⁴C testing, Debora Sandhaus and Liora Freud served as ceramic specialists, Donald T. Ariel was the numismatics expert, Vadim Assman was the surveyor and Assaf Perets served as photographer. We wish to thank Yuval Baruch, Oded Lipschits, Amit Reem, Yehiel Zelinger, Joe Uziel and Oriya Dasberg for assisting us in conducting the excavations.

3 Similar to the Hellenistic city wall, which also united the City of David ridge with the Western Hill and left the western slope of the ridge unfortified.

4 For an examination of the magnetic field at 586 BCE, as recorded by segments of this floor, see Vaknin et al. 2020.

5 During fieldwork conducted after the article was accepted for publication, we exposed an earlier floor in a narrow probe excavated below the floor of Room B. This floor was clearly cut by the walls of Room B and therefore predates the construction of Building 10. The limited exposure of the earlier floor and the fact that we have almost no sherds below or above it prevents us for now from any further conclusions regarding its date and nature.

6 We would like to thank Donald T. Ariel for this information. Ariel is currently preparing the entire corpus of coins for publication.

7 The bullae were identified by Sharon Herbert, who will publish them in the near future. We wish to thank her and Andrea Berlin for their valuable comments and suggestions.

8 A discussion of the function and possible identification of the Iron Age Building of Phase 10/ IX will be published elsewhere.

9 Finds from the late Iron IIA unearthed on the lower slope are domestic in nature (Ben-Ami 2013: 8–10; 2014).

10 Ritmayer (1992: 94–95) suggested that two courses of the eastern wall, to the north and to the south of the golden gate, might be remains of the Persian period Temple Mount enclosure. His suggestion is however based solely on the size and appearance of the stones in these courses, which he compared to the 6th century BCE temple in Byblos.